When it comes right down to basics, life at it’s core it simply about survival. Oh, we want it to mean so much more, but it really isn’t any more complicated that eating, drinking, breathing and staying alive.
So, why is it that the basic life skills we need to survive, and I might add ‘thrive’, are rarely taught in schools?
Why does it take a pack of legislators or silly committees to mandate that financial literacy programs be taught in schools? It seems so obvious to everyone I talk to!
Why are our children required to memorize information that they: 1) don’t have a clue why they are learning, and 2) will rarely have need for when they are off on life’s big adventure all on their own?
This is one of life’s biggest conundrums to me…why the very things we need to survive are mostly left up to us to learn by accident, trial and error, or being passed on from parents or guardians if we’re luck.
THE NEW MATH PARADIGM – Learn Math through Money instead of the other way around?
Teaching Math Through Money
In other words, what if we taught adding and subtracting and dividing and percentages and all the rest of the math functions that are related to money by talking about the money first and the math simply becomes the way we handle our money. This way the math is relevant to the students…they understand WHY they are learning the math!
Once you get past the basics, you introduce spread sheets and stock earning evaluations and the myriad of mathematical equations that are required to look at money in business.
One of the most effective ways to teach math to young children is through money because money provides manipulatives that enable children to visualize quantities associated with the abstract representation of numbers. Needless to say, learning math through counting money has practical application and can be highly motivating as well.
NOW we’re talking MATH!
So, the next time your son or daughter comes to you with a math problem, turn it into a money problem instead and see how quickly they ‘get it’ once it’s relevant to their lives.
Just something to think about…
What a surprise to open this to complete the article and find pictures of some of my grandchildren from the class several years ago. The girl with the sunglasses on her head is in her senior year at USC and in the process of applying for Dental School. The boy on her left is in his last year of highschool and planning to go to Art Institute. The boy on right is attending McPherson College in Kansas with an Auto Restoration/Business major. The girl with her back to you is a sophomore at Loyola Marymont with (I believe) a psycology major. See how time flys when we were having fun.
I loved them all!