The Advantage of Teaching Financial Math

My largest classes are my two Financial Math classes.

At my school, Financial Math, and its predecessor Real Life Math, were considered "dumping grounds."  Students, especially seniors, who needed more math to graduate, but weren't capable of progressing, were put into Real Life Math or Financial Math.  There, the teacher watered down enough arithmetic that students could pass and graduate.

This year I've taken over teaching Financial Math.  I have two full periods of it this year and am pretty sure I'll have three next year.

My first goal when assuming the reins was to eliminate the "dumping ground" belief.  I want to make it into a course that students at all math levels can and want to take.  Yes, there will be calculations involved, but if students haven't learned how to operate with percentages, for example, I'm not going to attempt to reteach 4th grade math.  I have calculators available for students to use in class.

I may never get rid of the "dumping ground" mentality completely, but I'm working on it.  And I'll continue to work on it.  Word is getting around to the rest of campus that Financial Math is a valuable course to take.

Last semester I used a 1-semester "financial literacy" curriculum from Junior Achievement.  I don't recall that there was any math at all, but students learned, for example, such things as the difference between a bank, a credit union, and a savings and loan; the difference between gross pay and net pay, and between withholdings and deductions; the difference between a Roth IRA and a Traditional IRA; the difference between saving and investing; the different functions of a checking account and a savings account; and the mechanics of budgeting.  We talked about good and bad uses of credit cards, about debt, about interest and fees.  They can even tell you about Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 bankruptcies!

This semester I have a textbook to use.  It's not horrible, but it's not great.  It does a reasonable job presenting some material that should be simple but, for many of my students, isn't--for example, calculating your gross pay.  For us adults that's nothing, but for a kid who's never held a job, trying to keep straight such concepts as straight hourly pay, overtime, piecework, commission, graduated commission, and salary can be a little daunting.  You won't believe this, but we'll be spending the lion's share of January on the topic of gross pay.  I want to give them every opportunity to learn and understand.

Last semester my students learned about "tax season", and that their employer has until January 31st to get them their W-2.  I've had a couple students ask me if we're going to learn how to do taxes.  Yes, yes we are.  Another teacher I know found a great W-2/1040 Federal Tax packet online.  It walks students step by step through filling out a 1040.  So starting at the end of January, they'll look at several of yours truly's pay statements (dated 1990 through 2010).  They'll learn how to read pay statements in a variety of formats, as each of my employers did pay statements a little differently.  Now that they'll have seen pay at the micro level, we'll do the macro level--the W-2 and how it relates to the 1040.  I anticipate that in order to do this well enough that students will get something out of it, and keeping in mind that we get a week off in February for Presidents' Week/Ski Week, we'll spend most of February on paychecks and taxes.

The beauty of this is that Financial Math isn't a class anyone (except me and my students) looks at.  The state and district care only about Integrated Math 1 through 3, which roughly correspond to Algebra 1, Geometry, and Algebra 2.  No one's looking at what I do, so I can essentially teach whatever I want.  That's the advantage of teaching such a class--I can make it my own.  Teach what I want.  Augment it however I want.  Grade it however I want.  Yes, there are some official standards, but no one cares if I teach to them or not (for the most part, I will).  My school administration trusts me to teach a high-quality class, and they leave me alone to do it.

Anyone who knows me knows that I won't make this a watered down, automatic-pass course.  I decide what I want to teach and the standards to which students will be held--and then the chips will fall wherever they fall.  Most of my students are seniors who need to pass this class in order to graduate, and I don't hand out passing grades just because someone "needs" to pass.  I set the standards, I teach well, I give students plenty of opportunities to demonstrate learning.  After that, it's on them.  Last semester, the vast majority of them rose to that challenge.  This semester is a little more "math-y" and we don't have our first quiz until later this week, but I'm confident my students will do fine.

I genuinely believe that my students are learning valuable information in this course.  From what I hear through the grapevine, my students also think they're learning valuable information in the course.  I hope it serves them well.