Educating Children/Teens

Dear Janet,

I am 27 years old. I have a B.S. in Management and will graduate with an MBA in Finance this December. While I do not wish to become a school teacher, I do wish to teach children and teens (especially high schoolers) about finance basics. My current ideas are something along the lines of compounding interest, credit cards, DCA, and mutual funds. For the younger children I was leaning toward savings and the "value" of money.

What is your suggestion for approaching schools with my ideas or perhaps offering a seminar? I really think I could give a solid 1 hour talk on a given afternoon.

I wouldn't be seeking compensation. I just want to help educate the vast number kids who will undoubtedly be bombarded with credit card offers when they graduate high school, who are already being targeted by large companies to instill brand recognition, and who could potentially get themselves in deep financial trouble at a very young age.

Any help you can provide will be sincerely appreciated.

Sincerely,

Herkdrvr

I think you are on to something, a class like this would be great. Teaching our kids things they actually need in life would be amazing. I think your best bet for acceptance is at the High School level. I remember when I was in high school we would occasionally have guest speakers come in and talk to the class. Maybe if you approach high schools and offer to be a guest speaker for a lifestyle or business class each semester/quarter they would be open to it. I doubt that they would be willing to pay for it, at least at the start. But if you could prove to them that you are offering valuable information, and the kids are truely learning from it, they may be willing to ship you around to several schools in the district and maybe even pay you a little something. The key here is that I think you need to be willing to test it out for free, if you are then I think you have a much better shot of success. Put together the presentation that you want to give to the kids, call up the local HS principle, or district superintendant and see if they will let you present it to them. Tell them you want to test it out in one of the schools, and that you will do it for free to see if it works.

Anyway I think this is something that our kids can certainly benefit from, and I wish you the best of luck in your venture.