Financial Literacy: One of the most important things we can teach our students

"There is money; spend it; spend it; spend more; spend all I have."

--Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor

“Financial literacy is critical to the prosperity and well-being of Canadians. It is more than a nice-to-have skill. It is a necessity in today’s world.”

--The Task Force on Financial Literacy

When I was old enough to start receiving an allowance, my father gave me three little boxes of varying sizes. The largest box was for Long-Term Savings. That was for big, more expensive things that may take several months or even a year to save for. The medium-sized box was for Short-Term Savings. That was for toys or books that I might be able to get after saving for a few weeks or months at the most. The tiniest box was Mad Money, which 98% of the time went to purchasing the chocolate bar or candy I was allowed to have once a week. 

It was up to me how I divvied up my allowance, but for say a $10 allowance the breakdown usually went as follows:

Mad Money: $2

Short-Term: $5

Long-Term: $3

My father is a highly intelligent man and is financially-savvy; he gets it from his mother, my Nana, who is a shrewd investor. In my life now, even though I am not an expert, I have a healthy respect for saving, investing, and planning my finances. I have a couple points to my story:

1. It is important to teach children these skills while they're young

2. Not everyone has the same access to financial literacy and education at home, which is why we need it in our schools. 

This brief video from EduGains highlights some key points of financial literacy in Ontario classrooms. Financial literacy is something that should undeniably be part of the Ontario curriculum. I can hardly think of a more useful skill for helping prepare students for lives as independent adults than the principles of budgeting, saving, insurance, taxes, etc. As the EduGains video on Financial Literacy Highlights for Educators states, every aspect of life involves money and finances at some level. 

Financial literacy can be incorporated into any subject, as finances and spending relate to so many different topics, and students can communicate their understanding in so many different ways (write about it, act it out, draw it). Becoming financially literate is also helpful in developing critical thinking, decision-making, and consumer awareness. An indirect benefit of teaching financial literacy is that it helps students understand the importance of being lifelong learners, as their teachers may be learning aspects of financial literacy along with them. Financial literacy also helps students develop compassion. They can learn that not everyone earns the same amount of money or has the same access to resources as they do, which can give them a greater appreciation of what they have, and greater empathy for those that have less.  

How Could We Incorporate Financial Literacy Into the Classroom? 

It would be possible to incorporate financial literacy into the grade 7 “Natural Resources Around the World” unit. I’m thinking specifically through expectation B3.2 which requires students to “describe ways in which people use the natural environment, including specific elements within it, to meet their needs and wants.” This provides teachers with an opportunity to open up a conversation about needs and wants in spending and resource allocation, applying it on both a micro and macro level through thinking about individual and national needs and wants. Extending that further could be B3.4, where students must “describe the perspectives of different groups regarding the use of the natural environment to meet human needs.” It would be important and in some cases mind-blowing for students to understand that not every society is consumer-driven like Western society.

This is just one example, but financial literacy can become part of lessons for many subjects, including Math, Art, Social Studies, etc. What is a way you would incorporate it into your classroom?

Listen to your Heart (and the Teacher): Developing Student Listening Skills

"Listening to Instructions." Retrieved from
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/276619602089214994/

The above teacher meme is facetious, but nonetheless an accurate portrayal of what happens in many classrooms. Listening is a vital life skill and unfortunately, large amounts of students for a variety of reasons are not strong listeners.  Now I’m not here to speculate about why students may be poor listeners, and I’m certainly not going to give the cop-out excuse of the prevalence of technology because let’s not kid ourselves here, children have been getting distracted long before tablets and smartphones came on the scene. What I am here to do is discuss some suggestions of what we can do to help students become better listeners, and thus better communicators and citizens.

            The article “Let’s Talk about Listening” from The Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat on EduGains has some great ideas on activities to help students listening comprehension and ways a teacher can create a listening classroom. I’ve summarized some of the important points below and added some thoughts of my own.

Listening is a Full Body Experience

            It’s not just your student’s ears and mind that should be at work when listening, but their whole body. Teachers mainly in the younger grades (although it is no less important in the higher grades) talk about the concept of “listening bodies,” that is the way your body should look when you’re actually listening to someone. If you’re listening, you usually turned to face the speaker, looking at the speaker, not talking, and if you are moving, you’re making signs that you are hearing the speaker e.g. nodding your head, adjusting your facial expression. Students need to know that this is what they should be doing to help them listen better.

Demonstrate to students what a listening body looks like. Feel free to even get a little silly if that’s what it takes! Ask a student what they did on the weekend, and when he or she starts to talk, turn around and go stare into the corner, Blair Witch style. It’s goofy and exaggerated, but hopefully it will show your students the absurdity of incorrect listening body language.

Pictured: A poor active listener
End of The Blair Witch Project movie still. Retrieved from
http://www.mtv.com/news/1869809/blair-witch-project-15-anniversary/

Mental Checklists

            It takes practice to become good at listening, and it’s an ongoing process. Even the most focused of people sometimes need to check wandering attention if they’re not engaged. Imagine then what it’s like for a student with issues with distractibility or central auditory processing. This is why all listening needs to be taught as a meta-cognitive process. Students should have mental checklists to make sure they’re understand what the speaker is saying. I find with some students who get distracted easily, even a physical checklist can be helpful. If they catch their attention wandering, they put a checkmark down in their notebook.

            Students should also be asking themselves if they understand what’s being said and if they don’t understand, they need to feel free to ask a question. This part is highly dependent on the teacher, because if a teacher shows impatience for questions, then the students will be less encouraged to clarify information with the teacher. What is not acceptable is having to teach the entire lesson all over again because the student wasn’t listening the first time around, but on the whole, questions should not be discouraged. Make sure you establish with your class that you should feel free to ask questions to double-check what they need to do, or to inquire further into a topic they’re interested in.

Model Behaviour

 

"Storybook active listening bodies." Retrieved from
http://www.cwtherapy.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/cw19.jpg

           Lead by example. Show students how to be a good listener by listening to them. It doesn’t just have to be through remembering a story they told, or what console they play, but responding to their learning needs in the classroom. Students can be extremely perceptive and they can usually tell right away if you’re someone who cares.

            Listen with your eyes and ears to ensure student understanding of concepts, to figure out if they’re perhaps holding something back or feigning understanding to avoid embarrassment. A teacher who is a good listener will see that and respond accordingly. Little things like that can mean a lot to a struggling student, or any student!

Listening is part of the Oral Communication strand of Literacy in Ontario, but listening skills transfer over into any subject in the classroom, or any interaction the student will have throughout the day. Feel free to do listening activities that are cross-curricular, assessing student listening skills even if what they’re listening to is a social studies podcast.

Apart from the article I mentioned earlier in the post, I also recommend Julian Treasure’s TED talk “5 ways to listen better” if you have 8 minutes to spare (of course you do, don’t lie!). It is an entertaining and direct speech on listening and you can definitely try some of the techniques he suggests with your class.  Learning to listen is a big task, try to have students work on it as much as they can and they will quickly notice the benefits of being more present in the classroom.

             

It’s a Draft, not an Illuminated Manuscript: Making Revision Less Scary for Students

Anonymous. "Monk Working on Illuminated Manuscript."
Retrieved from http://goo.gl/MeIpbv

Eight-year-old Dominic has been entrusted with a most sacred and important task. Through a combination of inspiration from the heavenly Muses and his own memory, he must craft an account that will be preserved throughout the ages. All the writing is divinely inspired; there can be no room for error. Heaven forbid one thing be erased, changed, or altered from its original form. The time to finish his task is nigh. There must be no hesitation.

            What is his task you ask?

            Constructing a descriptive paragraph about his family’s trip to the water park in his writing journal.

            No, in truth there is nothing exceptionally important about constructing that descriptive paragraph. It’s fun, it helps develop Dominic’s writing abilities and practice his use of adjectives, and it’s a topic he’s fairly interested in. But it seems to be the case with so many students that the revision part of the writing process is something to be feared and avoided. It is almost as if they have chiselled their assignments into stone rather than scratched it out on a piece of looseleaf or typed it on their electronic device. To change something is both impossible and an indication of failure and weakness.

What Can We As Teachers Do To Help?

            Rest easy, gentle educators! There are many ways to help inspire revision. I gained much insight from Noreen Moore’s eccentrically named blog post “Revision Makes My Students Thirsty.” She too notices the strange effect revision has on her class and makes some suggestions about how to cause an attitude shift.

            One of the things she suggests, which I absolutely love, is exposing students to what some experienced and famous writers think about the writing process and how much time they spend revising. This can take the form of quotes from famous authors about revision around the classroom, or you can even show some early drafts of different authors’ works, and show how much the poem or story gets marked up and tweaked before it reaches its final form.

            If students can see that writers they hold in high regard, people they think are really smart and creative, are comfortable changing their work, perhaps this will help them in revising their own work as well.

Jane Austen's draft of Persuasion. Notice how much has been crossed out!
"Jane Austen Persuasion Manuscript." Retrieved from
http://www.janeausten.ac.uk/manuscripts/blpers/Front_(left)_board.html

Try Some Revision Activities

            There are also some activities you can do in the classroom to help light the fires of inspiration. There are the tried and true things you can do, such as peer editing or having the student read their work aloud (not necessarily in front of the class), so the student can distance him or herself from the piece and see what changes to make. Students can bring in music, images, photos, etc. that connect to his or her piece and see if that they can incorporate any associations from those images into their writing.

            Teachers can also try re-branding revision as play or tinkering. Revision can be scary, because it implies that there was something wrong with the piece of writing. Well, the writing may not be wrong in that it is grammatically incorrect, but it could use some tinkering in that there could be more figurative language to make the writing more colourful, or maybe there needs to be an additional character to flesh out the narrative.

Closing Thoughts

            Revision, proofreading, and editing are all important parts of the Writing strand of the Ontario curriculum, and need to be treated with the same attention, if not more, as the actual drafting of the piece. Helping students to see that revision is not scary, but to be encouraged, will help them now and in their writing for years to come.

            Very few things are set in stone, and students need to know that their writing certainly isn’t. And that’s okay! 

Part of the In-Crowd: Multilevel Reading so Everyone Can Join In

Eletu, Olu. "Alphabet, Children." March 17, 2015.
Retrieved from https://stocksnap.io/photo/Q5FJUK9OFH

No one likes to feel left out. And for children, many of who want nothing more than to achieve the status of “fitting in”, this is an especially concerning matter. You want to wear what your friends are wearing, have the same toys and gadgets that your friends have. So what do you do as a self-conscious child when for whatever reason, be it giftedness, a learning disability, whatever, you find yourself ahead or behind the pack? You feel awkward, like something is wrong with you. As educators, we can help with that. No, we probably can’t convince a student’s parents to get them those Nike shoes that everyone else in the class has, or those special edition, holographic Pokemon cards, but what we can do is help students feel included in classroom activities, even if the student might be reading at a grade or two below or above the rest of the class.

How do we do this?

By introducing multilevel reading in the classroom.

Catherine Cornford at University of Ottawa wrote a brief, but helpful research monograph about multilevel reading called “What Works? Using Multilevel Texts—Supporting Literacy in the Inclusive Classroom.” In it, she argues that one of the reasons for lack of student engagement in reading is that the text is either too easy or difficult and provides some useful suggestions to how educators can incorporate multilevel texts or scaffolding into the classroom so students can read and learn together, regardless of reading level. You can download the PDF here.

So how could multilevel fiction help?

Multilevel fiction may be written at different levels of complexity, so students can all be reading the same story. They may also use multiple genres or writing styles to communicate information, for example, one version of the text is in verse and another version is in prose. Some texts may even use fiction and non-fiction, for example incorporating a narrative and informational text. The Ontario curriculum’s Reading strand expects students read and understand a variety of texts, literary, graphic, and information, and to understand how different text forms and stylistic elements help communicate meaning. Studying a multilevel text exposes students to multiple writing genres and styles, thus giving them versatility in their reading comprehension.

Can I still be inclusive even if the text isn’t designed to be multilevel?

Even if a text isn’t specifically multilevel, teachers can still be inclusive with reading in the classroom. One of the ways to do that is through reading buddies, where a teacher would pair up students of different reading levels and abilities to participate in a shared reading activity. This can give a student of a lower reading level exposure to a more challenging text, but with some guidance along the way. The student of the higher reading level still benefits, because one consolidates knowledge through explaining it to others.

In summary

We all have different skill sets and aptitudes and in the inclusive classroom, there’s no reason why we have to segregate students based on their reading level. Providing a narrative that scales according to reading level makes all students feel like they’re part of the group and can increase reading engagement. I get so excited when I see students interested in what they’re reading and eager to share what they’ve read with their peers. I think everyone should have that opportunity, whether they’re reading Seuss or Shakespeare. 

Don't Read This Post!

"Stop Sign." Retrieved from
http://goo.gl/KdV1Ol

Dear reader,

I’m putting this message here for your safety. What you were mistakenly about to read is so vile, so unpalatable, such a complete affront to human decency, that it will surely leave you sleepless for many nights, disturbed in mind and soul. If you read this, who knows what might happen to your psyche? So really, it’s in your best interest to stop right now before you become further corrupted.

See what I did there?

The minute someone tells you what to do, presumes to think they can tell you what knowledge is and isn’t appropriate for your mind you resist, if for no other reason but our natural morbid curiosity. If someone suggests that you won’t be able to handle something or that it is too racy, rather than deter you from reading it you think, well this should be good. It’s that thinking that gets educators and soon-to-be educators such as myself thinking they can exploit Banned Book Week for their own nefarious purposes. What purpose is that? Getting children to read. 

Heather Wolpert-Gawron wrote an interesting article on Edutopia about using Banned Books Week in schools to teach about censorship and to encourage reading. All this talk of banned and burning books set my mind alight with ideas on classroom possibilities. A surefire way to get an adolescent to do something is by telling them they can’t do it. Introducing a section in your classroom or school library of books that were considered dangerous or unsuitable for the minds of children should generate some interest. If your classroom has independent reading time, or students are expected to create a reading log for class, have students pick one of the banned books to read. You could even design a worksheet or report for them to do looking into the history of the book, and what themes or events in the book caused it to be contested. Here’s a list of challenged books for young adult readers and another of challenged picture books that you can set up in a corner of your class. 

Acknowledging Banned Books Week in your classroom is a great springboard into a host of conversations and activities you could have with the class regarding freedom of speech and its limits. This is a way to incorporate some Canadian law and politics into the classroom, as students can begin to think about what censorship laws we have in Canada, what speech is and isn’t protected e.g. hate speech, and can begin to consider their own views on freedom of speech and what restrictions are and aren’t okay. Depending on the grade (I would say grade 8 and up), you could have debates or discussions in the classroom about some of the more controversial censorship cases in Canada and when it may or may not be warranted or necessary to limit freedom of speech.

Banned Books Week can even be a way to get a little philosophical with the students as they can consider larger topics like the duties of the author or some of literature’s purposes. I don’t mean we need our students to put on togas and recreate a Greek symposium (although that could be fun if you wanted), merely that this can be a good entryway for getting students to think about why it’s important to study fiction, or even why it’s essential to have the arts in our schools. The authors of these banned books write about “tough stuff” in their books, sometimes having risked ridicule, scorn, and even jail time for their words. Ask your students: why would they do that? Why is it important for these stories to be heard? Is it important at all? Have them think about the medium. Why is it sometimes a good idea to talk about controversial issues, such as war, abuse, etc. through a narrative?

As you can see, Banned Books Week can be a fun and easy segway into conversations about deeper issues. If nothing else, making reading seem a little more exciting is always a good thing. I don’t know if there are many things more rewarding to a teacher of language and literacy than seeing a student that typically doesn’t read or like reading delve into a book and actually enjoy it! A word to the wise though: make sure the banned books you put in your classroom are reasonably age-appropriate. Maybe leave Tropic of Cancer for when the students are a little older than grade 5.

“You weren't there, you didn't see," he said. "There must be something in books, things we can't imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don't stay for nothing.”

            --Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

"Fahrenheit 451 Propaganda Poster." Retrieved
from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/436919601321018427/