Covid woes prompt financial literacy classes

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omni550

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"The COVID-19 pandemic, which revealed how many American adults live on the financial edge, has boosted ongoing efforts to make financial literacy lessons a school requirement.

Seven states now require a stand-alone financial literacy course as a high school graduation requirement, and five additional states' requirements take effect in the next year or two."

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/n...equire-financial-literacy-classes/9583580002/

omni
 
I spent decades trying to convince the academic community to require logic and personal finance as graduation requirements with no luck. Few people understand or can apply critical thinking.

Cheers!
 
I remember such a course when I was in high school. Was a required course called something like consumer education. Topic were basic things like how to comparison show if buying a car. I forget if balancing a checkbook was part of the course.
 
DW taught this subject for years as a Family Consumer Science (Home Ec. or Home Wreck, as I call it), but it was taught as an elective. Once "children with issues" became mainstreamed, they were all dumped into classes in this department. "Children with issues" given scissors/needles and pots, pans, knives, and utensils made it unsafe for everybody. Children don't even know what a checkbook is anymore. Heck, today on our ABC channel "Rosen Report" his story was showing how to figure out the price of individual Pop-Tarts in a grocery store to determine if the 48 pack was cheaper than the 6 pack. What:confused::confused:?!!!!!!!!
 
There were two courses in HS that stand out as being among the most useful and practical. One was typing, which I have used almost every day of my adult life, and the other was a financial literacy course, the benefits of which are obvious to anyone on this forum.
 
Walt34 said:
There were two courses in HS that stand out as being among the most useful and practical. One was typing, which I have used almost every day of my adult life, and the other was a financial literacy course, the benefits of which are obvious to anyone on this forum.
Click to expand...

I never had a financial literacy course. But I agree with you about the value of my HS typing course. “Personal Typing” was a one-semester course (as opposed to Typing 1 and Typing 2 which were full-year courses for students in the Business Ed track.) I subsequently made lots of money in college typing papers for those who couldn’t Do type. With 6 oz draft beers selling for a dime or 15 cents each, typing a 15 page term paper at a quarter a page could really quench my thirst on weekends in the mid-1960’s! Beer aside, it’s served me very well over the years.
 
Walt34 said:
There were two courses in HS that stand out as being among the most useful and practical. One was typing, which I have used almost every day of my adult life, and the other was a financial literacy course, the benefits of which are obvious to anyone on this forum.
Click to expand...

I was very lucky, I received a typing class in (as it was called back then) Junior High. We also had Home Economics which included basics of personal savings (e.g. teaching about compound interest and how savings and checking accounts worked).
 
Interesting that Home Ec now teaches personal finance... When I was in middle school we learned basic sewing and cooking. A better elective that I took was "home repair"... We learned how a toilet worked and how to fix the basics... How to wire a lamp, a light switch, etc. And other common household fixes... I took it as a summer school course. I took a semester of typing in high school - and have enjoyed that skill through the years.

Both my sons learned "keyboarding" (typing) in grade school... Younger son because he had mild disgrafia and teachers couldn't read his scribbles - so that was the compromise... he brought in a chromebook from home and could keyboard any writing assignments. Never had an EOP, but all his teachers agreed with this informal accomodation.
 
In HS, I took a typing course along with nearly a room full of girls. Had I been a little more aware I could have stayed with the course and done some dating :)
Still the typing helped me all my life.

We also had tiny lessons as part of gym class on sex ed, and home finances. Both were very useful.
 
A different time, but our high school had a guy come in from some investment house once a month. He'd go over how to read a balance sheet, how brokerage houses worked and how general stock market/investing was done. We also had an investing club with fake money.

Obvious by my questions on this forum, I must have slept through a lot of it.
 
Sunset said:
In HS, I took a typing course along with nearly a room full of girls. Had I been a little more aware I could have stayed with the course and done some dating :)
Still the typing helped me all my life.

We also had tiny lessons as part of gym class on sex ed, and home finances. Both were very useful.
Click to expand...

We had typing class as well in junior high.

A home economics class instead would have proved far more valuable.
 
Freedom56 said:
Financial literacy training should be taught to financial advisors also.
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:LOL:

I had typing in HS. That introduction is still paying dividends. Also had home ec. I sewed a track suit and learned how to cook. Was always hungry in school so that was nice to get some extra chow now and then. I didn't take shop/industrial arts (I guess I took an intro maybe). I learned carpentry and other blue collar stuff from side/weekend/summer non graded instruction from local trade guys. I learned auto mechanics from tinkering on my first car. 1978 Doge Colt. Learned advanced mechanics as a tin bender on KC-130's in the USMC. Class room theories are fine but all peeps should learn what I call "life skills".
 
Sunset said:
In HS, I took a typing course along with nearly a room full of girls.
Click to expand...

That was one of the two objectives in my choosing a typing class. The other reason was that I knew they couldn't make me buy a typewriter (we had one at home but I sure wasn't going to tell them!) and therefore couldn't assign any homework in that class.

The one other guy in the class had figured out the same objectives.
 
I never had a typing course. I went to a technical high school (took mechanical drafting) and then to engineering college and also got an MBA. I hunt and peck, but I can balance my checkbook.

My 42 year old daughter, married, and both nice people, have no checkbook, although she accepts checks when given.;)

I wish I could have had the opportunity to take a typing course like Sunset did. Then I may have had more dates while in high school.:LOL:

Who knows, if I took typing and had more dates, I may have married someone else and probably wouldn't even be here on this site today.....Fate!
 
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Funny how this topic spiraled to typing, but that happens here.

Never took typing in school. Never learned to type. Still today I just hunt and peck.

But, I found during my career, that it did not really matter much. Typing faster than I can think doesn't help much.:facepalm:
 
Badger said:
I spent decades trying to convince the academic community to require logic and personal finance as graduation requirements with no luck. Few people understand or can apply critical thinking.

Cheers!
Click to expand...

2.5 million teachers and they can't find a way to teach logic, financial basics, or critical thinking? Maybe it's done that way on purpose?
 
^^^^ Not in HS but my college was heavy on philosophy courses. A required course for all students first semester freshman year was Logic.
 
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