Do you think schools should be teaching their students how to become wealthy? It is a teachable subject, just like driving a car?
Last week, our team visited a high school for Junior Achievement to talk about becoming wealthy which is actually achievable for every teenager who was listening in that classroom. There you have it...
everyone who was listening. It was shocking to have rude comments made by the teens to the team.
Yup. Unbelievable. Unless you are a teacher...
Wealth, I believe, starts at home. Attitudes of these smarty pants kids starts at home.
Do you think they will be a client of a financial advisor in a few decades? When they had the privledge of hearing from client advisors who handle millionaires' money, they needed to realize the impact on their future lives. Most of our clients made that money themselves and also were teenagers but often their stories illustrated their dedication to learning.
When I calculate the cost of salaries and bonus of our team, plus their good will and energy put forward, I wonder about the worth of such an outreach program.
What do you think?
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| Pierre Ouimet and Jacoline Loewen |
From our magazine,
Unlimited, I read the views on teaching wealth in schools made by Finland's Minister of Education:
Dr Marjo Kyllonen is the Education Manager for Helsinki. Having devised the blueprint for the future of Finland’s school system, she is playing a pivotal role in driving these changes through. She is doing so because she sees the structure and aims of current education systems in the West as increasingly irrelevant and obsolete, relics of an Industrial Age that we started to leave behind a long time ago. She argues that we need to rethink our entire relationship to education to equip future generations with the tools they need to face the challenges to come.
Do you think we should give much priority to teaching children how to become wealthy?
No, I don’t think that’s the role of the school. Of course, we’d like everyone to have a good life and be successful. But the way you’ve put it makes me think of a world where individuals are looking out for themselves – a “me first” culture. My picture of future society is totally different – I think people need to have social responsibility and understand that no one is doing well if there are others in society who are insecure and suffering.
What should our legacy be to future generations?
It’s not only us and our kids, it’s our grandchildren and their children – if we want our little human “club” to survive in the future we really have to think: what is sustainable? And how do we teach that to our kids? Not only ecological sustainability – social sustainability, too.
If you could change one thing about the way politics on Earth works right now, what would that be?
My friend, the former NASA astronaut Ellen Baker, told me that when she was in space, she saw how beautiful our world is. And there are no boundaries. Go far enough away and Earth looks very peaceful, no borders. She said to me that our politicians should go and have a space-trip, to see how beautiful our planet is and make peace.
