I’ve just spoken with a younger member of my family who is still at school. She is quite bright and I asked her what she had done on that day. The main lesson that stuck in her mind was a history one, “we are doing the wives of Henry the Eighth” she said.
In a few years’ time she will be an adult and could be making her own financial decisions. I asked what would the interest on a car loan of £20k at 10% for four years. £2k was the quick answer. A few more questions and I realised that she was financially illiterate. There were no lessons on finance at all at her school.
A neighbour’s daughter is a teacher so I asked her about lessons in finance. She was puzzled that I should think that this was a subject that should be taught at schools, it not being ‘academic’ enough.
I assume it means pre college/University, ie public school K - 12, or Kindergarten n grades 1 to 12 highschool?
In the US, there is also NO (or very little) financial literacy or personal finance in public school (K thru 12) … Often not even in college/University in non-economic classes.
The couple “economics” courses I took, had no financial literacy aspect.
Home ec “used to” teach budgeting… I think.
I don’t even know if home ec is still taught.
I’m just wondering why there is no financial education for children. It might be interesting to know which of Henry’s wives had their heads chopped off but it is of little practical value in today’s world.
It’s almost like we are being dumbed down on this subject deliberately.
It’s actually a welchian principle. However also assume incompetence as a feature in any system.
It’s not that its invalid as a topic.
Quite the opposite!
However, in the hierarchy, I would assume teaching basic math, reading and humanities at all levels would be much more foundational than any higher order items like finance.
In any optimization problem with constraints (time, skills, training, execution, iteration, etc.) it is simple to see that eliminating 2nd and 3rd order features would be part of the solution.
Bye bye:
visual Arts
Finance
Budgeting
performing arts and music
shop class
sports
…
..
.
By doing so, you need:
Less staff
Less training
Less time on task with students
Less interaction with parents
Less accountability for success/failure of the above
Less administration of people
Less overhead and cost
Less
Less
Less
