TU: Northeast Florida teachers go back to school to learn more about financial literacy

Florida Times-Union

http://jacksonville.com/mandarin-st-johns/town/southside-beaches/2017-03-22/northeast-florida-teachers-go-back-school-learn

Nearly 40 middle and high school teachers from across Northeast Florida became students on March 7 and 9 when they attended financial literacy training hosted by Fidelity Investments.

The teachers spent more than three hours each evening at the company’s Touchton Road location in an effort to help their students become more financially responsible.

“It’s so important starting from an incredibly young age to be exposed to matters of personal finance and economics,” said Dr. Susan Reilly, director of the Center on Economic and Financial Education at Florida State College at Jacksonville. “I look at my friends who are the most successful financially and there’s one thing they all have in common, which is that their parents talked to them about money at a young age. The reality is that a lot of us don’t have parents like that so if it’s not coming from their parents, the other place kids can get it is from their teachers but teachers can’t give it if they don’t have it.”

Reilly said the training, which was in partnership with the Florida Council on Economic Education, first launched last February.

“I’ve seen teachers light up and get super excited about how they can teach financial literacy to their students,” she said. “Personal finance and economics are great bridges to math, science and history and is a great way to engage students while helping our economy down the road in the future.”

Reilly and Pat Curran, an economics teacher at Terry Parker High School, take the information that is presented to teachers on the first night of training by Fidelity Investment employees and show them how they can turn it into classroom lessons.

“Kids have to experience things first hand and we try and find creative ways to do that,” he said. “Teachers are able to walk out of here with the confidence to talk to the kids about this so they’re better able to take steps to be financially responsible.”

Curran said while financial literacy training isn’t uncommon for teachers in the Sunshine State, it is to have large corporations like Fidelity involved.

“It’s not that this training isn’t available, it’s just rare to have corporate companies like this hosting it,” he said. “The teachers get personal finance training straight from professionals and this is Fidelity giving back.”

Mike Sexton, a Fidelity Investments employee, previously facilitated the training and served as the keynote speaker last year.

“We divide the training into savings, budgeting and investing and we have captains at every table to help facilitate conversations among the teachers,” he said. “Financial literacy is our biggest program and helps foster an environment where employees are able to give back to the community.”

Sexton said the program came out of a survey done by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which found that while 89 percent of teachers surveyed believe that financial literacy is important while only 20 percent of them felt confident enough to teach it to their students.

“There’s a disconnect in wanting to provide and being able to provide and that’s where we came in,” he said. “We thought we could make a difference by offering this to teachers so they could go back to their classrooms and feel confident to deliver this message.”

Roger Prior, a ninth grade teacher at Mandarin High School, said, “This was a great experience and I wish I had this information 30 years ago. I look forward to future opportunities for more great learning.”

As the program evolves, Sexton said Fidelity Investments plan on making changes in an effort to better present the information to teachers.

Ann Friedman: (904)359-4619