Teaching middle school students financial literacy= no subprime crisis

[Matt J]

You don't have to spend a fortune remodeling either. I spoke to a friend earlier today and he reminded me of the high end condos he renovated from an old apartment complex. The granite counter tops are old bathroom stalls from FSU. :funn:

 

[DuneAHH]

Spartan1 -
IMO, you are right-on that financial literacy should be included (and required) as part of middle & high school curriculum.

To ClintClint's point... financial literacy encompasses much more than mathematics & economics. It is interwoven with ancient & modern history, psychology & sociology, govt & politics, business, media influences, etc.

Financial literacy is a basis that everyone should be exposed to from early age. Having said that... as with all subjects, there are limits to what can be comprehensively taught & learned in a classroom setting. Ultimately personal experience (all too often of the devastating nature) proves to be the truest teacher.

I applaud your quest for knowledge and wish you a prosperous future!!

 

[SHELLY]

You may have to "edit" it a bit to make it suitable for the students, but this is a very good overall explanation of what happened.




Advance to 2:40 to explain the subprime mortgage mess:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzJmTCYmo9g"]YouTube - Bird and Fortune - Subprime Crisis[/ame]

 

[SHELLY]

Back to my main point though. If we teach financial literacy to students while they are still in school they will be more skeptical consumers and may not fall for the teaser rates.

Does that make sense?

There were many folks who were financially literate to the nth degree (i.e., Bernanke, Greenspan, Paulson) who claim they never saw the financial crisis coming...and many, many more who did not believe it was possible.

I applaud your attempts to teach financial literacy--it certainly is needed and will not do any harm. But until you can teach folks not to be greedy, there will always be large groups of people who make very unwise and financially damaging investment choices--regardless of their level of financial literacy--simply because their greed got in the way of their common sense.

.