Throughout my many years of school, I often wonder to myself when I am ever going to use some of the topics taught to me. Will any of these math formulas that they made me memorize actually apply to anything I do after my high school and college career? Who knows. I think we should be learning more about how to manage money and how to do taxes, because these are things that can benefit us after we graduate and get a job.
Schools need to focus more on teaching students financial literacy. According to Dave Ramsey– in his article about financial literacy– financial literacy is the basics of money management. This includes: budgeting, saving, debt, giving, and investing. If these topics had more focus on them in schools, I think students would be better prepared for the future. A lot of times students graduate from high school and go off to college where they have to learn how to manage money for paying tuition to getting a job and saving wages for later times. If we learn more about finances it could really help in the long run.
Because financial literacy is not heavily taught in schools, many Americans are facing financial troubles where they cannot buy a home, invest for retirement, or save for their own child’s college fund because of the high student loan debt they have. Dave Ramsey states, “A lot of money problems Americans are facing could have been avoided if financial literacy was taught earlier, in school.” Schools focus more on subjects like reading and math, and while I think that is fine, I think the education system should require students to learn more about finance because it is something that every person will have to apply in their lifetime.
Along with financial literacy, students should also be taught basic life skills. These skills can be anything from cooking a meal to cleaning a room to just keeping up a healthy lifestyle. Schools offer classes that teach these skills, of course, but they usually aren’t required for students to take. After high school, most students go to college, where they are forced to become independent. With this in mind, many people don’t take care of their health. Whether it comes to physical, emotional, or mental health. College students, in many cases, do not sleep enough or eat right, and a lot of times it’s because they do not know how to manage time.
I think it is important for schools to start teaching students, from a young age, about financial literacy and basic life skills because these topics are ones that we will all use for the long run, in contrast to the other subjects like math and science.
https://www.daveramsey.com/blog/should-financial-literacy-be-taught-in-schools
https://www.educationdive.com/news/is-it-up-to-schools-to-teach-students-basic-life-skills/549094/
I agree with you statements in your blog. Because there are some fundamental skills that we are missing in our school systems that really bothers me and many others. We are being sent into the world not knowing how to do everyday tasks like pay taxes and bills. We learn ABOUT these topics but we do not learn how to actually do it. Schools claim that consumer economics courses cover these topics, but they really dont. They need to focus on how to really do these tasks in depth so we are sent into the world being able to manage our live ourselves.
I agree with you on how schools should be teaching students more about finances and how to pay taxes but students should also know how to look for the classes that do (if there are any at their school). In our case Naperville North offers classes like accounting and honors college accounting, these classes go into depth about what we should now before going to college. Also, I love the topic because this is what I wrote my research essay about!
I believe that high school only prepares you for college and college actually applies what you learn to the real world. I think that Consumer economics should have a better corriculum. Almost everyone that takes the class forget what they have learned since it is so easy to just graze over the content.
I think high school prepares students for college while also engaging them with new content so they have an idea of what they want to do as a possible career. I do think that a class like consumor should be longer because that is all real world things that we have to know. It should not be brushed over but really enforced because of how important it is.