The answer is yes. Both. Here’s why.
Hannah Le turns 18 this week. She is a senior selecting between Cornell’s college admissions and the Honors College on the University of Texas at Austin.
And she is a self-proclaimed financial literacy lecturer.
Who must be liable for teaching financial literacy?
She has taught greater than 500 elementary school children in 9 different schools using a curriculum she designed that features interactive exercises on the next topics:
- Needs vs. Wants
- Human capital: skills, education and experience
- Earning and Spending
- Payment Methods
- Types of Financial Accounts
- Savings and budgeting
- Income, expenses and profit
Hannah sits with children in second through fourth grade, shows them pictures of a house, a winter coat, and movie tickets, and asks them whether this stuff are needs or wants. It simplifies the complexities of non-public finance for college students whose minds are much more porous at this tender age. And it covers just about all the final topics that might be a part of any Adult Financial literacy course.
Why on earth would a highschool student who must be more concerned with finding a significant or a prom date call elementary school teachers and ask if she will be able to share her financial wisdom along with her classes? I asked her.
She told me a brief story from her junior yr of highschool (so way back) when she was interning near her alma mater, elementary school. She decided to stop by sooner or later simply to thank her favorite fourth grade teacher.
Hannah noticed some constructing blocks within the classroom and a few toy coins, and as she thought of them, they brought back some memories.
She remembered how much weight she felt as a first-generation American liable for guiding her family on the trail to school preparation. She began asking plenty of questions on all the things from basic budgeting to taxes to FAFSA – questions that all of us face sooner or later but that lots of us never ask. She then began sharing her summarized findings along with her friends and classmates, who then went home to show her own Parents.
And when she saw those toy coins within the fourth-grade classroom, she was reminded of her own curiosity at that age – and thought, “Wouldn’t it be great if I could teach these kids the financial basics so they can do better?” Are you able to face future financial challenges?”
She thought she could, and her teacher agreed. And then an entire bunch of other teachers agreed. And now a big family of a number of thousand people knows more about money than they probably would have if Hannah had kept to herself.
To achieve this, a motivated highschool graduate was needed. (By the best way, the proven fact that it would not have happened otherwise is an implicit indictment of the “financial literacy movement.”)
The antiquated argument that private finance must be taught at home just looks silly in 2024. The individuals who made this argument probably grew up in a world where mom and pop only had to clarify what a paycheck and a checkbook were — or they were academic pet projects whose core college curriculum didn’t include a private finance course. They were the individuals who said personal finance was no more vital than the extinct academic species that had gone the best way of the dodo: home economics.
This was before 401(k)s, 403(b)s, TSAs, TSPs, 457s, SEPs, Simples, deductible IRAs, non-deductible IRAs, Roth IRAs, Roth 401(k)s, conversion Roth IRAs, FAFSA and the choice Minimum tax, to call just a number of of the brand new financial wrinkles which have hit the scene after “Leave It To Beaver.”
Yes, children do higher when their parents are financially literate and knowledgeable and teach them these lessons early and sometimes. And yes, financial complexity has reached such dizzying proportions – and it changes so often – that we won’t rely solely on parents to know and remember all of those details.
Hannah Le has proven that there’s each a necessity and a option to connect with children in elementary school. Why not teach at the very least one mandatory course on personal finance on the elementary school level, highschool level, after which especially at the school level in order that those students who’re ready to vary the world also know easy methods to ace the vaunted post? -Final salaries for which they’re trained?
Now I do know what you are really considering: How can I hire Hannah Le after her college profession? Well, get in line!
*Note: Hannah reached out to me to share this story within the hopes that it could encourage others to repeat her behavior or join her cause. I also spoke with Hannah’s mother to be sure I had the family’s blessing to inform Hannah’s story. She happily agreed. I mean, what parents amongst us don’t need other people to say great things about our kids?
