Cmoneyspinner
In America, our high school system has 4-grade levels (9th grade through 12th grade), ages 14 to 18 years; and during those 4 years, a student has required courses and elective classes. Electives are usually fun and don’t use a lot of brain power. Required courses are subjects that were decided by some official member of an executive school board along with several other administrators, teachers, etc. and the student cannot opt out! These classes must be taken in order to be promoted from one grade level to the next grade level and ultimately must be reflected in the official transcript records in order for the student to graduate.
It may vary from state to state, but typically the required courses were/are:
- Geography
- History
- Science (might include Technology)
- Mathematics
- Language (your native language)
- Foreign language (at least 2 years)
- Physical Education/Health (at least 3 years)
Many schools do NOT include courses in finance and money management as a requirement.
I think they should. I think it’s a critical life skill. I wish it had been required for me to graduate.
If you were to eliminate one (or more) of these REQUIRED subjects from the school curriculum, which would it be? “Yes” means Keep. “No” means Eliminate.
Do you think Finance and Money Management should be a REQUIRED course or an ELECTIVE?
* OPTIONAL: Please elaborate on your choices in the comments.
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Question of
Geography
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Yes
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No
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Question of
History
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Yes
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No
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-
Question of
Science
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Yes
-
No
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-
Question of
Mathematics
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Yes
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No
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-
Question of
Language (your native language)
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Yes
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No
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-
Question of
Foreign language
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Yes
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No
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Question of
Physical Education/Health
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Yes
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No
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Question of
Finance and Money Management
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Required
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Elective
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Not needed in school
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If anything, we should be reducing the number of credits in PE, native language, math, and science in favour of more practical courses in civics, personal finance, career planning, and basic living skills.
I do think at least one class that teaches skills such as budgeting, basic investment & retirement planning, how to negotiate a lease and buy a house, how to apply for a mortgage, etc. should be required. For the rest, schools might find that offering shorter workshops on specific topics (for course credit) works better than forcing students to take longer courses – whether required or elective.
I am with Rex on this one. Sadly things are not like they should be.
To my mind, all these courses are necessary, but the point is that no to make a program too overloaded of too much information. So everything depends of the amount of knowledge taught for each course. I think that each student should learn the basics of the fundamental courses and focus on the courses which can be useful in his/her future education/profession/career. From this point of view, it would be better that Finance and Money Management will be elective for each student.
A lot of this is moot. Repeatedly, studies show (no pun intended) that the kids aren’t learning what is being taught. A huge number can’t even find the US on a globe and others have no idea where other countries are, either.
The people who conducted these “studies”? Did they go through the American educational system? Just a curious thought. LOL.
If I remember right, the study was stretched out over a number of years and I believe that it was conducted by one of the big universities back east. It was based on SAT scores, college entrance exams, and interviews. The people that were checked were nationwide, to eliminate the possibility that it was because of a failing school district. This was a follow-up of a similar study that had been done about a decade earlier.
That was later backed up by on-the-street interviews that were done by a couple different news agencies. The results were about the same as the study done by the university.
The kids graduating high school tended to do a bit better in science and math but did very poorly in geology and current events. Note that the issue was noted some time after it became common practice to pass failing students rather than holding them back, so their feelings wouldn’t be hurt. (Part of the Political Correctness drive of the past 15 years)
Well I sort of knew something was wrong when I heard about court cases where kids who graduated sued the school system because they had been passed through the system but said that they were not prepared to contribute to the workforce or to society in general. I laughed because I thought to myself: “Hhhmm? Seems the kid learned enough in school to know to go hire a lawyer. He’s not that dumb!”
I think that this world would not be in nearly as big a mess if school taught money management and also skills like cooking and sewing and gardening.
“Many schools do NOT include courses in finance and money management as a requirement.” — This observation is true and your suggestion would be useful IF ONLY schools would change their curriculum. However, I think, even if we rant our lungs out it would take forever to happen.
Finantial and money management is essential to understand how to deal with money in adult life.