Should Fina ncial Planning be a bigger part of the school curriculum?

[JLM]

With finances taking up so much of the news and many discussions here, I'm wondering if an hour or so a week as part of the school curriculum wouldn't help. It could be a two part thing............the benefits of saving and investing and a warning of all the pitfalls, schemes, shams and scams that people fall for. Schools are beginning to take part in physical well being so it makes sense to me that some time could be devoted to financial well being.

 

[TenPenny]

It would be helpful in the extreme. A basic understanding of money, interest, and business principles would be useful for kids whose parents don't seem capable of teaching them.

 

[karrie]

It was part of CALM, career and life management, when I was in highschool. I'm sure they haven't dropped it. It's also part of some work place programs. Hubby's company pushes investments and provides information/classes on financial planning as well as a stock purchase plan that they match by 15%.

Do we need more of a focus on it? I don't know that it would be well absorbed until there is some real understanding of the value of a dollar, and people don't seem to truly gain that until they have homes and children.

 

[damngrumpy]

It is long overdue there should have been this type of planning all along.
People do not associate plastic with real money and that is part of the
problem. A couple of years ago some of my grand kids would say why not
just put it on the card, and then it won't cost you anything.
I didn't wait for the schools to act I started teaching people about money at
a much younger age. Today I have all but one who has a card without a
balance owing. The one who does has good reason, he just moved and has
a pet food franchise store. It cost a lot and he has less than a thousand on it
the rest saved worked hard and paid for.

Teaching kids about money is what will in the end save this country from looking
like Greece down the road. All these programs are wonderful but they have to be
paid for and guess who pays?
Not only should they be instructed on how to handle money, they should be taught
if you don't need it, it is not a deal or a great buy. That way they will have the
money to buy what they really want. A dollar store is a great thing, but you can end
up spending more money there than anywhere else if you are not careful and the
deals are not that great because you are buying junk most of the time.
All this needs to be taught as a school program if we are to really educate the
next generation of savers and spenders as it were.

 

[wulfie68]

I graduated in a small northern Alberta town in 1986 and there was nothing related to investing/banking beyond learning how to calculate simple interest in elementary/jr high. We might have gotten into compound interest in high school but I can't recall. There was nothing on planning, investing, budgeting or evaluating investments. It was in the curriculum of an economics course that was part of my post secondary education but I know that isn't anywhere close to universal.

I think it is the single most important failing of our school system: people do not know how to manage money.

 

[karrie]

http://education.alberta.ca/media/313385/calm.pdf

A link to the CALM course description. Not sure what year it came in but I graduated in '97 and I took it.

 

[petros]

Whatever happened to "Home Ec?"

 

[karrie]

Whatever happened to "Home Ec?"

Home ec was an elective in Alberta when I was in school, and its focus rolled over to making clothes and food. CALM however was mandatory.

 

[petros]

It was mandatory in my day in SK and we were taught household budgeting, basic debit/credit bookeeping along with sewing, cooking, typing, and shop.

I made the most lopsided pair of sweats you've ever seen. One leg longer than the other, the other too tight, ass seem way off centre. They were amazing.

 

[Machjo]

I agree with the OP in principle. However, we must also consider other factors that can cost one money. for instance, when I'd first gotten married, we had to deal with Caanda's immigration bureaucracy. Then because my brother in law couldn't speak french and owing to various facets of Bill 101, I had to quit my job and move to Ontario and find a new job owing to his being too young to live in Canada alone.

All of this cost me alot of money and opportunities all owing to government buraucracy. governments also have to look at how its own policies can prove to be obstacles to family stability.

 

[JLM]

Whatever happened to "Home Ec?"

Probably renamed "Domestic Engineering". :lol::lol::lol::lol:

 

[darkbeaver]

Who will educate the economists? Who will instruct the bankers? Factual economic educations would first require the disassembly of the present economic system. I'm sorry but we have already passed the point when home ec will avoid the big crash and the big war. Only the mob can turn the tide for humanity. It's private banking or humane civilization, we don't and can't have both.

 

[CDNBear]

Who will educate the economists? Who will instruct the bankers? Factual economic educations would first require the disassembly of the present economic system. I'm sorry but we have already passed the point when home ec will avoid the big crash and the big war. Only the mob can turn the tide for humanity. It's private banking or humane civilization, we don't and can't have both.

How do you measure this sort of commentary against your lavish lifestyle, privileged trust fund, propagated and administered by bankers, built by your Daddy using capitalism as his method?

 

[Nuggler]

With finances taking up so much of the news and many discussions here, I'm wondering if an hour or so a week as part of the school curriculum wouldn't help. It could be a two part thing............the benefits of saving and investing and a warning of all the pitfalls, schemes, shams and scams that people fall for. Schools are beginning to take part in physical well being so it makes sense to me that some time could be devoted to financial well being.

Balderdash!! How will the corporate/government elite be able to steal the money of an educated, informed, investment savy populace??

They'll make that sort of teaching illegal, you just wait.:lol:

It was mandatory in my day in SK and we were taught household budgeting, basic debit/credit bookeeping along with sewing, cooking, typing, and shop.

I made the most lopsided pair of sweats you've ever seen. One leg longer than the other, the other too tight, ass seem way off centre. They were amazing.

Here in the bush, the boys didn't have to take sewing, but a bunch of us took bookeeping, typing, and shop, as electives. Some of the better choices I've made. It just goddam amazes people that people can touch type.................."an ya don't even look at the keys"..........like being a violin virtuoso.............or something.