We Seed

I am piloting a bare bones financial literacy with my students at the end of the year, when they don't want to learn anything new.  I found a slew of infographics about credit card debt, average American savings, which college majors pay off with the highest salaries and which cost more they are worth in terms of earning power.

We start each day with a discussion about what the average American is doing wrong ($10,000 in credit card debt vs. $2100 in savings for starters) and ways the students can avoid those pitfalls. I heard on the radio over the weekend that the main obstacle of financial literacy is instant gratification.

Yesterday I told the students I was giving them each $10,000 to invest in the stock market, and I did, through weseed.com, a stock market simulator. It is fake money, but I showed them my portfolio on weseed that has earned more than 10% in less than a year.

Some of them really got into it and were having a competition on who was making/losing the most money during class time, completely missing my point that the way to make money in the market is to buy wisely and for the most part, hang on to your purchases.

My hope is that they will take something on this topic with them when they leave my class that will lead them to happier lives.