June 8, 2010

Credit Union Management magazine’s Web-only “Teaching Smart Money Management” column runs the second Tuesday of every month.  

Financial education is not your job.

Let’s get that fact on the table before we get started. Teaching smart money management was never your responsibility. That is, unless you were hired by the credit union to do that. If you were hired to teach personal finance to members, it’s nice that the credit union made a decision to get involved, but there is certainly no obligation for it to do so.

Who is responsible for teaching personal finances, then? Maybe parents. Maybe nobody. Yet education, generally speaking, is the responsibility of teachers. Parents send their children to school with the hope that they’ll get their education in the classroom, including everything they need to know to live their lives responsibly.

Is financial literacy on the syllabus? Probably not. But 89 percent of K-12 teachers believe it should be.

According to a recent study funded by the National Endowment for Financial Education, in a survey of more than 1,200 teachers, many believe they are not prepared to teach personal finance. While teachers who had taken college courses that included financial education related topics were 50 percent more likely to consider themselves able to teach these topics, few (just 37 percent) have actually taken courses that are related to financial literacy. And future teachers are not taking courses either.

The six personal finance areas teachers were questioned on are:

1. income and careers;

2. planning and money management;

3. credit and debt;

4. financial responsibility and decision making;

5. saving and investing; and

6. risk management and insurance.

Of the six, teachers were most likely to consider themselves able to teach about income and careers, and planning and money management. However, fewer than 20 percent of teachers feel “very competent” about teaching these topics.

How are these topics to be taught? Should they be integrated in existing courses, such as language arts, math and social studies, or taught individually? What strategies should be used? How might student needs be assessed?

These are all questions that need to be addressed. Yet, even though 44 states now have personal financial education standards or guidelines in place, more than 60 percent of teachers still feel unqualified to teach to those standards. Additionally, teacher education programs were not familiar with state financial education requirements.

But here’s the good news: Teachers welcome the opportunity to learn more in both financial education subjects and teaching methods.

This is a huge opportunity for your credit union. It’s huge, because no one else seems to be doing it. And, for the cost of educating teachers, you could be reaching generations of students.

Each year, K-12 teachers face a new class. How they bring financial education to those students is really up to them. If those teachers are ready to learn how to teach personal finance, why wouldn’t you be ready to teach them?

Of course, training teachers is not your job. But neither is financial education.

How can you reach out to teachers?

• See if you can invite teachers to the credit union for a tour, and offer some basic financial education ideas they can bring back to the classroom with them.

• Consider providing teachers with materials and offer the credit union as a field trip once certain subjects have been taught.

• Call local schools and offer to meet with their teachers, or give a presentation on “teaching smart money management” during an in-service day.

• Reach out to teacher training courses, offering a course on teaching smart money management, compliments of the credit union.

• See if there are summer refresher programs for teachers in your area, or continuing education programs for educators.

There’s a lot you can accomplish when you focus on reaching teachers.

Is doing so your job? Of course not. But you can accomplish a lot this way, and increase brand awareness of your credit union at the same time.

And isn’t that your job?

Laura Enock is CEO of CUVA and publisher of www.CUcontent.com, a newsletter and Web site content service for credit unions.