It is widely believed that it is the parents’ responsibility to teach the value of money to children. That schools should only stick to academics.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. Schools can do a lot to teach the value of money to children.
Parents try to satisfy all desires of children and the school becomes a place of financial competition instead of financial education. However, that need not be the case.
Let’s change the course and understand how easily and effectively schools can teach children the ways to save and spend money wisely.
5 Ways Schools Can Teach The Value of Money To Children
1. Use already existing subjects:
Since pre-school, children learn addition and subtraction in Mathematics, yet they are not introduced to the concept of money. Teachers should give them the elementary knowledge of how currency is grouped into notes and coins, and how they vary in terms of valuation.
Schools can also refer to the subject of Economics and work out a simple way of teaching how resources are finite and priced in terms of money. When it comes to History, they can also teach how barter system was used to exchange goods and services.
These subjects are already there but they are not being used intelligently.
2. Involve children in playful activities:
Board games such as ‘Monopoly’, ‘The Game of Life’, ‘Time and Money’, etc involve children in a crash course on saving money. Teachers can ask students to submit project work on money and related concepts to understand how money works while doing the project.
Explaining the need to save a limited resource such as money, teachers should urge students to keep piggy banks. The colourful and positive approach of a piggy bank gives the simplest and most effective lesson of banking. It drives at least very small children to save more to get a lot of money in return, sooner.
3. Design innovative project work:
Teachers can convert chits of paper into fake notes and can arrange for a transaction role-played among students. The aptitude of each student is tested and once the class understands the concept well, the teacher can modify the role play into an exchange between an earning person and a bank.
Some schools take finance education to the next level by having a bank-like facility inside their premises. These facilities have infrastructure similar to real banks and give hands-on training about banking methods to interested children.
4. Teach financial literacy systematically:
Financial literacy should be introduced early. Teachers can come up with simple hypotheses to teach children what credit and collateral means. They can also arrange an exciting role play among multiple students in which one becomes the customer, who has to choose among sellers of different products.
Children having limited dummy currencies, and thus understand the value of money when they observe that they can’t buy all they want to and that they have got to choose.
5. Invest in documentaries and films about money:
Interesting documentaries on OTT platforms such as ‘Kids+ Money’ on Amazon Prime Video or ‘Intro to Economics’ on YouTube strengthen the concepts of finance among students.
This apart, schools can make audio-visual presentations or videos and show them in smart classrooms so that children understand finance in a livelier manner.
These are some of the ways children can learn why money should be valued, saved and judiciously used.
Schools can no longer run away from their responsibility. The community of parents should work towards making schools more accountable when it comes to teaching the value of money.