Call to Action Accepted! Redefining Financial Education Part 1

RE-DEFINING FINANCIAL EDUCATION

#NEFE President and CEO Dr. Billy J. Hensley Jr recently shared "redefining" financial education is essential!

...#financialeducation providers must begin thinking of our recovery role.

#RedefiningFinEd is essential...

It is a "call to action" - we agree with - and accept!

In 2015 I was honored to receive the New Jersey Coalition for Financial Education's Muriel Siebert Lifetime Achievement Award. I shared at that time and later wrote, parents, teachers and community leaders need to know there is a CURE FOR FINANCIAL ILLITERACY!

"...parents, teachers and community leaders need to know THERE IS A CURE for financial illiteracy..." Sam X Renick

I was happy to see others follow with their own thinking on the subject, like best-selling author, Ric Edelman. His column in the Investment News agrees with one of our day one, 2001, core tenets - Teach Children About Money When They Are Young!

RE-DEFINTION SUGGESTION 1

This begs the question - How young?

If your assessment and answer are based on where most of the energy, attention and resources are placed in financial education, you might conclude high school is the place to start.

This is the NUMBER ONE operating principle individuals and enterprises addressing youth financial literacy should strongly evaluate redefining.

Measurements of high school financial literacy have not changed significantly since the 90's when Dr. Lewis Mandell published his book and research, "Our Vulnerable Youth: The Financial Literacy of 12th Graders" to today's assessments from the Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center and others.

Make no mistake, financial education is required at the high school level. It is required at every level, from cradle to grave.

If your primary objective is to find the solution to financial illiteracy, two vital questions are:

1. When should financial education begin? and;
2. Where and how should resources be allocated to optimize impact?

A GINORMOUS MISTAKE AND BIG LESSON LEARNED

One of the substantive lessons learned from the last 20 years directly delivering programs to young children, is: IT IS A GINORMOUS MISTAKE TO UNDERESTIMATE KIDS ABILITY TO ABSORB, ACQUIRE AND LEARN INFORMATION!

Take a look at these articles and research. They are just a few of many on the topic.

• New Study (2013) Authored By Behavior Experts at the University of Cambridge Confirms Adult Money Habits are Set By the Age of Seven Years Old 
• Time Magazine: (2016) Infants Understand More Than You Think, Study Shows
• Penn State: (2009) Can Babies Learn in the Utero?
• KQED. (2013) UC Berkeley Research: Yes, Your Toddler Really Is Smarter Than a 5-Year-Old
• ConsumerFinance.gov: (2015) Here's Why Childhood Is An Important Time to Learn About Money
• ERIC.ED.gov: (2010) Educator Teams Up To Teach Finance To Young Children

"Even as incredibly young children, 18-month-olds are extremely powerful little learning machines..." Caren Walker, graduate student in cognitive development at U.C. Berkeley who led the study. At the time, Walker was working in the lab of Alison Gopnik, a developmental psychologist who has made a career out of devising experiments that reveal the inner thoughts of children still too young to talk.

LISTEN TO WHAT 4-YEAR-OLD DIEGO SAYS

LISTEN TO WHAT #YMCA PRESCHOOL DIRECTOR MARIA ROMANS SHARES

"...One simple way to include parents is through take-home tools and resources, like parent guides and participatory child-parent activities, which provide families the opportunity to bolster the knowledge and skills their children learn through the program. The Financial Fitness for Life program30 and the Parents and Teachers as Wealth Coaches Project (Note: This project centered on Sammy Rabbit financial education strategies and resources), 31 for instance, include parent guides with discussion prompts and suggestions for conversations about personal finance, family activities that parallel the program curriculum, and suggested books and web links..." The Brookings Institution 2018 - Recommendations for Improving Youth Financial Literacy Education

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

Share your thoughts and suggestions in comments. Be sure to have a healthy, safe and #Sammyriffic day! AND...

STAY TUNED!

#ReDefiningFinEd - Parts 2, 3, and 4 coming soon!

Part 2 - Why we are not on the mandatory financial education in schools bandwagon!

Part 3 - Financial education is not about #equalaccess...anymore!

Part 4 - #SammyRabbit's 4 Paths and First Steps to #FinancialLiteracy

DISCOVER MORE...

...ABOUT SAMMY RABBIT'S MISSION TO DISRUPT FINANCIAL ILLITERACY - WHERE IT BEGINS - IN THE HEADS AND HEARTS OF YOUNG CHILDREN!

• Visit Sammy at his website: SammyRabbit.com
• View his new Dream Big Financial Education Curriculum
• Listen to a Sammy Song or Two!
• View Sammy's 2020 Vision