Bunch of adults complain that they didn’t know how to do X as adults so it should have been taught at school. But there’s only so many things that can be taught in X so I think by the time someone is adult they oughtta be able to find the resources to teach themselves how to do X or find professional help to teach them to do X.
Personal finance comes to mind. But ain’t no 10 year old gonna file themselves a tax return so that would be a waste of a class.
I don’t know what should be taught in schools. I just know that religion should not.
I would have said programming in my day because I didn’t learn that until first year university - but I think the smal… I just realized I used the kids’ last name in a different post nonchalantly… I’ma go change that now.
…but the kids are learning programming in younger grades now.
Doing a basic tax return (complexity equivalent to what is now a 1040EZ) was part of my high school econ class (which was more “personal finance” than anything else).
I think an argument could be made that having a one- or two-year class (“Adulting 101”) covering an array of practical life skills, including basic personal finance, basic handyman skills, basic cooking, etc. would be useful…but high school curricula are already pretty packed as it is.
In the extremely unlikely event that such a class were added to high school requirements, maybe it could be adopted in conjunction with the introduction of a “Grade 13” enabling high school education to expand to include either a year of college general education requirements or a year of vocational education.
Religious indoctrination shouldn’t be a part of taxpayer-funded education.
A class that did a neutral review of major religions of the world, with a goal of making students aware of different schools of thought/philosophy and different cultures wouldn’t be a bad thing, if taught by open-minded instructors.
Don’t those forms have the instructions attached to them as well as numbered boxes which indicate the order in which you should fill out information?
Not everybody speaks numbers as easily as we do.
Someone here once mentioned a weird “game of life” that they played in school. Where they had fake money to spend on fake rent and food and utilities. And they could make fake decisions that affected their fake quality of life.
That would probably be dumb in a classroom setting, but the closest thing I could think to legit “personal finance”.
X education is a delicate subject.
The best time to teach something is when the learner has an immediate need. Lot’s of school is “you’ll need this sometime, trust me”.
Personal Finance in HS should be about buying a cell phone, getting a credit card and a checking account, filling out a 1040EZ, reading a pay stub, getting auto insurance and an auto loan, renting an apartment. Stuff kids can use today or next year.
I’ve seen classes that include lots of retirement planning, differences between traditional and Roth 401k, even RMDs. Too much, too far off.
The charter organization I teach for has a required “financial literacy” class at the high school level (I think 11th grade, but it might be 10th). It mostly follows a curriculum put together by dave Ramsey.
how about XXX education
Personal finance would probably be a good class for juniors or seniors in high school, not 10 year-olds.
sex ed should be top of the list for 10 year olds
Eh, retirement planning is reasonable, IMO. You should start saving for retirement as soon as you start working, even if it’s only one or two percent of your income.
What I always tell people is start small, at one or two percent. Then every time you get a raise, increase how much you’re putting into retirement. Get a 3% raise? Increase your 401K deferral from 1% to 2%. You won’t miss the money because your take-home pay is still going up.
If you keep doing that consistently, pretty soon you’ll be saving 12-15% of your pay, which is a good amount. And the earlier you start, the less total money you need to set aside.
I remember when I started working I received packets upon packets of information on what a 401k was and why I should have one.
No excuses imo.
But I think something about this topic would be beneficial as the best time to start the retirement planning is early on in your career.
I agree that the nuanced differences between different retirement vehicles would be pointless for most kids; but an understanding that $100 invested today at y% per annum rate could be worth more in 40 years than investing $500 per month at z% per annum starting in 20 years (and going for 20 years) can be beneficial for kids to understand.
In the 5th grade, our teacher did something along this line with our test scores equating to our “pay check” and we could buy various items (e.g., excused from taking a quiz or “special time” during time dedicated to doing assignments; etc.); and the items were bought by writing a check for it.
Works if your raise exceeds inflation.
Yes. However: