The world revolves around money by Melissa

The world revolves around money by Melissa - August 2015 Scholarship Essay

When I saw this question, I told myself that I needed to come up with a creative answer because after all, I am in school to become a teacher. But in all honesty, I feel as if I came up with a rather basic answer: money. Even though curriculum my vary from location to location, I cannot think of a time throughout my educational experience where there was a decent chunk of time set aside in the curriculum to really teach students about money. Personally, I think this is kind of ridiculous because once you grow up… your life in a way revolves around money.

I think that it would be very beneficially to implement a money/finances curriculum starting at the elementary school level with things such as learning to count money and understand the different bills and coins all the way through high school where they would then be learning things such as how to get a credit card and how to maintain a good credit score. In my opinion, teaching students how much each bill and coin is worth at the age of eight for a week out of the school year is not enough. When I graduated high school and decided it was time to get a credit card, I had no knowledge on how to do so, or how to find the best deal with a good credit limit. And I surely did not understand how to build up the best credit or what my credit score number even meant for that matter. In order to shape a financially smart and stable future generation, I think that it is crucial that we find time in our schooling to really teach students the importance of making smart financial decisions and how to do so.