Learning About the Market in School

How Kids Learn (Or Don’t) About the World of Investing in School

By Joel Reese

Back in the day, we didn’t learn too much about the market at school.

We think it was in Home Economics when the teacher — her name escapes us, so we’ll just go with Ms. Krabappel — broke out the newspapers. (Yes, we were around when there used to be such a thing as newspapers. And yes, they were printed on papyrus, and we rode our dinosaur to school. You’re very clever.)

Anyway, the Business section was put in front of us, and we dutifully opened to the market listings. There, we stared vacant-eyed at a endless gray list of bewildering symbols, numbers, and abbreviations. Sym? 52-wk hi/lo? % Chg? We had no clue what this meant, but it seemed Important.

So we tried to tune in, but even Ms. Krabappel didn’t quite seem to know what she was talking about. She hemmed, hawed, and admitted she didn’t have any investments herself.

Sensing this was beyond pretty much all of us, Ms. Krabappel included, we tuned out and started passing notes. And thus the idea of Wall Street as something big, scary, and unknowable was born, and it wasn’t put out of our minds for years.

We’re trying to fix that with We Seed EDU, and we’re hoping to make a difference for kids across the country.

But what about you? Did you get a good lesson in the ways of the financial world? Do you remember anything about finances from your younger days? How should teachers educate kids now? Let us know.

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