Liberty Union High School District



The Financial Game of LifeFinancial situations can be best demonstrated through the Game of Life. A playerstarts out with a single person and as they move through the game board, theyencounter many different financial situations. These include going to college,getting married, having kids, getting in accidents, and much more. Everysituation they undergo costs money and it is up to the player has to spend theirmoney wisely. The Game of Life is much like real life because people spend moneyevery day some wiser than others. If people spend their money carelessly and donot keep track of it they could gothrough a financial crisis and end up becomingbankrupt. Financial literacy courses should be taught in schools to preventteenagers from making atrocious money decisions in life and enable them tocreate better financial situations for themselves.Most adults are not very educated in the field of finances so, as one can imagine,teenagers barely know anything about finances. Schools should have coursesthat “teach the basics of economics and finances so people can make financialdecisions in a changing world” (Bernard). Money is literally what makes theworld go around, which is why it is crucial for teenagers to learn how to manageit. If teenagers learn how to use money in high school, then they will be muchbetter off going into college and in life. Mr. Frost, a teacher at Sunset High Schoolin Dallas, teaches a financial class where students learn how to deal with “realworld circumstances” (Bernard). One of Mr. Frost’s students “learned that goodbudgeting has to be maintained throughout a person’s life” (Bernard). Studentsare already going to school to learn so it would not hurt them if they were taughtabout finances that they would definitely use in their everyday life. If someschools are teaching financial literacy, then schools throughout the countryshould implement these courses.Furthermore, students in high school should be enrolled in financial classesbecause it will benefit them when they go off into the world on their own. Mostteenagers go to college after high school and therefore have to learn to live ontheir own with little to no help from their parents. Professor Gutter, an assistantprofessor of family financial management at the University of Florida, confirmedthat college students who came from schools with mandatory financing courses“were more likely to budget, were more likely to be saving, and were less likely tohave maxed out their credit cards” (Bernard). Financial courses have benefitedstudents and have enabled them to be in a better financial situation in college.The knowledge students would learn in a financial course would help them somuch more in the real world than not taking one at all. Money is the determiningfactor of how a person lives, which is why it is so important for teenagers tolearn about it in school.Even though financial courses may have helped students in the past, growingevidence suggests that financial literacy classes do not work. In fact, these coursesmay actually hurt students because it will make them “overconfident about limitedskills” (Burns). However, these assumptions could not be further from the truth.Most students in high school have absolutely no knowledge about finances, so howwould not putting them in these courses make them better off? School officialssuggested that teenagers and young adults “are assuming too much credit carddebt and are not knowledgeable about finances” (Davis). Students are uneducatedabout managing money, which has a negative result on their bank account. Theyuse up their money without paying much attention to their finances because theywere never really educated about it. This is why it is necessary for teenagers tolearn how the world around them works and its relationship to money.In the Game of Life a person can go bankrupt and lose everything, but they canjust move their piece back to the beginning and start again. In real life, however,a person only gets one shot and if they go bankrupt it could ruin their life. Thisis why it is so important for students to learn about finances in school. Almosteverything in the world involves money and individuals face the task of managingtheir money daily. Learning how to budget and control money is crucial to aperson’s life, which is why financial courses should be taught in schools across thecountry. If students are unable to learn about finances in school, a place where themajority of a person’s learning takes place, then where else will they learn it? ................
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