THEME I: Goals and Decision Making
Why financial literacy? What does that mean to my life?
As juniors and seniors, teens are fast approaching major transitions in their lives. Many will be on their own for the first time either attending college or working at full time jobs. Surveys have shown that significant numbers of late teens and early twenties fall into serious financial difficulty due to lack of awareness and knowledge of the economy and personal financial skills coupled with an inability to prioritize their goals. Few people just starting adulthood take into consideration the short and long term consequences of their decisions. Failure to plan has heavy costs not only financially, but emotionally as well, when families find themselves struggling with serious financial problems some of which could have been prevented.
Goals and Decision Making Lessons
Overview:
Lessons in this unit have
the students examining the characteristics of people who have been successful
financially. Beginning with How to Really be a Millionaire game, students move
into identifying what individual resources they have at this point in their
lives, why they cannot have everything they want at a given point in time, and
how critical conscious decision making can be. They will be taught a decision
making model that they can always utilize to maximize their satisfaction. The
model requires analyzing the costs and benefits of their choices. Finally,
having examined what values underlie their decisions, they will engage in the
first goal setting exercise of the course. This exercise has them sort some
generic goals by identifying ones they want to pursue, ones in which they are
not interested, plus ones about which they are not sure. They also categorize
them as short, intermediate, and long term. Then they decide on a mini-action
plan to achieve these goals.
Vocabulary
Sources of Curriculum
Internet Theme Bookmarks