The NGPF Team continues to grow...Join me in welcoming Greg Livingston who will be focusing our professional development efforts. Expect to see him soon at a FinCamp near you. I know you will enjoy reading about why he's so passionate about financial education.

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I started my first full time teaching job in 2011 as an Earth Science teacher in Brooklyn, New York.  The opportunity to explore the history of the Earth and Universe with my students - exciting and important stuff.  I can’t tell you how proud I was in my first year when one of my students said to me: “Mr. Livingston, sometimes you even make rocks exciting.”  Cha-Ching!

One thing I quickly learned was that I would need to source materials from many places and also to create many of my own.  The textbooks weren’t particularly helpful (or good) and while there were some decent online resources they were scattered, disorganized, and often took hours to adjust to my students anyways.

The most helpful resource I had were the standards, the scope and sequence, and the old copies of the exams my students would have to pass.  I counted that beyond process standards my students were responsible for 99 “major understandings” in Earth Science.  Some of the understandings were fun and easy to teach - my students growing up in the urban jungle understood the utility of using an object’s present properties to learn about it’s history and they even enjoyed the math and literacy activities I tried to embed in every lesson.  Despite the time consuming challenge of designing solid instruction, I was sure that every one of the understandings was essential knowledge and that my students would learn them all.  Little did I know...

Then I found out that almost all the adults in New York know very little to almost nothing about geology, meteorology, astronomy, or even something basic like map reading.  How could it be that everyone took the class and no one knew anything about it?  Earth science may be fascinating and useful, but apparently New Yorkers don't need to make use of it in their everyday lives.

I saw first hand how differently students respond to imminently, obviously useful stuff when I taught a introductory computer skills class for the first time just a couple years later.  We did projects using each basic piece of productivity software using Google Drive and one of them stood out big time in a surprising way.  

I wanted to teach my students how to use spreadsheets and to do it in a relevant and engaging way.  Here's what I came up with:

To start off they had to pick a career goal and research what it would take to break into that field.  They had to figure out what kind of grades they would need to get into the college program they wanted to attend, how much it would cost, and more.  We then moved into the serious spreadsheet work of creating a budget for their first year as full time employees - students had to research and include housing costs, transportation costs, typical first year salaries, entertainment and whatever else they would need to spend money on.

And I thought we were having a good time in Earth Science!  Everyone one of my students was totally engaged in the project.  This was important stuff to be learning, thinking, and talking about.  They needed it and they knew it.  They were craving for the opportunity to explore and learn about something so relevant.

When one of my former students messages me and says “hey, remember that one project,” I know immediately what project they are going to bring up.  The one where we talked about what it’s like to become an adult.  We talked about what you really need to know.  The absolute essentials.  Apparently they weren't getting this anywhere else.  It's obvious in retrospect.

I still think that everyone should understand how outgassing transformed our planet long ago and I think that there are all kinds of soft skills and interesting ideas to explore in Earth Science.  But I know now what knowledge is really essential, what every adult will need regardless of who they are, where they're from, or what their interests happen to be.

Adults hold the responsibility for looking out for their own financial well being.  If our job as educators is to prepare our kids for adult life than it is a totally essential part of that mission - as vital as reading and writing, mathematical literacy, and basic social emotional skills.

As a teacher who has been through the challenging and ongoing task of curriculum design, I was delighted to discover Next Gen Personal Finance.  It is, simply put, the best teacher resource out there.  If you have not discovered it yet, please take a look.  The combination of in-house activities and instructional design with curated articles, videos, activities, and resources from a wide variety of sources is fantastic.  And it was designed with both you and your students in mind.

I joined the NGPF team this year believing that the most meaningful thing I could do as an educator in the coming years was to help spread personal finance education to every school and student.  I look forward to partnering with you in this noble mission!

About the Author

Greg Livingston

Greg comes to us from a big Canadian family full of passionate educators: the joy of teaching and learning has always been an important part of his experience. He saw first hand the need for personal finance education after having his student research careers and create a budget in his computers class. His students would not stop telling him how important this project was, even years later. Greg brings his unique experience designing and managing online learning communities for Columbia University, Connected Camps, and others to the Next Gen team. He is excited to connect with great teachers and support them in their challenging and rewarding work. Greg is a proud jack of all trades - outside of work he likes to play soccer and hockey, make music, read old books, and explore the great outdoors.