My financial literacy was learning to live without - I think it’s an important mindset that has helped me stress less about finances in the rat race sense.
Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?
171–180 of 262 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
it's really not that complicated. step 1: accumulate a buffer of 3-6 months expenses in your checking account step 2: a) identify money that you will not need in the near future. b) accept that you will not beat professionals at picking individual stocks. c) use the money to invest broadly in the market. step 3: in preparation for retirement (or a large, time-sensitive purchase), shift allocation to bonds. if steps 2…
I think your simplified steps 2 and 3 might still be too complicated.
Only seemingly off-topic, even more basic advice:
Re: Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree in part, but completely ignoring the management and choice aspects to whatever greatest extent that they are present is also forfeiting one of the best local responses. I think that’s where the Starbucks and avocado toast tropes come from. They’re not 100% right, but they’re surely not 100% wrong either. I work with engineers who are making 6-figures and struggling with money or on course for a poor retiremen…
ok, now tell us how that applies to the family with 3 kids where both parents work and rent is 70% of their income?
It applies by the greatest extent possible being zero, which is why I phrased it that way.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?
#174I think even more important to learn is how we "act" about money. Kids need to learn the psychology of money/finance as much as the knowledge about it. Just finished Morgan Housel's "Psychology of Money" and it should be required curriculum (every year) for high school and especially college students. When my kids are older, they are definitely reading it!
Re: Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?
#175Generally, school doesn't teach practical things, it teaches the fundamentals for learning practical things later.
Finance by itself is not that complicated. If you know the underlying maths, that's the kind of thing you can learn on the spot, at least on a basic level. If you want more than that, you probably should hire an accountant, or it becomes specialized studies.
For the rest, I don't know what kids learn in the US but I guess things like the great depression are part of the history lessons. Do they teach that without any insight about the economics of it?
So there you have it, you know the stock market and taxes exist from history lessons and you learn the mathematical operations to run the numbers. I don't remember learning about the legal aspect of finance (which may be the most important of all), but we certainly had on overview on how the legal system works.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?
#176Every recommendation to add "x" to a school curriculum should state explicitly what alternative activity should be cut to free up time. This could be another subject, sleep or childrens' free time. For example, a better question would be "Why don't we eliminate and teach finance instead?"
Right, remember that it's controversial, in some sense, to have any part of the curriculum be "required". The moment you do, you have parents unhappy that a) schools are "teaching to the test", or b) their kid is being held back because s/he couldn't pass one of the standardized tests.
We have this debate about math and reading. Finance? Good luck.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?
#177Every recommendation to add "x" to a school curriculum should state explicitly what alternative activity should be cut to free up time. This could be another subject, sleep or childrens' free time. For example, a better question would be "Why don't we eliminate and teach finance instead?"
You could teach it as part of maths. I think there's too much algebra in secondary school (and not enough of it in college). Few people are gonna miss matrix multiplication after school.
I may be mistaken, but I think the kids that would benefit most from finance education don’t get to matrix multiplication anyway.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a really complex/perverse thing here which I'm going to fumble with, so I hope the dear reader forgives. This information is not available to the black community. Now, obviously, any black person is technically capable of tuning into the Fox News channel where Dave Ramsey has a show, or dial their radio to conservative radio stations where Dave Ramsey is broadcast. But in practical terms, Dave Ramsey is unava…
I appreciate you for being open, vulnerable and expressing your ideas. However I am black and what you are saying does not sound correct to me. I know a lot of black people (including my family) who listen to Dave Ramsey and watch Fox News. Black people are in general pretty religiously conservative in the US. Personally I used to watch financial TV channels growing up like CNBC and listen to Clark Howard and Susie O…
Fox News black viewership population through 2018 was fully 1% https://www.newsweek.com/fox-news-white-audience-immigration...
I’m not discounting your life experience but statistically speaking most black households do not experience Fox News. And if you lived in an environment where most black households did experience Fox News, then that might point to an even more skewed environment, statistically speaking.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a really complex/perverse thing here which I'm going to fumble with, so I hope the dear reader forgives. This information is not available to the black community. Now, obviously, any black person is technically capable of tuning into the Fox News channel where Dave Ramsey has a show, or dial their radio to conservative radio stations where Dave Ramsey is broadcast. But in practical terms, Dave Ramsey is unava…
I appreciate you for being open, vulnerable and expressing your ideas. However I am black and what you are saying does not sound correct to me. I know a lot of black people (including my family) who listen to Dave Ramsey and watch Fox News. Black people are in general pretty religiously conservative in the US. Personally I used to watch financial TV channels growing up like CNBC and listen to Clark Howard and Susie O…
> I personally think the financial problems (in general) with black people (aside from racism) in the US stems from two related things: the lack of a coherent family structure and lack of intergenerational wealth transfer.
You say “aside from racism” and then point to two things directly attributable to racist policies.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?
#180Two things to consider. 1. The purpose of school: To produce a basic worker who wont question authority and to keep a large segment of the population out of trouble for a majority of the working day (babysitting). School hasn't really changed much since the late industrial revolution with the exception that child labor laws mean more kids stay in and complete school. 2. A typical high school student completes 25 year…
LIF101 Drugs
LIF102 Sex
LIF103 Money
Get their attention with marijuana, first topic first course. Spend one day on the chemistry, then one day on effects including how to recognize people under the drug’s influence. Then do tobacco, alcohol, caffeine, sugar, same two-day format. Then move back up into pharmaceutical opiates, street opiates, then cocaine. First midterm exam is on the science of drugs as chemicals and their documented effects.
Then move to drug laws and public health issues for awhile. Briefly touch on drug use in other cultures, historical drug use, and drug use by animals. Have them write a paper on drug policy.
Move to a section on mental health to explain some common problematic reasons why people use drugs. Then spend the remainder of the course on wellness, exercise and cooking to offer doable, sensible alternatives to unhealthy habits. Have them do a group project on one of the healthy living subjects.
LIF102 Sex. Just copy Al Vernacchio’s “Human Sexuality” class at the Friends’ Central School, Philadelphia.
LIF103 Money. By now maybe you’ve convinced people these courses are real life skills worth knowing.
Keep going.
LIF201 Prediction
LIF202 Perception
LIF203 Atoms
The real, rubber-hits-the-road reason to have knowledge is to make accurate predictions. You might not think of skilled work as making predictions, but if you design a bridge a certain way so it’ll stand up, you’re actually predicting that the bridge will stand up if you construct the supports a certain way.
How do you even get the information you base predictions on? The study of perception is pretty interesting, surprising and sometimes non-intuitive.
There are some core ideas that have proven really, really useful for making predictions that work. Some of them are not obvious at all, and you’d never think of them yourself. One of these is the atomic theory: “All things are made of atoms - small particles that repel when pushed together, but attract when they’re a little way apart.”
By this time the kids ought to have some faith that all this stuff is important to their lives.