海角大神

When I was in high school, I took a consumer education proficiency test and passed it with flying colors, demonstrating that I had the knowledge needed to manage my own money and be a savvy shopper. Within ten years, I was buried in debt.

This isn鈥檛 an experience that鈥檚 unique to me. On (feel free to ), I recently asked 鈥淒id you take a personal finance or consumer ed class in school? Was it useful to you? Did it keep you from making financial mistakes later on?鈥�

Quite a few people publicly stated the uselessness of their personal finance education, while still others emailed me or sent me direct messages about it. A sampling of the comments:

Ryan B.: 鈥渋 had to take consumers ed with drivers ed and [...] no鈥�.i had to learn from mistakes鈥︹��
Kelly K.: 鈥淢y consumer ed class in high school was a waste of time.鈥�
Charlie R.: 鈥淵es, I did, and no, it didn鈥檛.鈥�
Baley W.: 鈥淪enior year in high school we took FPU. I remembered the principles, but I still got into debt. I don鈥檛 think it helped one bit, even though I鈥檇 like to think so.鈥�
Shiela F.: 鈥淚n high school & college along with accounting classes and no, it did not help. 鈥�
Annie J.: 鈥淲e had a small personal finance chapter in Home Ec./Family Relations class and no, it wasn鈥檛 helpful.鈥�

Even some who got value from their classes saw that it didn鈥檛 impact their peers. Amanda H. stated: 鈥淚 took a college personal finance course at the behest of my father. It wasn鈥檛 perfect, but it gave me a whole new awareness on things like investing and how interest works. And how important it is to get started young. Which I think was rare and put me miles ahead of my college-age peers.鈥�

Many others didn鈥檛 recall any sort of education, which either means there literally wasn鈥檛 a class or the class had so little impact on them that they did not recall it at a later date.

Simply put, personal finance education as it currently exists is not reaching people when they need it. Quite often, they learn about it later on through their own difficult experiences.

In fact, I think 鈥渆xperience鈥� is the key word here.

Consumer education and personal finance education is often lumped in with many other classes at the high school level. They鈥檙e taught in a classroom environment with minimal examples that actually impact the lives of students in any way. Sometimes it鈥檚 a class all its own, but other times it鈥檚 just a small piece of another class and at yet other times it鈥檚 not dealt with at all.

Just like any other ordinary class, one or two will 鈥渃lick,鈥� a handful of others will approach it like any other academic subject and succeed on the surface without deeply understanding it, and many others will let the info go in one ear and out the other, retaining as little as possible.

Simply put, treating personal finance as just another thing that students need to be 鈥渆ducated鈥� in doesn鈥檛 really work.

How can we possibly make personal finance education relevant (beyond the simple step of making sure that it鈥檚 at least presented)? Over the past few years, I鈥檝e been collecting ideas from the I鈥檝e read, and I鈥檝e got some suggestions for how to turn personal finance education into something much more valuable than the experiences described above.

First, homework (and classwork) should focus on discussion and actually doing things. Make homework (most of the time) very simple for this class. Go home and ask your parents a basic question about their finances and report on what you learned. Why do they buy a certain product type? What was their best experience at work? How do they do their taxes? The goal isn鈥檛 to get students to tell about their families, but to get them talking at home about personal finances.

At other times, focus on actually doing things. Make everyone in the class get a savings account or a checking account in their name. Have them go to the store and find the best bargains they can on enough laundry detergent and dryer sheets to do 100 loads of clothes. Hand out copies of credit card offers and have them figure out what happens if they charge $500 on the card and don鈥檛 pay it.

Second, put a big emphasis on personal stories. If you go around and ask people what the one thing that got them on the right financial track and helped keep them there was, it鈥檚 almost always someone else鈥檚 story and how they translated that into success. Dave Ramsey鈥檚 story. My own story. The stories in books like Your Money or Your Life. People see some element of themselves in that story and they want what that person has achieved, so it makes the steps to get there seem much more real and relevant.

If you鈥檙e teaching, use your own story, but don鈥檛 be afraid to get speakers in very regularly who are open to talking about their own stories.

Third, recognize that you鈥檙e trying to plant key concepts that may not 鈥渃lick鈥� for years. Don鈥檛 spend a day talking about the difference between 401(k)s, 403(b)s, and Roth IRAs. It鈥檚 not relevant to them and it鈥檚 too much detail. Instead, make absolutely sure they understand the key things that they鈥檙e going to face.

One key technique for this is to cycle back regularly to old topics that you鈥檝e already covered. Just like exercise, you can鈥檛 keep a muscle strong if you vigorously exercise it once and then never touch it again. Scatter specific topics and speakers throughout the year that call back to the key topics already learned.

Finally, focus on goals and how to approach them. One of the few examples of personal finance that I remember from school was when a teacher in elementary school kept a jar on her desk. She told us that if she just put a quarter in that jar every single school day, there鈥檇 be enough money in that jar for a pizza party for the class at the end of the year, and every little bit students tossed in would make that party better.

Every day, she鈥檇 add a coin to it at a time when she knew everyone was watching. Sure enough, that jar slowly filled up. Sure enough, at the end of the year, the money in that jar paid for a big pizza party.

It stuck with me for a lot of reasons. Repetition, of course, was one of them. The big pizza party at the end was the other one.

Even now, though, the idea that there was a goal set at the beginning of the year, that a plan was put in place for that goal, and that a little bit of effort each day brought the class to that goal has an impact on me.

Don鈥檛 be afraid to do this exact thing. Even more so, don鈥檛 be afraid to share your own goals right in front of the students. 鈥淚鈥檓 saving $20 per school day for a car,鈥� you might say, then actually buy a car with that cash at the end of the year. Save $10 a day during the first semester, then buy a laptop (or some other item they might care about) before Christmas.

The simple truth is that a typical classroom experience isn鈥檛 going to reach most students 鈥� and even trying new things won鈥檛 reach every student. Instead, focus on doing everything you can to hammer home a few key ideas 鈥� debt is bad, saving money is good, planning ahead is great 鈥� and try to relate that to their life.

I think Sarah D. put it best: 鈥淗onestly, I don鈥檛 think you really learn anything that you are not invested and interested in. The very best lessons I learned about money were from actual experience.鈥� Experience, not classroom learning, gives people the personal finance lessons they need. This goes not just for teachers, but for parents, too.

In fact, I鈥檒l leave this article with a note to parents. Personal finance is a life skill, just like changing your underwear. Be involved in teaching your kids how to manage money, just like you were in teaching them to change their underwear.

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