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Think Big. Start Small.
By John Lanza of Snigglezoo
Rule Number 38 in Alan Webber's book, “Rules of Thumb,” says, "If you want to think big, start small." I have a big idea - and it requires starting small. If we can teach our kids about the value of money in elementary school - and even start in preschool - we can truly shape a generation and change our society's view of money. Money is a means, not an end. If "The Great Recession" has taught us anything, it's that we need everyone to understand this.
What we're doing isn't working. Every two years, the terrific folks at the Jump$tart Coalition for Financial Literacy (full disclosure - my company is a Jump$tart member) administer a financial literacy exam to high school kids across the country. The test is 31 questions long and students have shown no improvement over the ten years in which it has been administered. The average student continues to fail the exam. On the positive side, Jump$tart has been very successful in helping raise awareness of the importance of financial literacy – there are more people and organizations trying to educate more high school kids.
But, it's time to think different. If you haven't read Seth Godin's blog, please do so (feed://sethgodin.typepad.com). He' a marketing guru, but, more importantly, he's a thinker. In a post on March 3, he described a project he worked on years ago creating trivia. His team created questions with correct answers 99 percent of the time. That sounds like decent quality control, until you realize that in a bank of 1800 questions, 18 were wrong. This simply wasn't acceptable and working harder to fix the problem didn't solve it. The team decided to fundamentally change their approach. By thinking different and working smarter (not harder), they hit the 100 percent metric they had to achieve.
Let's think big and start small. We need to change the way we're doing things in financial literacy. We don't need to work harder; we need to work smarter. Most youth financial literacy resources are currently aimed at teens and young adults. There are some terrific resources and I laud the amazing work that so many are doing, but we need to flip this model and marshall MOST of our forces to teach kids (and involve the all-important families) when they are much younger.
We know that kids can grasp the fundamentals of financial literacy - making choices, distinguishing needs and wants, delayed gratification to name a few - very early, even in preschool. So, it only stands to reason that if we build good habits early, we will spend less time having to break bad habits later. Just as it is in medicine, an ounce of prevention can avoid a mess of treatment down the road. Working harder on the treatment isn't going to end the problem if folks aren't doing something to stop getting sick.
I'm glad that I'm not the only one with this big idea. There are some incredible people doing some amazing work out there. There are lots of great people on the front lines, volunteering from their credit unions, regional banks and even big national banks. Some do it because they are required to do so, but many do it because they hope they can change things; they want to make a difference. Let's all think a little different. Think big. Start small.
John Lanza is the chief mammal at Snigglezoo Entertainment and is the creator of “The Money Mammals” DVD that helps kids learn to “Share and Save and Spend Smart Too.” John also runs The Money Mammals Saving Money is Fun Kids Club and blogs, tweets and writes often about youth financial literacy. His new children's book, "Joe the Monkey Saves for a Goal" comes out this April. Find out more at www.themoneymammals.com.
