The Importance of Financial Literacy

By the time most students graduate from high school, they have little to no knowledge on how to handle their personal finances. Many people go straight from high school to the workforce and must learn to handle their own paycheck and begin dealing with big financial decisions, such as paying rent for an apartment, buy a car, and paying taxes. Even those who go to college must still deal with large financial decisions, such as taking out and repaying student loans and being away from their parents while also having the ability to spend their money however they want and open multiple credit cards.

Why don’t students understand the importance of personal financial literacy? This lack of knowledge is due to the fact that less than 20 schools require that students take any kind of financial literacy class during their high school careers; out of these schools, only 4 require that these classes are taken for an entire semester. Here are a few reasons why it’s important for young adults to be financially literate.

Reinforces financial responsibility

When students have the opportunity to learn financial literacy, it allows them to become more responsible, with their finances and in general. Students learn how to manage the money they earn and to avoid spending it all at once, because they realize there will be bills they must pay in the future.

Teaches important life skills

Everyone needs to understand how to open a bank account, pay their taxes, and take out and repay loans. Taking a single financial literacy class in high school can teach the basics of these skills and give students knowledge that will greatly benefit them later in life and help them avoid a heavy financial burden.

More successful in school

Young adults who have a basic understanding of finances are usually more successful in school because they understand the value of an education. They realize that if they’re more educated, they’ll be more likely to find a higher paying job, which leads to better financial opportunities.

Better personal success

When young adults have a rudimentary understanding of basic life skills, they succeed in life more quickly and easily than their peers who are not financially literate. Instead of taking valuable time to learn financial literacy and possibly making serious mistakes while learning, young adults who learn these skills in high school have a low-risk environment where they can familiarize themselves with financial skills and then achieve proficiency in these skills once they enter the real world.

New to Financial Literacy? There’s an App For That

For young people, particularly in high school or college, the ins and outs of managing money may be somewhat foreign. Most public schools don’t offer courses in personal finance anymore, and in college, such courses are electives at best. However, financial literacy is crucial to survival in the modern world. Young people especially need to develop skills like budgeting, paying bills on time, and regular savings if they want to reach financial stability and be prepared to apply for loans and credit cards. Luckily for these technology natives, there are several smartphone apps that can help build and nurture these skills.

Better Money Habits by Bank of America and Khan Academy. Millennials love nothing more than a YouTube tutorial. This video series walks viewers through the the basics of bank accounts, budgeting, balancing checkbooks, etc, which are all crucial pieces of knowledge for any person.

Left to Spend: A beautiful minimalist app, Left to Spend visualizes your budget into committed money, bills, and, as the name suggests, what’s left to spend. For visual learners, this app beautifully displays, in bar graphs, where your money is going and the remainder you can spend at your discretion. This is an especially useful app for college students who are just learning about budgeting their money.  

LearnVest: With this app, a financial planner is always at your fingertips. LearnVest is an all-in-one location for calculating your net worth, planning for long-term goals, suggesting insurance plans, and offering news and practical advice for your financial prosperity.  

Prosper Daily: Formerly BillGuard, this app analyzes your spending, calculates your credit score, and stores all of the data from all your cards and accounts into one place to help you see where your money goes and how your activities contribute to your scores and goals. With more young students opening credit card accounts these days, this app can be incredibly valuable, allowing users to maintain their credit early on, in order to prevent themselves from winding up in any unnecessary debt. 
With tangible apps like these, young people can get a handle early on how to manage their money wisely and plan for their futures.

Coolest Technology in the Classroom

Technology is a valuable resource the world over. In education and the classroom specifically, it is a path-maker, leading students of all ages into the most advanced and effective learning environs ever seen. For those interested in learning about the latest and coolest technology available in the classroom today, I have a quick but telling run down on the current state of the art. While there is certainly more going on in this realm than I could possibly encompass here within a single blog, these following, in-use concepts tell us where we are as a whole right now.

Early Education PC’s

First, it’s only appropriate to pay a nod to the use of computers in virtually every classroom and school subject today. Years ago, this was just an aspiration, but today, computers really are found in every school and virtually every academic confine. With this said, early childhood education approaches in many schools are utilizing actual miniaturized PC’s for early learners.

The products utilized here vary greatly and are easily found throughout the market. Regardless, they all center around the theme of an interactive, handheld computer that utilizes a screen, sounds, preloaded, school subject-based, fun learning programs, and various controls for deep interaction. Yes, even those in and just emerging from toddler-hood now have regular access to computing power that rivaled the million-dollar machines of yesteryear.

Computerized Human Management Systems

In the classroom as well as in the school administrative office, we are seeing a boom in computerized human management systems. These types of systems track attendance, guest entrance into the school, guest entrance into the classroom, even bathroom trips and other activities in and around the classroom. Manual entry, barcode scanning, fingerprint identification, and other means of measurement are now being used quite regularly. Whether for security purposes or academics only, computerized tracking, the past fodder of sci-fi mags and movies is now daily reality in schools across America.

Mobile Tech

As opposed to being outlawed and ridiculed, mobile technology is now becoming much more embraced in the educational world. In the class, some students are now allowed to bring their mobile devices and use them for networking with the school, their teacher, or even outside educational venues. Teachers, students, and even parents can as well communicate quite freely as it turns out via this technology. For learning and communication, cell phones and other mobile technology, we’re finding, really isn’t all that bad.

VR

VR, also known as virtual reality is entering the classroom at a significant rate. So far, this technology has been mainly incorporated at the high school and college classroom levels, but will surely spread to the lower age groups with a little time. In these upper levels of education, the coolest and most eye-poppingly realistic experiences await students. Virtually dissect the human nervous system, study ecosystems and meteorology via a virtual flight, learn chemistry with booms and bangs that only happen virtually, or even visit an historical location without traveling a single mile.

The world of learning has never been so absolutely advanced. In ten years, I can only imagine what a similar article might look like reviewing the state of the art. This is where we are today and this is some of the coolest classroom tech in use that I know of right now.

Putting the FORM in Formative Assessment

With our current educational system so subject to standardized tests and universal benchmarks, it only makes sense that instructors seek to make the material as relevant as possible. This article does a fantastic job of showing how teachers are integrating technology in the classroom and are blazing the way for a more intuitive and engaging future. Check it out!

Why Teaching Mindfulness Benefits Students’ Learning

This wonderful article highlights the benefits of incorporating mindfulness into students' everyday academic routine. It makes a series of very interesting points worth reviewing. Take a look!

Is it becoming too hard to fail? Schools are shifting toward no-zero grading policies

This informative piece highlights a hotly contested topic in education with grace, tact, and balance. Articles like this promote healthy debate that can lead to the change we need in our schools and surrounding communities. For more information, proceed here.

Motivating the Unmotivated

The classroom beckons many questions, not the least of which is, how do we motivate the unmotivated? With so many kids who fail to understand the true value of education, it can be wearisome trying to motivate them to do school work. Yet, these same children must be set up for success. How do we do it? Here are my thoughts.