X should be taught in school

Me too. Can still remember walking with my mom shortly after graduation.

“What do you want to do?”

“Which career would let me retire the soonest?”

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That might have been me. I have a HS relative who played a computer game like this.

The premise is that you just graduated HS, your parents give you the first month’s rent on an apartment, and then you are on your own.

Wages, rents, food, etc looked plausible for the situation. They had a map of the town so you could try to find a job and an apartment on the same bus route. You could take CC classes to try to get certificates to move up the income ladder. But, if you tried to do too much, your health went down. When you got a TV and some furniture, your apt might get robbed. Buying a car was a big convenience but a big expense.

They had realistic looking pay stubs, bank acct statements, and income tax returns.

My relative did great because he loves computer games. Then, he went to college and flunked out, because he loves computer games. He has a job at the local supermarket ($12.50/hr), will be moving into an apt next Saturday, and will start CC classes at the end of August. We’ll see how this works.

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Yeah, lots of adults insist that kids have piggybanks. You can argue it’s about habits.
But, does it really make sense to start an IRA when you’re paying interest on your first car?

Maybe, “If your employer has a 401k with an employer match, put enough in to maximize the match, that’s free money.” That might be a near term decision.

Saving for a short term emergency fund is different from retirement saving. Some discussion of whether you should use your credit card as your emergency fund or actually have an account makes sense for HS.

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“Does college make sense, for people who aren’t great students?”, would be a good exercise for a HS class. Parents and administrators might object.

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Let me clarify my intended statement:

My experience has been that the paycheck raise might help cover past inflation; but rarely considers future inflation.

When your income is basically a non-unit integer factor of your living expenses, this usually isn’t a huge concern.

However, if your income is barely more than your living expenses (if you’re lucky), this difference in timing becomes a much bigger deal.

We had a section of this in my World History class as a sophomore in high school. We had to write our preconceived notions of each religion (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hindu, Buddhism) down and then after the section was over we wrote how what we learned changed (if it did) our preconceptions. Was good.

I had a personal finance class in high school as well. The only thing I can remember from it is playing an investing game to see who could get the best returns in the stock market. I dumped my fake money 100% into Hot Topic and did very well.

My school also has a required Entrepreneurship class in high school. I think it might be the other semester of the year they have the financial literacy class.

Financial literacy courses are now required in most Canadian schools. The problem is finding teachers who can teach them competently! The Actuarial Foundation of Canada (AFC) has the promotion of youth financial literacy as one of its main goals so we finance several organizations that provide excellent financial literacy courses from grades 3 to 12. The curriculum obviously is different for the different ages. We also recruited almost 100 actuaries from across Canada to help teach financial literacy in the classroom. The teachers welcome the outside volunteers and stay in the classroom during the sessions to maintain discipline, etc.

The organization with some of the best financial literacy courses is Junior Achievement whom the AFC supports. I expect the US Actuarial Foundation is also very supportive of youth financial literacy so if you feel strongly about this in the schools a donation to them is one way of showing that!

When I was in high school in the 1960’s there was an excellent financial literacy course offered in Grade 9 called Business Practices which taught basic money management skills. Shortly after I took them, practical courses such as Business Practice (along with auto mechanics, machine shop, typing, home EC, electricity shop, drafting, etc.,) were dropped from the curriculum for students in the academic stream. Some exposure to some of these is not a bad idea.

They do. I would also add that volunteering would be an additional way of showing strong support.

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X should be taught equally with W, Y, and Z. Anti-X discrimination is unacceptable. X Lives Matter!

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I wish entry level students coming out of college were taught how to be resourceful. Teach a person something, they learn one thing. Teach them how to teach themselves, and they accomplish twice the work in their early months, easily, because they aren’t stopping every hour or two to seek direction, and start thinking of solutions rather than only thinking of the problems.

People often ask me how I learned how to do any of my hobbies. I just went out and found the resources to teach myself, mostly on the internet.

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It’s all about branding these days. Kids should be taught how to brand themselves to survive the digital world. It’s also where big money lies.

Is that something can be taught? I assumed it was based on some combination of self motivation and intelligence/ability.

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I don’t think it’s the sort of thing that you “take a class” to see how it’s done.

It’s far more having (providing) those opportunities for the student to do just that–self-learn. And have an “expert” to help assess what is actually understood and provide guidance toward what additional learnings are needed to address “errors” in the understanding.

It has to be something people have some ability to learn. I have not always been a resourceful person, but was coached to be by an excellent manager early in my career. It’s a valuable life skill for sure.

For example, I’ve heard it said that one of the benefits of actuarial exams is that actuaries learn how to teach themselves, in order to pass most of the exams.

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Probability should be taught in High School. Everyone should know how to run odds. The inability to assess risk and opportunity is a key contributor to making mistakes that impact a person’s quality of life.

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key contributor? give some examples

Any stupid injury. Any auto accident involving excess speed. Anyone opting to play football (or parents forcing their kids to play).

Leaving a gun available to a 6-year-old. Hell, last night on the news a 4 year-old in a diaper was recorded wielding a loading gun!

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Somehow I don’t think those who leave guns to a baby will be better off had they learned statistics…