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Teaching Practical Skills in Schools

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Effort to Teach Kids Practical Financial Skills

What is the biggest criticism of our schools today? Okay… that is too big of a bear to tackle… what is one of the biggest criticisms about our schools today? The failure to teach real life skills you need to be successful not only in a job but in life. (I’ll go out on a limb and say this is historically the biggest criticism of law schools.)

Richmond public schools in Virginia are trying to help bridge the gap between learning and the real world, partnering with New Generations Federal Credit Union to give students real world financial experience. The theory? Students will learn while working at the bank how to deal with their own finances as an adult.

Virginia high school students are expected to take it a step further. Virginia schools require incoming freshman to pass economics and personal finance in order to graduate.

Will this be effective? I don’t know. The one thing people miss is that schools don’t fail to prepare you for the real world because they are stupid. It is just real hard to provide a facsimile of the real world that has the verisimilitude to be effective. But I love the idea. We need to keep trying new innovative things to get students ready for real life. Most ideas will fail but the keepers are… keepers.

Here’s is an article on the effort in Richmond.

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