Make the money, don't let the money make you

Why are the people on the internet so inspiring? Why do they make me think so much about things that I do not have the time to really focus on right now?

A couple months ago, I was hanging out with a friend from my undergrad days who is working on his economics degree and also happens to be very interested in both education and policy. We were, as normal friends do, looking at the high school state standards that Michigan has for economics and both dismayed at how much it packed into them. 

When it comes to personal finance being included in the standards for economics, I was initially annoyed by how much time that took away from fun things like simulating monopolistic competition and learning game theory (don’t get your hopes up, game theory is not in the standards). Then, however, it occurred to me what huge disservice it is to students for personal finance to be treated as an afterthought, tossed in at the end. Make a budget, think about your decisions, talk about risk management. Done.

That kind of lesson in financial literacy is not going to help my ninth graders take care of themselves four, five, ten years down the road. 

Brian's blog also has a post about these cool napkin drawings by
financial planner Carl Richards.

Eliza has been interested in financial literacy too and brought to my attention the blogger and educator Brian Page who believes wholeheartedly in our children being taughtpersonal finance in a stand-alone, semester-long, required course taught by a trained teacher (i.e. not me). 

This also happens to be an issue that is on the minds of some legislators up in Lansing, as my undergraduate econ buddy informed me, but the chance of making it happen isn’t great given the number of requirements already needed to graduate. 

While this is the case at least, I have found a good resource in Brian and he seem to know his stuff.

I don't know how to read but I've got a lot of toys

This week, I have the laptop cart at my placement checked out all week. The last time we did this, thing went well; all the computers worked, they were all charged, and the students were fairly on task. We’ll see what happens this time.

On the first day my mentor teacher and I walked into the classroom before the year began, we found that it had been entirely rearranged to fit the direction of the new whiteboard and projector. My school has in the past few years gotten a lot of new technology, though perhaps not where it would be most immediately useful (having the printer work on the first try is reason to celebrate). The computer lab is filled with beautiful, crisp, large-screen computers that are a bit hit-and-miss when it comes to actually being able to connect to the internet. The district-issued MacBook Pro laptops given to all the teachers are getting slow with the amount of information stored on them.

What I seem to be noticing the most is that for all the money spent on new technology in my placement, it doesn’t always appear to be going where it would be most helpful. There always seems to be some amount of troubleshooting involved with using technology and there is not a lot of professional development or training provided to the teachers. No one showed them how to hook up to the new projectors or use them in the way they need to; they were given a packet of instructions.

The media specialist is split with a middle school and I don’t even know how thinly spread tech support is, but from my experience, teachers are struggling with the technological challenges they face. It serves as a reminder to always plan for problems and complications. Though this has been bothersome at times, I am glad to be aware of these issues now so I know what to be prepared for in the future.

Though I doubt my district will give me a laptop.

This is my method when it comes to working on Macs.
(Via xkcd)