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Case Studies
Financial Fitness for Life
In Washington, one hundred and fifty teachers from across the state attended workshops in Spokane, Bellingham,
Seattle, Tacoma, the Tri-Cities and Yakima where they were trained to present the Financial Fitness for Life
Curriculum. Several months later, eight of these teachers co-hosted parent training workshops designed to
teach parents how to reinforce the personal finance information being taught to their children.
The parent workshops were truly inspirational. In several of the smaller communities, parents, grandparents,
foster parents, guardians, and, quite possibly, just about everyone else in town, attended our meetings. Parents,
whose own knowledge of personal finance was in many cases minimal, wanted more financial education for their
children. At one workshop, several women came up afterwards and suggested that the teacher offer evening
classes each week for the parents so that they could learn to budget, save, invest,and handle credit responsibly.
At another workshop, in an area that is home to many immigrant families, it was moving to see parents from
different countries trying to help their children learn the skills they will need to succeed in America.
In some cases the children were translating the material for their parents, teaching them about the financial
system in the U.S.
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Presenter: |
Pamela Whalley |
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President |
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Washington Council on Economic Education |
Financial Education in the Military
The Army undertook an initiative to improve personal financial and debt management training in FY99. This came about as a result of a U.S. Congress and Department of Defense directive for all branches of military service to provide standardized mandatory personal financial management training for all first-term enlisted soldiers. These soldiers started to receive two hours of personal financial training in initial entry, BASIC training, and two hours of personal financial training in Advance Individual Training (AIT). An additional eight hours of training would be administered upon arrival at their first duty station, for a total of twelve hours of personal financial training. A standardized training curriculum was developed by Community Family Support Center (CFSC) to be taught by ACS, FRP personnel. There are currently two active duty Financial Readiness Trainers who provide two four-hour blocks of instructions on two separate days, weekly at Schofield Barracks, ACS, FRP. Lessons cover: Principles of Personal Finance, Planning and Budgeting, Banking and Checking, Using Wise Credit, Insurance, Savings and Investing, Large Purchases (Car buying, etc.), and Consumer Scams.
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Presenter: | Juanita McKeown |
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Financial Readiness Program Manager |
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Army Community Service |
Training Teachers Online
The goal of the MEDB Economic Literacy project is to strengthen teacher training so that economics becomes as fundamental to student's education as math, science, and reading. Ms. Foreman developed an internet based, online course called Fundamentals of Economics which has enabled MEDB to broaden their reach. The course was designed to provide teachers with the necessary background to successfully meet the Hawaii State DOE economic content standards. The course content was designed to follow the 5 economic content standards identified by the state DOE. Each week the teachers worked through a presentation of key concepts including an online glossary of terms, sample lesson plans, lecture notes, and online PowerPoint presentation of key concepts. Teachers were responsible for assigned reading, interaction on an online discussion board, and the creation and submission of a lesson plan appropriate for their own grade level. The completed lesson plans were posted on the Lesson Plan Hall of Fame web page linked to the course. This gave participants access to multiple lesson plans for each of the 5 content standards. This course provides a very effective model of collaboration between a non-profit organization and a local community college. We worked together to provided the kind of support and encouragement schoolteachers so desperately need. It is crucial to find innovative ways to strengthen the teachers in the classroom, especially during this new era of "no child left behind" national standards and testing. Our model includes: - hands-on workshops
- asynchronous content delivery
- networking and content sharing with fellow teachers
- guidance and expertise offered by college faculty members
This model could easily be adapted to fit other disciplines. The creative use of current technology has the added benefit of significantly increasing the teachers' technical skills vital skills in today¡¯s teaching and learning environment.
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