Easier said than done. You'd need to have qualified finance/econ teachers, and there aren't many of those who want to teach high school. Also, it'd be super tough to set course contents due to all the different state laws and stuff like that.
You do not need to have qualified finance teachers to talk about the basics. It all depends on how the school system is built, I don't know about the one in the USA so I don't know where this economical class could be incorporated or which teacher could conveniently run it. In here we have classes in.. well I guess the most direct translation would be "society studies". Social stuff, finance, politics, law, European Union and a few other similar things.. all just being touched on a basic level to give the students information without making it too complicated. The finance part doesn't need to go into different ways of investing, students don't need to learn about charts and technical or fundamental analysis. Nothing like that, all they need to take away from it is the basic idea behind the stock market and how it's possible to get involved in it and how it can help them in the future. Add a bit about the major risks and how to avoid them (diversification etc) and they are off to a good start. Most won't use it, but it will make a few people think and then those few people can look up more detailed information themselves or enroll in more advanced studies. Like I said I don't know how the school system works in the USA, except that it doesn't work too well. But I'm sure there is something where finance could be integrated... or if not then a simple basic course at highschool / college level that would be mandatory.
Well, high school in the US goes by the following "you just need to know how to teach, you don't need to know the subject - just keep a week or two ahead of your students" (I've taken Master's courses in education). Therefore, the quality of information isn't great! In my class in high school, the teacher penalized the higher performing students since we finished her assignments in 10 minutes while others struggled to finish in the 50 minute class period. In my school, you have AP courses or regular courses. And of course, you had to take elective courses...
Well that is a horrible way to do it. But even then, a bit of finance could be incorporated into the system. As I said, you don't need to teach them anything specifics, just the very basic of financial planning, explain to them what the stock market is and how it works etc.
Yeah, I don't get it either, but for some people, it's what they grew up with, and the idea of saving is alien to them. In the US, consumerism is king.
True story. Back in the early 1980s, when I was barely a teenager, I ´won´ 3 bookclub memberships. One of those things where they tried to sell you their featured book every month which you had to cancel or it came automatically. In any event, the deal was I got 12 books for free from 3 different clubs. I picked a fantasy-scifi club, a geography club, and an investment club. The first investment book I got was The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham. I probably read all 12 books by the time I was 15. In HS, we had to take a class, can´t remember the name. but they taught you how to do a family budget, get a mortgage, do a funeral.. and some of the big financial things in life. Most of it was water-down, but fairly usable stuff. But a big chunk of the class was investments.. and the teacher was way in over his head. I killed him with questions that i knew the answer to, but knew he didn´t, I was a jerk I guess. But in hindsight, the fact is we don´t pay teachers enough to really be investors, so how can we expect them to know more about it than an average person. And finally, our culture and entire economy is built upon consumerism and debt. If we didn´t have half the population using credit cards to buy stuff they can´t afford, a large portion of our favorite companies would not be worth investing in. If you want to average person to be an investor, that means they aren´t going to be buying ******8 the day it is released for $500 charge to their Visa.
It's not only that teachers don't get paid a lot - it's the fact that schools won't hire someone who actually knows what they are talking about. Teachers are hired based on experience. So you could have a double major in Finance and Education straight out of college yet an English major with 20 years teaching experience will win the job 90+% of the time. Can you really blame someone by choosing to go into Finance instead?
Consumerism is sadly just as American as apple pie and baseball. It is not something that we as a country should be proud of, but it has caused many people to have their lives improve because of it.
It's not a BAD thing if you're a business owner, and it's part of the reason why America is so advanced today. If you want something, ANYTHING, there's someone willing to sell it to you in the States. Sounds kind of obvious, but you'd be surprised. Where I live, we don't have Amazon Prime, or Netflix, my city doesnt even have a McDonalds.
I feel like it is also why we are in a ton of debt and it is also why Americans are so seemingly obsessed with material things. I hate this consumer infested society. There is something good about consumerism, but it creates some of the worst kinds of people that the Earth has ever seen, to be honest. It creates a negative mindset.
