Learning Dollars and Sense

By Children Rising | April 4, 2016

by Randy Roth, president of Children Rising

For the third year in a row, PwC consultants are engaging third- thru fifth-graders in dollars-and-cents matters. This year, three elementary schools in West Oakland– Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK), Hoover, and Prescott– have welcomed PwC’s Earn Your Future financial literacy curriculum. Lessons include identity theft, creditworthiness, saving & investing, income, and careers.

Instead of lecturing, the PwC Earn Your Future team involves students in roleplay, which uses critical thinking skills in practical real-life applications. For example in one lesson, each student in the class plays the role of borrower or lender. Student A lends his favorite CD to Student B who promises to “return it tomorrow.” When Student A next asks Student B for his CD, Student B responds, “Sorry, I lost it.” A PwC volunteer prompts the entire class, “Will Student A ever lend again to Student B? Is he creditworthy?” Unanimously, everyone shouts, “No!”

Then students are invited to play it forward: When the time comes to borrow money to buy a computer, a car or a house, will you be creditworthy?
The impact is twofold. Not only do the students learn important life skills, but they also get to rub shoulders with amazing role models.

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