Over the next two columns I would like to offer my help to the schools of Alberta. I have four suggestions to make, but I'll just tackle two for now (this week and next) and another two some other time...maybe.
This week's column may appear to be a totally different subject from last week's, but you'll see it is related. Just hang on for one more paragraph.
This is a curriculum narrative, so it begs the question: What are we teaching our kids about economics? Better stated: How are we teaching our kids about money management?
As one involved for the past thirty years or more in the home education community at many levels, I see a lot of success, and some failure. I am familiar with a lot of good books on finances, and they would be great for every school curriculum, no matter what the model.
I'm just not as familiar with what's happening in day schools. What I do know, in a broad stroke sense, is that I see a lot of money mismanagement out there with our young people—poor shopping habits, growing debt loads, impulsive buying, and abuse of credit cards. I see where both parents and teachers need to pull up their socks and teach the kids better economic skills.
Ultimately, money management and economics training should come from the home, not the school. Parents need to instill in their kids the value of a dollar, the need for honest labour, and the value between initiative, money, and a good work ethic.
If those things are not well understood, then children develop a sense of entitlement, limited appreciation of holding down a job and doing it well, a warped view of minimum wage, and the danger of credit card use, and bank overdrafts--much like we have in our culture already.
It is not the schools' direct responsibility to teach these skills—that comes from the home. But as most kids in this province are in some form of day school for over 35 hours a week, forty weeks a year, I wonder if there could be some initiative in making economics more foundational in the curriculum.
And foundational means more of a core subject than an elective.
You've all heard of the "Three R's" (reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic); economics clearly fits into the third "R." That is, start teaching financial rules and principles as early as possible. Maybe that's where "econometrics" comes into play.
The four basic mathematical orders (addition, subtraction, division and multiplication) are essential for basic economics—whether we're discussing interest, profit margin, mark-up, debt, and investment. Get those orders down pat, and you're set for life; and if you don't, oh boy.
Money does not grow on trees, and borrowing needlessly is a shortsighted and ineffective way to spur the economy on. That's why a free market economy is the only way to succeed.
On that note, I wonder if the socialist model has been embraced because people just don't understand how sound economics works.
One reason why so many embrace such a deficient framework is they have a warped view that big government must take care of its people. Economically-speaking, if the so-called little people understood more of economic principles and strategies, we would have a sounder economy and a stronger society. And less government dependency.
Is it that simple? Pretty well; it does flow along towards a better way of doing things. Sound economic principles taught and embraced through the family and at the classroom level will bode well for the future.
You can bet on that (just an expression, of course).
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