From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis
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Today, we share a must-listen podcast for educators who want to help their students succeed financially. With April being financial literacy month, there's no better time to tune in and learn how to integrate financial literacy into your curriculum. This show's guest is financial literacy expert Brian Page. This podcast provides practical tips and strategies for teaching financial literacy to middle and high school students. From budgeting to investing, credit to debt management, you'll gain valuable insights and resources to help your students make informed financial decisions and achieve financial stability.
As always, I've included free resources for educators in the show notes, a full transcript, our guest bio, and everything you'll need in this blog post. If you want to get the weekly episode emailed to your inbox, just scroll to the bottom of this post and sign up and you'll get an email automatically. Now, let's teach financial literacy this month!
Empower Your Students: Tips to Teach Financial Literacy Like a Pro Outline
- Thank you EVERFI, Today's Sponsor
- April is Financial Literacy Month
- Why We Should Teach Financial Literacy to Younger Students
- Give All Students a Chance at Financially Wise Decisionmaking
- Talking About the Emotional and Psychological Aspects of Money
- Why Teachers are Needed in Financial Literacy Education
- How Every Teacher Can Include Financial Literacy Topics in the Classroom
- EVERFI's Free Financial Literacy Resources
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Subscribe to get our podcast episodes by email.
Here are some great EVERFI courses I recommend:
- EVERFI HS Financial Literacy (high school)
- FutureSmart / SmartEconomics (middle school)
- Marketplaces (high school)
- Accounting Careers: Limitless Opportunities (high school)
- Data Science Foundations (high school)
- SaveUp: Saving Money for the Future (middle school)
Check out EVERFI and its financial literacy resources today!
Empower Your Students: Tips to Teach Financial Literacy Like a Pro
In this episode, Financial Literacy Expert Brian Page shares how to teach financial literacy in the classroom. April is Financial Literacy month, so learn how to break the real world into your classroom in any subject!
- EVERFI free Financial Literacy courses – show sponsor
- CFPB youth financial education website
- The building blocks of financial capability, a research-based framework for helping students at different developmental stages to acquire the skills and knowledge associated with adult financial well-being.
- CFPB's Searchable activities for grades K-12 including 275 free activities to teach the building blocks of financial capability across the curriculum, designed for use within a typical class period. Educators can search by grade level, activity duration, and other key filters.
- Meet the Money Monsters stories introduce elementary aged students to ideas, habits, and activities that they'll need as you grow up and start to manage money. Teachers can order free classroom sets!
- A searchable Financial terms glossary that has definitions that help build financial understanding.
- Free printed resources for youth financial education such as story booklets, posters, and bookmarks.
Brian Page spent 15 years as an educator. I was recognized as a National Educator of the Year by the Milken Foundation and Ohio Department of Education, a CNN Money Hero, a CEE Forbes Award winner, and a former Working Group Member of the U.S. President's Advisory Council on Financial Capability.
Brian also helped develop personal finance content for Next Gen Personal Finance, VISA, the University of Pennsylvania Wharton George Washington University GLFEC, and the Ohio Department of Education.
He held a senior-level position with Next Gen Personal Finance, serving on a team that delivered over 160,000 hours of professional development for teachers over two years.
His course, Self Help Homework Hacks <<https://moneymarriageu.thinkific.com/courses/self-help-homework-hacks>>, allows students ages 13-22 to learn research-backed homework hacks and independent learning strategies. Students work at their own pace in an engaging format, and a team of nationally renowned educators and current college standouts delivers the course.
Self Help Homework Hacks is currently undergoing beta testing and will be sold to parents, not schools, and available by May 1st.
Please email brian@modernhusbands.com if you are interested in sharing this opportunity with your students' parents.
Website: https://www.modernhusbands.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ModernHusbands
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/modernhusband/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/modernhusbands
Modern Husbands Newsletter https://www.modernhusbands.com/newsletter
00;00;01;04 – 00;00;04;15
John
This is the Ten Minute Teacher podcast. Your host, Vicki Davis.
00;00;04;22 – 00;00;35;19
Vicki Davis
Episode 801 Empower Your Students Tips to Teach Financial Literacy Like a Pro.
Today we're talking about financial literacy for April, which is Financial Literacy Month. Our students need essential life skills to benefit them in the future.
Thank you EVERFI, Today’s Sponsor with Financial Literacy Resources
Today’s Sponsor is EVERFI. April is Financial Literacy Month and they have fantastic free digital lessons for K-through-12 students. Stay tuned at the end of the show to learn more about these valuable lessons from EVERFI.
00;00;35;19 – 00;00;58;22
Vicki Davis
Many amazing financial literacy resources are out there, and this show will mention some great options for you. Make sure that you take time this month to make financial literacy part of your curriculum in every class that you teach. Now onto the show. Former National Educator of the Year and CNN Money Hero, a visiting scholar with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
00;00;58;22 – 00;01;09;29
Vicki Davis
Brian has spent 15 years as an educator and was a former working group member of the U.S. President's Advisory Council on Financial Capability. Well, Brian, thanks for coming back on the show.
00;01;10;00 – 00;01;12;08
Brian Page
I'm thrilled to be here and it's great to see you again.
April is Financial Literacy Month – Make Plans to Teach It
00;01;12;08 – 00;01;30;16
Vicki Davis
Vicki It's Financial Literacy Month for April 2023, and we're going to talk about the importance of teaching financial literacy, why we teach it as some different aspects of it.
Why We Should Teach Financial Literacy to Younger Students
So when I know this has been your passion for many, many years, is just financial literacy for all ages, why should we start teaching financial literacy early?
00;01;30;26 – 00;01;50;21
Brian Page
Well, that's a good question. And I think for my wife and me, it really hit home when we had our own children. We recognized the opportunity to use money as a tool to teach our own children values the other advantages that it brings to life what could perhaps be stale curriculum. I'll use mathematics as an example.
00;01;50;21 – 00;02;17;10
Brian Page
I actually like math, but for some kids it brings math to life. When you add dollar signs, when you add scenarios that are relevant to their lives, that they can identify with, it makes it easier for students to understand the concepts that are taught in the high school ages. As our world becomes more complex because as they go through the process of learning these complex financial literacy topics, it's like a firehose of information.
00;02;17;10 – 00;02;32;03
Brian Page
And if throughout their educational experience they have been exposed to key concepts and terms, it's a lot easier for the students to be able to pull all of these ideas together and apply them to their own financial life.
00;02;32;04 – 00;02;56;01
Vicki Davis
Totally agree with that. Right now I'm teaching spreadsheets, Google sheets and Excel to my eighth graders, and the moment I taught them how to format the dollar signs, one of them said, “Oh, I'll use this.” What is it about formatting and currency that they go, “Oh, I'll use this” right?
Give All Students a Chance at Financially Wise Decisionmaking
The other one, I had a student who wrote on her website that she wanted to build generational wealth and retire at 45.
00;02;56;01 – 00;03;06;22
Vicki Davis
Now that sounds good to you. I know it is like who's teaching this child? Some kids are taught at home, but there are a lot of kids who are not taught at home. So it almost becomes an equity issue, doesn't it?
00;03;06;23 – 00;03;32;07
Brian Page
It does. We've been in years past on a pretty unlevel playing field. You had four or five years ago only five states. You required a semester long class in personal finance to graduate. Fortunately, there's significant momentum. Fast forward to today, and there are now 17 states with that requirement, with multiple states that has pending legislation that looks promising.
00;03;32;08 – 00;03;54;11
Brian Page
Georgia is one of them. I believe strongly that this momentum is going to grow significantly because I can't think of a time that I've sat down with an adult and that adult has said that a kid should never learn to manage money and if you want to get someone to agree with you, ask them whether or not kids should learn to manage money in high school to a tee.
00;03;54;11 – 00;04;14;25
Brian Page
They're saying, That's the class I wish I would have had. That's the class that could have made a difference in my life. You can see and hear this resentment that they didn't have it and how losing out on that opportunity has impacted their life. And they don't want that for their own kids. And I think a lot of that now are parents recognizing it and they're getting behind the momentum.
00;04;14;25 – 00;04;31;09
Brian Page
And of course, it's the students themselves tasked with making significant financial decisions as a minor, as a high school student, like where are you going to go to college? What's the cost of borrowing going to be if you have to borrow, are you going to get a credit card? How do you use it wisely? How do you use your bank account wisely?
00;04;31;09 – 00;04;48;03
Brian Page
These aren't classroom topics that you just paint over. These are real life circumstances that kids face while they're in high school. And without the guidance of teachers who are educating them on how to use these tools, they don't know what to do.
Talking About the Emotional and Psychological Aspects of Money
00;04;48;07 – 00;05;03;00
Vicki Davis
Well in their emotional and psychological aspects of money management. You know, there's impulse buying, there's budgeting for long term goals. And you really kind of get into that, too, when you start teaching it and you start having some real conversations, don't you?
00;05;03;18 – 00;05;35;24
Brian Page
You do. And I like to think that personal finance is more personal than finance. It's important as educators that we recognize our way of doing things might not be their best way of doing things. And our responsibility is to figure out how we can make what can be some pretty complicated concepts simple to understand and applicable to their lives, using the tools that make it easier for us to behave in a way that we hope to behave to reach our own financial goals.
00;05;35;24 – 00;06;07;28
Brian Page
A tool could be as simple as a mobile phone. It could be a tool, it could be a weapon, depending on how you're trained to use the apps on it. Another example is a credit card. A credit card can be very dangerous if you don't understand how to use it or if you struggle with managing your own impulsive decisions with a credit card, and in which case that student or that adult needs to recognize that maybe a credit card is not best for them, maybe they should look at other tools that are going to be more suitable for their own behavior.
00;06;07;29 – 00;06;23;18
Brian Page
Many other people recognize that a credit card, if used wisely, is an excellent credit building tool. It's an excellent way to earn reward points. I mean, just the fact that you can put something on your card and just pay it off the next day. You know, we hear people say, hey, just pay your balance by the end of the month.
00;06;23;18 – 00;06;54;22
Brian Page
Don't do that. Keep your utilization rate really close to 0%. Don't put anything on a credit card that you can't pay out of your checking account right away and just pay the balance every day. Your credit score will explode. Over time. It'll take off like a rocket ship. And so when students recognize that there are strategies that they can use that not only manage money but manage themselves, that's when they lean and that's when they realize that there are things that they can learn applicable to their lives.
00;06;54;22 – 00;07;15;23
Brian Page
Right now. Because some of the stuff, although it's complex, some of it's not, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that if you are spending less than you're earning, you're saving money. But that can be a challenging task. And that's why at CFP, we have spent so much time exploring not just what concepts are important, but the psychology behind these concepts.
00;07;15;23 – 00;07;41;19
Brian Page
The activities that we have are based on research, on what we know from the early ages through the concepts that are appropriate and the social and emotional learning strategies that are important to interject along the way. And when you look at the filtering tool, which we'll share with your listeners in a follow up, you'll recognize that within that there are opportunities for teachers to see what are called our building blocks.
00;07;41;19 – 00;08;06;14
Brian Page
And our building blocks aren't just the scaffolding of concepts. The scaffolding of emotional intelligence needed to be able to make wise and informed financial decisions. So as an example for my own children, when they were learning how to manage money initially, very little of it had to do with money itself. It had more to do with teaching them to delay gratification when they were five, six, seven years old.
00;08;06;14 – 00;08;36;00
Brian Page
And there were things that I could do to help not only teach them delayed gratification, but to reinforce the value of it. That is just one example of the types of strategies that are in our curriculum that set us apart from perhaps other folks that are unique. And I have to say, there's so much good stuff out there that that's a big advantage of weaving in financial literacy concepts is that there's an abundance of free resources that are available for educators to be able to use in their classrooms.
Teachers Are Needed as Part of Financial Literacy Education
00;08;36;03 – 00;08;58;13
Vicki Davis
But even when you use those free resources, the teacher is still needed. I mean, the conversations still need to happen. You know, I know people who confuse money with love sometimes the most loving thing you can do is say no. If they've been in an environment where they equate love with money, then it may make it difficult. Some of them will naturally come out as you go through your financial literacy courses.
How Every Teacher Can Include Financial Literacy Topics in Their Classroom
00;08;58;13 – 00;09;09;26
Vicki Davis
So as we finish up, Brian, what's your elevator pitch to the administrator who says, Hey, Brian, my curriculum is so full, I don't have room for financial literacy in my high school.
00;09;09;26 – 00;09;46;01
Brian Page
Integrate financial literacy lessons or activities that can be put into existing lessons, think, plug and play. So rather than think of a curriculum that you would purchase off the shelf for personal finance, think of a filtering tool where you can input a number of variables such as the age at which you teach. Let's say your elementary teacher up comes money masters, which is, you know, free books that you can order, you know, tangible books you can order a classroom sets for free that bring personal finance to life or your middle school math or your social studies teacher in high school or career tech or English.
00;09;46;07 – 00;10;06;19
Brian Page
And you click on your subject area, you click on the topic you want to teach and what populates our financial literacy activities that are geared towards that specific teacher subject area and age that are understandable for the teacher and easy to embed in existing curriculum. All of it is free and it's easy to use well.
00;10;06;19 – 00;10;28;10
Vicki Davis
Financial literacy should be taught at all ages. It's financial literacy month, so as we're evaluating our curriculum, as we get ready to head into the summer, now is a great time to pull in some financial literacy. I know for my graders I teach them about profit and loss. Is it something I'm going to test them all? No, but they've heard net profit, they've heard gross profit, they've heard cost of goods sold.
00;10;28;11 – 00;10;50;05
Vicki Davis
They've heard some of these things. And so I believe that as they're exposed to it later, whether they take accounting in high school or as they move forward, that it will be something that will be top of mind. So thank you, Brian.
Everyone remembers that teacher, the study hall teacher who walked you through your first college application or the social studies teacher who taught you what taxes were and how to file them.
Check Out EVERFI's Free Financial Literacy Lesson Plans. Thanks to EVERFI for sponsoring the show.
00;10;50;05 – 00;11;42;24
Vicki Davis
I want to talk about our sponsor EVERFI.
Everyone remembers THAT teacher. The study hall teacher who walked you through your first college application. The social studies teacher who taught you what taxes were AND how to file them. The math teacher who used student loans to show you how interest worked. YOU can be that teacher—and especially during April, Financial Literacy Month, there’s no better time to equip students with smart decision-making around finances. Learn how you can share these FREE resources with students and give them a financial foundation that lasts a lifetime. Just go to everfi.com/coolcat. EVERFI wants to help you make that kind of impact with FREE digital lessons for K thru 12 students. From budgets and banking to credit and savings, you’ll find a financial literacy topic that’s right for your classroom. Just go to everfi.com/coolcat.
00;11;43;04 – 00;12;02;25
John
You've been listening to the 10 Minute Teacher podcast. If you like this program, you can find more at coolcatteacher.com if you wish to see more content by Vicki Davis, you can find her on Facebook and Twitter @coolcatteacher Thank you for listening.
Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via a cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
The post Empower Your Students: Tips to Teach Financial Literacy Like a Pro appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!
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