As you know Shaun, I will argue for all of this, just as I believe Civics and Citizenship is tragically underrated in the implementation. Sadly we have too many voices competing with us at this moment in time. What sane person says that financial literacy isn’t important? Recently I have written a Year 8 unit for consumer rights and protections. These rights are fundamental to get the most out of those spent dollars that are hard earned. Yet I couldn’t help thinking that if we teach this unit well, make connections with real world examples, stimulate problem solving thinking, etc that’s great for our students. Yet I know that our area is not deemed important by many, in preference of History and Geography. We need a much more balanced Humanities curriculum with genuine accountability. NSW do it through the school certificate (which is far from perfect). It is at least an attempt to hold schools at little accountable for History and Geography and integrated Civics and Citizenship. If it was more balanced across the nation, including Economics and Business, as four equal strands, then I believe we’d deliver better real world student outcomes. Given that we need the Commonwealth to drive this, to actually get the states to work together, I think I’ll be disappointed for sometime yet. Don’t give up though. Maybe our passion might help one day.
Even worse is when Trisha found and linked me to the Arc exemplars of schools having financial literacy units and they were all over the place. Very rarely did they assess students on attained knowledge. More often they were engagement bait such as “pitch a business” etc which are great for student interest but so varied in learning.
I agree. I’m bringing in some law into the unit too. Foundations of consumer rights e.g. DvS before the ACL so that the students can see where things started. I’ve worked on designing a more explicit model without too many loafing inquiries. Every inquiry is tight for time and very much I do, we do, you do.
After I hit publish on Tuesday's post one of the thoughts I had was that I was trying to teach Year 10 students about hyperinflation in Weimar Germany without many of them necessarily understanding what 'inflation' is. Cue mumbling about the money supply and too much chasing too few goods while they stared at me blankly.
This is similar in feeling of spiraling to my off the cuff mini lesson that usually comes when I’m teaching about entitlements at work in VCE business about the number of businesses that employ teens that commit time fraud and the importance of knowing your pay entitlements and break allowances so that a major corporation isn’t stealing from you.
It’s a real spiral and actively not helpful for the curriculum. But important all the same.
Maybe it was because I was teaching Commerce, but I found my year 9 students had a surprising level of understanding of inflation. What's more, they generally used the old definition of inflation - ie an increase in the money supply, not an increase in the price level.
That's very interesting. My current context sits at 52% which is likely to have a large impact but I also know the NSW curriculum approaches financial literacy in a slightly different way which could also be having an impact.
I've also taught at a private school at the 98th percentile which was a very different level of understanding, but a lot of that can also be correlated with the difference in home life and conversations held around the dinner table comparatively.
As you know Shaun, I will argue for all of this, just as I believe Civics and Citizenship is tragically underrated in the implementation. Sadly we have too many voices competing with us at this moment in time. What sane person says that financial literacy isn’t important? Recently I have written a Year 8 unit for consumer rights and protections. These rights are fundamental to get the most out of those spent dollars that are hard earned. Yet I couldn’t help thinking that if we teach this unit well, make connections with real world examples, stimulate problem solving thinking, etc that’s great for our students. Yet I know that our area is not deemed important by many, in preference of History and Geography. We need a much more balanced Humanities curriculum with genuine accountability. NSW do it through the school certificate (which is far from perfect). It is at least an attempt to hold schools at little accountable for History and Geography and integrated Civics and Citizenship. If it was more balanced across the nation, including Economics and Business, as four equal strands, then I believe we’d deliver better real world student outcomes. Given that we need the Commonwealth to drive this, to actually get the states to work together, I think I’ll be disappointed for sometime yet. Don’t give up though. Maybe our passion might help one day.
Even worse is when Trisha found and linked me to the Arc exemplars of schools having financial literacy units and they were all over the place. Very rarely did they assess students on attained knowledge. More often they were engagement bait such as “pitch a business” etc which are great for student interest but so varied in learning.
I agree. I’m bringing in some law into the unit too. Foundations of consumer rights e.g. DvS before the ACL so that the students can see where things started. I’ve worked on designing a more explicit model without too many loafing inquiries. Every inquiry is tight for time and very much I do, we do, you do.
After I hit publish on Tuesday's post one of the thoughts I had was that I was trying to teach Year 10 students about hyperinflation in Weimar Germany without many of them necessarily understanding what 'inflation' is. Cue mumbling about the money supply and too much chasing too few goods while they stared at me blankly.
😂
This is similar in feeling of spiraling to my off the cuff mini lesson that usually comes when I’m teaching about entitlements at work in VCE business about the number of businesses that employ teens that commit time fraud and the importance of knowing your pay entitlements and break allowances so that a major corporation isn’t stealing from you.
It’s a real spiral and actively not helpful for the curriculum. But important all the same.
Maybe it was because I was teaching Commerce, but I found my year 9 students had a surprising level of understanding of inflation. What's more, they generally used the old definition of inflation - ie an increase in the money supply, not an increase in the price level.
I'm so intrigued to know more about the context and socioeconomic status of the area you are teaching in
A public high school (76th percentile ICSEA score) and a private school (97th percentile), both in the burbs of Sydney
That's very interesting. My current context sits at 52% which is likely to have a large impact but I also know the NSW curriculum approaches financial literacy in a slightly different way which could also be having an impact.
I've also taught at a private school at the 98th percentile which was a very different level of understanding, but a lot of that can also be correlated with the difference in home life and conversations held around the dinner table comparatively.