Middle School Students Learn Money Management, Donation Helps Keep Financial Literacy Class In Session
AURORA, Colo. (CBS4) - Students at Mrachek Middle School celebrated the success of their financial literacy class and community support to expand that curriculum on Wednesday with a donation of more than $30,000 from Schomp Subaru. The money will help all seventh-grade students at that school take the course in the next academic calendar.
"We're going to start getting jobs soon in a few years and I think it's important that from a younger age we know how to deal with money and how to handle it responsibly," said Izabella Tonjes, 12. "I didn't know pretty much anything about money, I didn't know anything with banks or anything of that nature."
Students have spent the semester learning about entrepreneurship and each was tasked with coming with a company idea to pitch as a team. They've also spent time understanding how interest can help them slowly earn money in a savings account and quickly increase debt when used with a credit card.
"They haven't had a ton of experience with their own money yet and so understanding kind of what their mindset is about money," said Tawnya Smith, the financial literacy teacher at Mracheck. "Helping students understand how their values and emotions and goals shape their decisions."
Smith says they cannot just cover math and banking terms, they have to address behavior so children at that age can grasp the concepts that will impact their lives as teens and adults. While traditionally these lessons came from parents, it is a subject gaining popularity at schools. There are scholarships and funding for teachers to provide this education in the classroom, Smith explained.
"Students always say it's so nice to learn something that we're going to use in life," she told CBS4. "They like to be able to apply it to something they can really experience firsthand."
Students have started to learn about investing as well but they've expressed concern about the risk involved. Smith uses a website called PayGrade to help students study these concepts with artificial money introduced into their classroom. It rewards them and fines them with that currency and helps them explore the stock market in this pretend environment. Smith says it connects back to their exploration of entrepreneurship, students better understand the value of supporting the growth of a company.
"The decisions they have to make have to be right for them, but I want them to understand how investing can benefit them," she said. "There's so much to learn, we're not going to learn it all this semester but just getting a start on it."
Students have enjoyed the challenge of creating a business plan that could work in the real economy, one group pitched a company that could help people track food allergies by scanning items with a smartphone.
"It just gets you ready for the future, like last year in her class we went and we really studied what we really wanted to do with our lives," said Analilia Barajas, 12.
Aurora Public Schools says the donation will also help expand similar personal financial literacy programs at other sites in the district, including the funding needed for teacher training.
"It's important to learn those things at a younger age just to be prepared for it and kind of have that mindset throughout," Tonjes said. "It should be one of the subjects that's normally taught because it's something that we'll most definitely use in life."
