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I say it's economics and what the political parties are really about. If every child were taught something about spending within your means, America wouldn't be putting up with these horrendous giveaways and pork barrel spending we are seeing the past month from the Obama administration.
Children should be taught the basics of national economics. Corporations are NOT evil; they are the very backbone of our economic system. We should teach kids that corporations invest capital, provide innovations, make necessary goods and services, and create jobs. Government does none of these.
Children should be taught to challenge the notion that high achievers should be punished by being disporportionally taxed. Kids have an instinctive understanding of fairness. Try this exercise. Ask the students how they would like to study two hours every night, do extra credit projects, and stay after school for homework help while their classmates go home and do nothing but watch TV and play video games while eating chips and drinking soda, THEN have the lazy classmates receive the better grade? That's basically what's going on with the bailout of people facing foreclosure.
Along the same vein of fairness here's another game: Child A and Child B are running for class president. Child A promises the class that he will pay each a dollar if they vote for him. Child B just promises to work hard if elected, and pledges to try to get the whole class to work harder in school. Child A then steals a $20 bill from Child B, gives a dollar to each class member and keeps the rest for himself. Child A then tells the class how generous he is for giving them money and how Child B is selfish for not wanting to give. Yet it was Child B's money all along. The poorest kids elect Child A, because they wanted the money and didn't want to have to work hard. Child A wins.
Ask the students if they think the above scenarios were fair. Then explain to them that is exactly how the two political parties operate.
Here's a final exercise:
Two people each started a business. Person A spent money very carefully. He saved what he could then bought supplies for his business only when he had enough money. He worked hard, figured out how to draw new customers, served the customers well, and earned money. He then invested that money and opened three other stores, hired a lot of people who worked hard and satisfied the customers.
Person B didn't save enough money to buy a business but he lied about his income and fooled a bank into loaning him that money. He didn't work hard, didn't serve his customers, and didn't invest his money. Instead, he lavished his money on friends and on people who helped him lie to the bank to get money. When his business started to falter, he made up more lies, fooled more banks, and borrowed more money. Finally, he told the banks he wasn't going to pay them anymore, closed the business, and the few workers he had lost their jobs.
Teachers, you don't even have to mention political parties. You don't have to. Just tell them those things are really happening with the two political parties. Appeal to their sense of fairness, and encourage them to develop the political philosophy of their own choosing. If generations of American kids were taught wonderful lessons like this every day in class, our nation would be much more prosperous, there wouldn't be as much dependency, and above all, we wouldn't be electing the folks who caused our current economic problems to "solve" the problem.
Actually I think there should be a push to teach the merits of socialism, so that they can get acclimated. For the youngsters just stick to the Tales of Robin-hood for now.
Unfortunately, they are taught the exact opposite, and not just by the public education system, but through continuous main stream media indoctrination, and constant anti-capitalist propaganda from the Democratic party. Since a large percentage of our voting population lack the critical thinking skills necessary to withstand such a continuous onslaught, the end result is the current bunch of BUFFOONS we now have occupying the Whitehouse and Congress.
The dumbing down of America just hit full throttle and Obama and The Democrats are working the gas peddle.
You are sounding awfully paranoid now. Help is available ya know.
No, he is not paranoid. There are at least six or seven of us posting here now who can verify what he is saying, Miss Connie. May I suggest that you may be sounding naive.
Location: The Chatterdome in La La Land, CaliFUNia
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Austin13
No, he is not paranoid. There are at least six or seven of us posting here now who can verify what he is saying, Miss Connie. May I suggest that you may be sounding naive.
Even if this person has a past questionable views or motives, he does raise some valid points in his OP which is what I'm interested in debating. If you guys feel that this poster has questionable motives in posting on here, then why are you guys wasting your time on this thread? There is an ignore feature to block out certain users.
Here's the "socialist/communist" idea to "destroy" a country:
Every year from 7th to 12th grade should have a "Social responsibility class" in which they would be taught:
- To balance a fake personal budget every single week, so they see that when a person makes X amount of money, they always end up spending 50% just on basic things.
- To cook and teach them write down every single time how much money they saved with the meal that they just cooked.
- To know what is like to raise a baby, make them carry a baby around for 2 years.
- Make them write a resume, go to interviews and get a job that doesn't require a HS diploma. Then make them do their budget and ask them how much money they have.
After a year of that, take them to visit doctors, engineers, dentists, etc, etc. to find out what they do for living and what they had to do to get their college diploma.
- Take them to a jail and make them talk one-to-one with people that are in jail to learn what is like to be in there.
- You can throw in a few other things such as: How to take care of your car, Electrical safety, First emergency aid, etc, etc.
In few words... teach them to be self-sufficient and responsible adults.
Many schools do the "flour baby" unit in health classes. The kids have to get a 5# sack of flour and dress it up like a baby and carry it around. Unfortunately, kids learn how to "game" this project quickly, and the research shows it doesn't really help them learn what parenting is all about. Unfortunately, the only thing that really teaches parenting is. . . parenting. The issue of teaching finances has come up before. I have argued that it's hard to teach money management b/c even HS kids really have no idea what it all means. Plus everyone comes into it with their own framework from their family, some families are frugal, some are extravagant, some are inbetween. Some people are very much opposed to investing money, some aren't. Just whose POV is going to be taught?
Even if this person has a past questionable views or motives, he does raise some valid points in his OP which is what I'm interested in debating. If you guys feel that this poster has questionable motives in posting on here, then why are you guys wasting your time on this thread? There is an ignore feature to block out certain users.
Even if this person has a past questionable views or motives, he does raise some valid points in his OP which is what I'm interested in debating. If you guys feel that this poster has questionable motives in posting on here, then why are you guys wasting your time on this thread? There is an ignore feature to block out certain users.
I don't know who the others are referring to, but I can tell you this: there are some posters who I will never rep b/c of thigns they have said, even if I happen to agree with them on a certain point.
I believe it's up to parents to teach their kids about money and finance.
Some days I teach my kids about liberal economics. If they do some extra task, I might pay them but then I take away their money and tell them we must be fair and give an equal portion to the ones who sat watching television or playing video games. Other days are conservative economics where if they do the work, they keep the money. It's interesting that they will only work on conservative economics days.
Last edited by malamute; 02-28-2009 at 02:38 PM..
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