My father, a high school economics and government teacher, tried to put me on the path to financial freedom early on. “Start investing as soon as possible!” he said, as he presented me with graphs on our family desktop about the power of compound interest. As a pre-teen, these informal financial lessons went over my head, although I am now very grateful that I grew up in a home where my parents were financially literate and wanted to empower me to make smart financial decisions for myself as early as possible.
It is clear to me now, as an adult, how rare this kind of guidance is for young people. As a child of educators, I saw firsthand how determined teachers are to equip the young people in their lives and in the classroom with the knowledge they need to be well prepared for adulthood.
Despite my parents’ best efforts to make me financially smart, I stumbled along in my early twenties with very little understanding of the concrete steps I could take to put myself in a better financial position in the long run. I thankfully avoided any glaring mistakes, but I didn’t have the perspective to plan far ahead.
It makes sense that my view of my life at age 20 was short-sighted. Taking a long-term view on life and my finances is a perspective I’m still working on today. However, we do our young people a great disservice by not adequately preparing them for the countless financial decisions they will have to make for themselves in early adulthood, the consequences of which will haunt them for years to come.
Guiding students through personal finance topics, such as paying for college and buying their first car, is obviously important. But it is equally important that these lessons teach students to take a long-term view of their own lives.
Early adulthood is a whirlwind of big decisions and life changes. We can help our young people stay grounded and stable at this time in their lives by providing a foundation of knowledge that will help them through the most important financial decisions of those early adult years.
Since joining Next Gen Personal Finance, it has also become clear to me that this curriculum is not only essential knowledge for students, but that the content is also life-changing for educators. The financial empowerment movement transcends age and demographics, and personal finance is an essential learning experience for anyone looking to shape their own future.
I love working for Next Gen Personal Finance, and especially working at Teacher Success to ensure teachers who use our curriculum have the tools to do so successfully. It feels very fitting that after a lifetime of being raised by educators, I now do what I can to serve them.
#raised #teachers #serving