Financial Literacy

I spent most of the day today preparing for a presentation I will make at the (E)Merging Conference for our pre-interns on Monday.

This conference takes up the first two days of the winter semester and is for the benefit of the pre-interns in all of our programs.

One one hand this conference is a pain - the pre-internship semester in the secondary program is already pretty chopped up (OCRE/PLACE, field experiences, WESTCast, etc.) and this conference takes another bite out of the semester. I only meet with my students 10 times over the semester for each course!

On the other hand many of the presentations are valuable, it is important for students to become acquainted with students in other programs and with people from the different school boards, the STF and others.

My presentation is on Financial Literacy and Student Investment Clubs.

I wish I knew then what I know now - financial security is so easy to achieve - especially if you start young. Its easy - spend less than you take in, stay away from poor debt decisions and pay yourself first.

My presentation will outline the problems we face in terms of debt and bankruptcies. I'll talk about the opportunities teachers have to create their own financial independence - the magic of compound interest, etc. I'll refer them to the book called The Millionaire Next Door.

And finally I will describe the Student Investment Club instructional strategy I have developed with my colleague Teresa Yohon.

I am curious to see who will show up to this session and what kinds of questions they will ask.

Personal Financial Planning

Tonight was my investment club meeting. Our speaker was Ron Lustig, a stock broker, who works for CIBC Wood Gundy. He made a terrific presentation on the characteristics of a 'balanced" portfolio.

As part of his presentation he talked about the contribution of various items to returns on investment. These included market timing, individual stock selection, political and environmental changes and asset allocation. It seems that historically asset allocation accounts for around 92% of return.

Ron pointed out that is every high school student learned about regular savings, staying out of debt, compound interest and asset allocation our society would be much better off.

I find it interesting that many people talk about just this subject. They can articulate the rationale for personal financial management courses. They agree that these concepts should be taught in schools.

Yet in Saskatchewan it seems that these discussions and arguments are ignored by the provincial education authorities and politicians