National Jumpstart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy
March 13, 2009
My friend Pete Nault told me about the organization call the Jumpstart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy.
You may find this organization at http://www.jumpstartcoalition.org/
Jumpstart Coalition’s website tell us the following:
First convened in December, 1995, the Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy determined that the average student who graduates from high school lacks basic skills in the management of personal financial affairs. Many are unable to balance a checkbook and most simply have no insight into the basic survival principles involved with earning, spending, saving and investing. Many young people fail in the management of their first consumer credit experience, establish bad financial management habits, and stumble through their lives learning by trial and error.
The Coalition´s direct objective is to encourage curriculum enrichment to ensure that basic personal financial management skills are attained during the K-12 educational experience. The wheels of education do not need to be reinvented, they simply require balance.
Sounds like a good thing to me. I encourage you to take a look. The link to Jumpstart Coalition as at the right, under Helpful Websites.
Justine
National Endowment for Financial Management
December 8, 2008
The National Endowment for Financial Management (“NEFE”) was brought to my attention by Pete Nault, a local retired businessman who is using the curriculum to teach a personal finance course to local high school students. I want to make sure that you all know about NEFE, as well.
NEFE is a terrific resource for parents who want more guidance for teaching kids about money. It is also a great resource for schools who would like to adopt a curriculum on personal finance. You can order the materials and take them to your local school board. Or offer to volunteer at the school and teach the course. You could become a substitute teacher and on those days that the local school district calls you at 6:30 am saying that they could use your services at the George Washington High School, you can go and teach a little personal finance to some high school kids.
(No high school kids like subs who continue the core teacher’s curriculum for the day, do they? And if the sub is trying to teach the regular teacher’s curriculum, they do it all wrong, right? Kids love substitute teachers because of the variety they bring to the classroom. So as a substitute teacher you could bring GOOD variety and teach some personal finance to these sponge-brains.)
You can order a sample kit of high school learning materials at:
http://hsfpp.nefe.org/home/channels.cfm?chid=100&tid=1&deptid=14
This link is also over on the right-hand side under Helpful Websites.
Enjoy!
Justine
Shout Out to Mr. Nault’s Personal Finance Class
October 28, 2008
This is a Shout Out to Mr. Nault’s Personal Finance Class. Mr. Nault’s students have extended me an invitation to speak to their class next Wednesday morning. I am really excited about that opportunity. So, shout out. Plus, with this post, we can see if they are preparing for the class and reading my blog, right?
Pete Nault is an accomplished businessman in the town where I live, Charlotte. Pete retired and then decided that he would like to teach kids about personal finance. He created a curriculum and took it around to some local private and parochial schools. Finally, our local catholic high school took Mr. Nault’s offer.
Pete has been teaching Personal Finance to high school students for about three years now. The class has become very popular. Maybe Pete’s work will establish precedents for other schools, private and public.
In the meantime, if you have any ideas of what I should speak to these teenagers about, let me know. My student liaison (one of the student’s in ‘managing’ me – isn’t that a great idea?) has suggested that I share with the students three lessons that I wished I had learned in high school and college pertaining to an aspect of personal finance. Just three?
I am excited about talking to these teenagers. My student liaison said that, so far this year in the classroom, the students have learned “how to pay themselves first, about budgeting their money, about tax forms, about the stock market, about bonds and mutual funds, savings accounts, cds, the risk in investing, whether to invest or save, and how to make smart goals.”
Isn’t that great?
We will talk about Mr. Nault’s curriculum, which is available at the National Endowment for Financial Education (“NEFE”) further down the road. But you can find the link to NEFE’s website at the right in the blogroll.
Many thanks to Mr. Nault for sharing the information on NEFE with me.
Justine
