Importance of providing a Financial Education:
The International Commission on Education for the 21st Century proposes that education should be structured around four Pillars of Knowledge: Learning to Know, Learning to Do, Learning to Live Together and Learning to Be.
The author of this article, raises a fifth Pillar, fundamental in education today: Learning to Have, understood as learning that facilitates that the decisions and behaviors assumed by a person in relation to the resources they possess, generate well-being and increase not only your quality of life, but the quality of life of the people around you. Learning to have money involves making decisions and choosing economic behaviors that generate personal and social well-being.
Human beings have received a series of resources from birth to death: personal resources (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, etc.), natural, social, institutional, material, etc. Within the material resources, there is the money.
It is striking that many people having resources, through ignorance, carelessness or deliberately, do not take advantage of them, do not value them and even their actions cause their deterioration, destruction and extinction. For example. We can ask ourselves about the number of species already extinct or on the verge of extinction, because of the actions of man who does not Know How to Have. If people do not learn to have, we can hardly leave future generations a better world than the one we receive.
Money, as a resource, is an instrument that allows the human being to satisfy his needs, when he is changed in the present or in the future, for something that he requires or wants, be it a good (food, toys, tools, machines, housing, etc.) or a service (education, health, transportation, etc.). As Chloe and Claudio Madanes say, “… with money we can buy time to enjoy beauty, art, the company of friends, adventures… We can help those we love and guarantee our children better opportunities… It is an instrument of justice with the one that we can repair the damage we cause to others… Also, for money, people can have problems: Financial worries, suffering, fights with loved ones… Money penetrates all aspects of human life and today is the energy that move the world. "
Money has been given such importance that many people sacrifice principles and values to obtain it (steal, kill), or accumulate it without a purpose of exchange (have for having), or use it as a means to express power (power to corrupt). Problems in our country such as corruption, poverty, drug trafficking, violence, among others, are related to individuals who, by not Learning to Have, put money on a pedestal, seek it as an end rather than a means and give it such value they end up being controlled by money rather than controlled by them.
Although money occupies an important place in today's world, it is surprising that at an educational level, neither time nor space is dedicated to teaching children to Learn to Have. To the extent that educational institutions and families assume financial training intentionally and comprehensively, guiding young children to develop attitudes, values, knowledge, and prosperous financial behaviors, to that extent, We will begin to sow the change that will allow tomorrow, to have financially independent adults, who administer their own resources and those of others with wisdom and responsibility, and who give more importance to prosperity than to wealth.
What do educational institutions require to provide a financial education?
Educational institutions that want to start a financial education require:
1st. Actively have a time and a space within the curriculum, in which teachers and students can carry out activities related to this training;
2nd. Identify the stage of development of the economic area in which the boys and girls are, in order to adapt the strategies to be used to that evolutionary stage. Just as the motor area follows a sequence in its development and a three-month-old child cannot be asked to walk, in the same way the economic area has a sequence in its development and a child of three months cannot be asked to walk. three months to establish a relationship between money and buying.
3rd. Determine which teachers are going to carry out the financial training, how that training can be integrated with that given in other subjects by other teachers, what purposes are intended at each level: Preschool, Basic and Middle.
4th. Determine the cognitive processes, values, attitudes and knowledge that, in relation to finances, will be addressed with children.
5th. Determine and carry out the strategies that allow the achievement of the purposes.
6th. Involve the family in this training. Not because it is last, it means that it is the least important. A financial education in which parents are not present is incomplete, since parents are the first trainers of children and those who live in financial situations that teachers do not experience.
What do adults (parents and teachers) require to provide financial education?
Among the aspects that adults require, it is important to highlight three: Set an Example, Make Decisions and Actively Teach, promoting Meaningful Learning.
A) Set an example by consistently living the positive attitudes, prosperity values and economic behaviors that we want to teach. Without a good example, financial education will be limited to knowledge, but it will not transform people's lives. For example. How can we require a child to be honest if we steal or lie?
B) Make decisions related to the economic behaviors of boys and girls, in terms of ways to earn money and ways to manage it. For example. Is the educational institution intentionally promoting or prohibiting children from selling products inside the institution ?; What are mom and dad going to do, when their son wants to spend on sweets, a hundred thousand pesos that they gave him for his first communion ?: Are they going to allow it? Are they going to intervene ?; What are adults going to do when the economic behaviors of children are guided by external pressures (publicity or pressure from friends)?
C) Deliberately and actively teach children economic values, attitudes, knowledge and behaviors, taking into account the evolutionary stage they are going through. For example. Narrating to the older children "The poor old lady" by Rafael Pombo and analyzing it with them from the point of view of wealth and prosperity, is appropriate, while teaching preschool children what that they are compound interests, it is not pertinent, while it is, to teach them hygiene habits related to money or to teach in a motivating way how to save it. By actively educating, it is essential that adults promote meaningful learning, seeking that children understand and give meaning to the financial, contextualizing it in their lives.
Although it is not necessary to be financial experts or economists, it is essential that they have basic knowledge of economics and finance in order to introduce children to financial content.
What aspects to include when providing financial education to children?
Some aspects that are important to address in a financial education have already been mentioned, among them, economic attitudes, values and behaviors. In addition to the above, it is essential to work cognitive processes, and a set of economic knowledge that allows children to understand key financial concepts.
Attitudes: Attitudes are learned, formed and can be modified. They are approached with emotional experiences rather than through rational methods based on knowledge. It is important to foster positive attitudes toward wealth and finances and to work on attitudes that prevent people's economic prosperity.
Values: In relation to financial matters, values are basic as they guide the economic decisions and behaviors of people. It is worth highlighting the question posed by Bernardo Kliksberg: “How can economic policies be designed, resources allocated, priorities determined, without discussing ethical aspects, the morality of what is being done in light of the values that should be the north? of development and democracy ?. It is important that children develop healthy and solid values regarding money, which allow them, in addition to generating well-being, to improve their financial skills, such as honesty, responsibility, credibility, austerity, generosity, etc. Learning to Have implies, in addition to acquiring financial knowledge, living values that allow you to handle finances wisely.
Economic Behaviors: This point is basic, since it implies what boys and girls do with money, to obtain it and to administer it. It is important to teach them from childhood, how adults earn money and how boys and girls get it (with work, allowances, gifts). They also require learning how to manage the money earned, investing it, saving it, spending it wisely, and sharing it.
Cognitive Process: It is essential to promote thought processes in boys and girls that allow them to properly understand and manage the economic world. Literal processes, which consist of obtaining and understanding financial information as it is read, seen, heard. Logical Processes, to deduce relevant financial information or consider different aspects of the literal information obtained; Strategic Processes, where they learn to choose the most appropriate action among a multitude of possible alternatives, in order to solve a problem and Creative Processes, with which they can create, innovate, transform financial situations. As Juan Diego Gómez said in an Internet Finance Seminar, more words, less words: "It is important to understand the information that comes to us,translate it and take advantage of it in investments that allow us to earn financially ”.
Economic Knowledge: Refers to the contents of the economy and finance, which will allow children to adequately manage basic concepts, such as assets, liabilities, inflation, revaluation, interest, CDT, TRM, etc.
Providing financial education to people, from birth is a gradual process that can generate high dividends in economic growth, human development and the well-being of a family, a society and nations. It is up to families and educational institutions to initiate this process.
DELORS, Jacques. The education holds a treasure. Madrid: Santillana - UNESCO, 1996, pp. 95-107.
MADANES, Chloe. MADANES, Claudio. The hidden meaning of money. Buenos Aires: Granica, 1997, pp. 14-16.
J It is important to differentiate between wealth (Being rich) and prosperity (Being rich) as well as differentiating between being poor and being poor. Wealth is a temporary state. It refers to the amount of resources that a person, a family, a community, a city, a country possesses at a given moment. The greater the amount of money, the richer economically the person is. Prosperity is a deep and lasting feeling of abundance, which generates peace, tranquility, security and happiness. It is also a process that involves: a) Being aware of the resources that one possesses, b) Maintaining a positive attitude towards life and towards what one possesses, which leads the person to enjoy what he has, to feel abundance and security in itself and in the environment and c) Know how to manage the resources (few or many) that are owned. Being poor,is not having money at any given time. It is a temporary lack of resources, while being poor is a deep and lasting feeling of scarcity that generates anguish, fear, and insecurity. It is also a process that involves: a) Not realizing the resources that are owned; b) Maintaining a negative attitude towards life and what one owns, which leads the person to complain, criticize, envy, blame others for their situation and think that they have no control over it. And c) Inappropriate management of the resources (few or many) that are owned.b) Maintaining a negative attitude towards life and what one owns, which leads the person to complain, criticize, envy, blame others for their situation and think that they have no control over it. And c) Inappropriate management of the resources (few or many) that are owned.b) Maintaining a negative attitude towards life and what one owns, which leads the person to complain, criticize, envy, blame others for their situation and think that they have no control over it. And c) Inappropriate management of the resources (few or many) that are owned.
KLIKSBERG, Bernardo. Ethics and economy. The marginalized relationship. In:
