Hello Fellow Classmates,
As I write this blog post, I have to admit even though I enjoy math, studying economics is not the most exciting topic to me but after our class on Tuesday, I now see how wrong I was! I never imagined that our economics lesson would include reading diary entries and studying artwork. I liked that we began the class with a turn-and-talk on the core economic principles, then moved into the decision making model and important ideas including key vocabulary to provide to students. This class helped me to understand the importance of preparing an interactive lesson and providing students with an opportunity to experience economics in different ways. Such as Dr. Bland telling us about a grocery shopping experience with her daughter when she was learning about opportunity cost in school. Throughout history we see the importance of economics and our students will need to know these principles to function as good citizens. As we saw in class, economics touches all parts of our lives, so we have to ensure our students are getting the foundation needed to reach their full potential. It seems we are now moving to a more cashless system for buying and selling goods. How do you think this will affect our society and how do we prepare our students for this? Here’s an interactive link from PBS kids that may be helpful with economic learning: Cyberchase . Topics . Money | PBS KIDS
Our activity of reviewing primary source documents of Ephraim Coleman, an ordinary 68-year-old man who kept a diary was fun and comparing different sections of the diary to get insight into his daily life over the period of a year was interesting. This is another great way to have students look for economic principles in everyday life. I especially liked utilizing the Question Formulation Technique (QFT) to help with researching an important person in American history, although I did find it hard to think of just questions without stopping to discuss, so I was tapped once 😊 by Dr. Bland. I would never think to teach a history lesson in this manner, it was an “aha” moment for me. At the beginning of the semester, I really saw history as just facts and figures to learn, which is how I was taught history in school. We did not have any interactive activities to make history exploratory, exciting, and wanting to dive deeper to learn more. I don’t remember hearing about economics until high school and it wasn’t a study of it, but essentially just a definition to learn so this has been eye-opening to me. In our slides for this week’s class, Drs. Stohr and Bland have provided great links on teaching economics in elementary education. One in particular, the Virginia Council on Economic Education, provides entire lesson plans for interactive teaching of economics to elementary students. I reviewed a few of them and will keep as a resource for lesson planning. I now understand how important it is to start economic education early. Here’s a couple of links I hope will help you regarding this: yl_220304.pdf (socialstudies.org) ; Economics For Kids And Teenagers | PBS LearningMedia
So, my final questions are: for this week’s class, did you have an “aha” moment? If so what was it? Also, do you remember when you were taught about economics in school? What was your experience? Any other thoughts on this session? It really was a lot of fun with economics and it is always so helpful to me to hear your thoughts; I get a better perspective on what we’ve learned. Looking forward to hearing from you!
Thanks, Tera
Hi Tera!
Thank you for your post; I loved reading your insights about this week’s class!
I agree that we are definitely moving to a cashless system for buying goods and services, which I’m not surprised in the slightest about. Personally, I’m happy about this because I don’t enjoy carrying cash around and having my debit card on me is much easier! As for students, I don’t think a cashless system will be helpful in their economics learning. Cash is a great way to visualize buying and selling goods. It’s also difficult for young children to understand credit and debit cards and other methods of cashless systems.
My “aha” moment was when Dr. Stohr informed us that every single book is an economics book. I was surprised at first, but then I realized that this fact makes complete sense. I haven’t read a book in which a character or multiple characters didn’t have wants and/or needs. Children’s literature can be utilized to teach students important economic concepts. Before this class, I thought of economics being simply goods and services and prices. Now, I understand that children are using economic principles from a young age and they aren’t even aware that the decisions they are making are related to economics. It was eye-opening that Dr. Bland showed us a kindergarten economic lesson about decision-making because it conveyed that teachers must educate students about these vital economic concepts as young as kindergarten. To be honest, I don’t even remember being taught anything about economics until I took AP Macroeconomics my senior year of high school. I feel as though if my elementary and middle school teachers put an emphasis on the importance of economics, I would have remembered it.
This session, as normally every session does, opened my eyes to the ways in which teachers can educate students in an interactive environment. I absolutely loved the QFT activity because it allows students to tailor the lesson to their own interests instead of the teacher just simply providing students with the answers or content off the bat. I was significantly more interested in learning about who the man in the picture was since we were given the opportunity to create our own questions. I definitely believe that my K-12 teachers would have began that lesson with the instructional video instead of engaging students in the content beforehand.
Hi Christina, I certainly understand about not having to worry about cash these days. There are times I’m at the store, especially the dollar store and I have to use my debit card for purchases under $10 because I don’t have cash on me. Also, yes I think it is much easier to help younger kids understand the basic economic principles using cash but I know we’ll adjust as needed to teach more about credit cards, debit cards, and even payment apps. Thanks so much for your response!
Hello Tera and class,
I have always enjoyed math also, as a Math Interventionist for Henrico County, I work with students daily and this class last Tuesday gave me a different view on economics as well.
Turn and talk is always a great way to start the class, I have learned an enormous amount of information from class members on viewing topics in a manner that I do not always think about.
It is important to teach students in a manner that gains their attention and give them information that will allow them to ask questions and get involved in the lesson. Economics is a subject that not all students will look forward to but at the same time it is a subject that other classes will build off of. We viewed economics in a different manner in class which provided tools that can be used in teaching our students. Last week’s class was interesting when we looked at a bill for 1848 and were able to see the debits and credits and how the store owners kept their books.
Learning opportunity cost is a great lesson to learn at any age. We make decisions in today’s activities that involve opportunity cost. We should make decisions that are smart and thoughtfully thought-out, decisions that will benefit our goals and better position us to be successful in the future. Teaching student’s lesson of this nature will give them instruments and foundations to build on going forward. It is our responsibility as teachers to give our students what is needed to become good citizens, as you stated.
You stated that we are moving toward a cashless system and I remember driving on 895 in Richmond and a toll booth has a “credit card only” lane. That is different for individuals such as myself that can remember when credit cards first came into existence. Today we have people with their credit cards attached to their phones, never carrying cash, and other things that feel a bit different to “old school” people such as myself. Our society is moving quickly in directions that are designed to make living and life simpler, but I’m not sure if it is or not. We will do our part in teaching our students to be prepared for what is before them, that’s our responsibility.
Thank you for your post,
Milton
Hi Milton, I am an “old school” person too, so I remember starting college and being so excited to get the first credit card which I promptly used to buy everything I wanted not realizing the debt it would put me in. I love that children are getting economic information so early to help build a good foundation of financial responsibility from the beginning which I’m sure you see on a daily basis. Thanks for sharing! Tera
Hi Tera!
Thank you for your post! I love hearing about your main takeaways and favorite “aha” moments from class!
I can relate to you in the sense that I love math, however economics has always been dreaded topic for me. It was funny to see how the entire class originally seemed to dislike economics before this last class session, and we were all in it together. I think it is safe to say that this has changed, and now we all feel much more comfortable with incorporating economics into our teaching!
My “aha” moment was definitely learning about how every children’s book can be used for an economics lesson. At first I didn’t really believe this, but I completely agree with the use of any children’s book to introduce seeing the list of what the principles of economics consist of. All children’s books that I can think of consist of the main characters having choices, which also entail costs, and they all have wants. The stories may not directly say key economic principles that we commonly see in our economic classes, such as producer/consumer surplus, however many stories highlight the main ideas surrounding these topics in ways that are more relatable for students at their age. This is one of the most important things about teaching any lesson at any age. When students feel engaged in a lesson due to interest or personal relatability, they take more away from the lesson.
I do not remember learning anything about economics until my senior year in high school up until now. This is why I was so shocked to see that students are learning about opportunity cost in elementary school. I have just been learning about this throughout the semester in my microeconomics class! That being said, I wish I was taught about concepts like these at a young age because I would have a much easier time applying them currently.
I am looking forward to teaching economics in my future teaching career! I am excited to able to connect everyday children’s books to economic lessons that will impact students’ lives going forward.
Thank you again for your post!!
-Alexa
Hi Alexa, yes I agree about the books… I too did not think about how you can find economic principles within all books but doing the exercise in class was really helpful to point this out. I am with you, I cannot wait to start teaching these lessons and loved how Drs. Stohr and Bland prepared this lesson for us. Thanks so much for your response.
Tera
Hello Tera,
Thank you for your post. I too was uncertain about my teaching economics before we talked over strategies in class. I have little to no experience in the topic, and my high school didn’t offer any economics in their curriculum. I thought that I would have to section off economics to certain parts of my teaching. I felt relieved when I found out how widespread economic topics were in everyday life and children’s books. I believe my “aha” moment was the QFT. I love the idea of a QFT and will happily use that in the classroom. I want to encourage my students to be explorers in the subjects and topics we cover, and I believe that using QFTs will help achieve that goal!
Thank you for sharing!
Ashley
Hi Ashley, yes the QFT was definitely my favorite part of the lesson and will be included within my lesson plans. It is great too because it can be used with other elementary subjects, such as science and reading. The process was so interactive that it will keep the students engaged to learn more about the lesson. Also I agree it was great to see how you can use diary entries, a book and even artwork to teach economics. I appreciate your response.
Thanks, Tera
Hi Tera!
Thanks for your post, I shared a lot of the same thoughts!
My ‘aha’ moment of this class was the simplicity at which I learned I can teach economics. I remember learning economics in high school, so whenever I think about having to teach economics to students I am thinking exclusively about my high school experience and teach students a mix of macro- and microeconomics. However, we didn’t touch on that at all! We focused more on the core principles and brought in real world examples (the day book), which are great ways to start teaching the principles of economics to younger students. I have to constantly remind myself that the lessons do not have to be extravagant and I just need to begin by teaching the basics and, as needed and able to, can move onto some deeper topics.
I also loved the QFT activity we did in this class. I loved that it allowed us to explore the questions we had and write them down with no judgement, which I think is a very important lesson that students will need to learn, as well. It is so fun because it allows students’ questions to lead the discussion and you can see what students want to learn more about and get an idea of what they know and what they don’t know. I think it also brings out the personality of students – while there were a lot of similar questions asked in our class, there were some questions that were off the wall (looking at my group specifically!) and it can really spark a discussion within the group and as a whole when discussion is allowed.
Hi Tera,
Thank you so much for your insightful post!
I too struggled to find my excitement for this weeks class on economics, but that definitely changed throughout the course of the night. When I was in elementary school, I don’t remember learning much about economics. The only topic I can recall is when we did a deep dive into what each coin represents, how much a dollar is worth, etc. I even remember my teacher setting up a “bank” to help us practice exchanging and counting currency.
When I was in high school, I was taught economics in a very standard and non-engaging way. I had an incredibly difficult time grasping the concepts which eventually led to me feeling helpless. I wish I had had a teacher that had introduced parts of economics through sources such as the diary entires we read in class. Those were such much more relatable to everyday life and easier to understand. I know I must keep my past experiences in mind when planning my economics lessons.
Additionally, I also loved the QFT we conducted. I had never seen an activity like that before and I found it to be extremely helpful. Being able to ask as many questions as possible helped me narrow down my thoughts to what I actually needed to ask. It also made me so much more excited to finally get the answers.
Thank you so much again for your post!
Hi Tera,
Thank you for your summary of our class this week and for your questions!
My main “aha” moment was the same as a few others — the recognition that all children’s books can be used to illustrate some sort of economic concept. I appreciated our class discussions and activities because they gave us an example of how to integrate primary sources into economic principles discussions at the elementary level. Prior to our class, I too was imagining a more formal macro and micro view of economics, when in reality there are so many basic concepts that can be taught and intentionally woven into other material and concepts. Personally, I don’t recall learning about economics at all until my senior year of high school.
I really enjoyed practicing the QFT as well and feel like this is a really engaging teaching technique for students that will hold their attention. I also find it interesting to step back and reflect on my own observations about the picture, such as “I wonder why that’s the first thing I noticed” and self-reflecting on the types of questions I have about images vs. data sets, like the store log. As a learner, I feel more comfortable with analyzing words and numbers than pictures, but I realize that may be because there aren’t as many images in my current profession. Even when we were at the Valentine Museum, I found myself spending much more time reading the plaques and written descriptions than I did examining the physical artifacts themselves — so for me, being forced to start off a lesson examining a picture with no context really helped to expand my mind and get me out of my comfort zone as a learner. That acknowledgement helps underscore how important it will be for me as a teacher to recognize my own biases as it relates to what kind of learner I am and intentionally include lessons and activities that speak to a variety of learning styles and preferences.
Thank you again Tera for your insights and questions about our last class!
Sue Anne
Hi Tera!
Thank you for your response. Although I was not able to attend our class this past week, I enjoyed learning about it through your post! I am also not a big fan of economics or mathematics, and was not under the impression that diary entries were used to teach them! One question that lingers in my mind is what kind of economics I will be teaching young students! I enjoyed reading the definitions of economics, as I always thought that economics was about money and math! I appreciate that there are many other ways to teach economics to students, such as through picture books! My ‘aha’ moment overall is just that there are many other fun, enjoyable ways to teach economics that I am looking forward to doing in my own classroom. I have been dreading the thought of economics and teaching it within the classroom, but the fact that I will be teaching younger students and can use such fun materials gives me hope for myself in the classroom in the future!
Thank you!
Halle
Hi Tera!
I really enjoyed reading about how impactful this lesson was for you! Economics does not have to be the boring theory that some believe it is. Instead, it can be a way to help students in their decision-making process and help them think about their goals and how to achieve them.
I really enjoyed the activity with Cesar Chavez and the QFT. That was a great way to get students up and engaged in the lesson before we even began. I love having students be the guiding force of their education and providing the guiding questions of the lesson. The QFT can be used for so many different purposes as well which is a very useful tool for a teacher to have in their pocket.
I also really enjoyed thinking about all books in the sense of economics. This could make the experience more personal for the students to use stories that they know and love to teach them about economics and how those strategies are implemented in everyday life.
Hi Tera!
Thank you for your thorough post, I feel as though it is the perfect way to conclude our blog posts! I am curious as well about how our teaching will evolve as we move closer to “cashless” systems. Every year it seems like cash is being phased out more and more, so it will be interesting to see how our kids engage with economics in that sense.
I, too, had a very unexciting experience learning about economics in high school. Almost everything was focused on definitions and graphs, which never appealed to me at all. It seems that most of our peers agree, based on our collective groan after we learned that we’d be focusing on econ for last week’s class session. I was very glad to be proven wrong about my previous beliefs! Economy isn’t boring like I once thought, nor is it limited to math/business related realms. My aha moment was hearing that every children’s book has economic principles. I genuinely thought there was no way that this could be true, yet it completely was. Our experiences from last class make me feel more excited and comfortable teaching students about economics, and I’m grateful that we got a chance to explore topics that are often overlooked when we immediately think about history.
Thanks again Tera!
Jordann
Greetings, Tera! Thanks for raising these questions and for linking the Sesame Street economics videos. I watched the one entitled “Scarcity Cat (Supply and Demand)” (mainly because I like cats). In it, a living maneki neko statue (those Japanese cat statues with one paw raised that one sometimes sees beside cash registers, believed to contain wealth-bringing magic) who runs a cheese shop is uncertain how to price the cheese she intends to sell. She considers a price of one cent per pound, but rejects this idea because all the cheese would be bought up by the first customers to appear. Then she considers a price of one million dollars per pound, but rejects this idea because nobody would buy the cheese. Finally, she settles on a price just above the price she paid the cheesemaker to buy the cheese, allowing her to make a profit. Her human companion commends her for pricing “fairly” so that “there’s enough cheese for everyone who can afford it.”
I think this video does a good job of teaching what it is attempting to teach. Economic concepts are probably easiest for kids (and, for that matter, other economically uneducated folk such as William DeFilippo) to understand when numbers are exaggerated, and they don’t need to spend any time or energy working out in their heads whether a price is exceptionally high or low; hence the use of “one cent per pound” and “one million dollars per pound”. The exaggeratedly high numbers are also funny, which helps to retain kids’ interest (and, again, my interest). So that’s a good principle to keep in mind when teaching economic concepts.
On the other hand, the final lines of the skit struck me as rather sinister. Of course, I am as ferociously anticapitalist as it is possible for somebody who is, uh, too lazy and cowardly actually to participate in any anticapitalist activism to be; and on top of that I am instinctively contrarian; so whenever economics comes up, I find myself searching frantically for some hint of unquestioned capitalist ideology in whatever I’m hearing, in order that I may feel impotent rage about it! So I can hardly speak without bias on this matter. Nonetheless, since I must say something, I will say: I would not feel comfortable telling children that they are pricing “fairly” merely by using a moderate markup instead of an enormous one, because there is no such thing as pricing “fairly”! Any economic system in which people are deprived of the most basic living necessities by default, and must perform labor to support the kingly lifestyles of a small portion of the population in order to gain those few overlords’ _permission_ to receive the least resources they need to live, is ALWAYS UNFAIR. All prices are unfair, some are just more exaggeratedly cruel and greedy than others. More on that in the Commonplace Book reflection I will share on the last day of class. However, I must admit that as much as I’d like to teach children solely about truth, beauty & goodness and release them into a culture that runs on those principles, the fact is that we do not live in such a culture, and some of my students will need to run businesses in a capitalist economy in order to survive. Therefore it is appropriate to teach them how to do so successfully. How, then, can one simultaneously teach children how to operate within a culture with massive wealth inequality and yet avoid giving them the idea that the culture’s unjust elements are natural, inevitable, and fair? I don’t know.
It does appear that we are moving to a cashless system, and it occurs to me that this may in fact be the most natural way of doing things. As we learned in our previous class, early America was also mostly a cashless economy, and I think the same is true for most cultures, particularly in rural areas, throughout time and space. The difference, however, is that in previous centuries, credits and debits were recorded in physical ledgers, while today, they are recorded digitally. And this worries me! It means that anyone without electricity, internet, or the ability to secure this or the other gadget is basically disenfranchised; whereas in the Ox Cart Man’s time, anybody who stepped into the store could trade one thing for another, regardless of their prior wealth or circumstances. It makes everyone even more dependent on electrically powered machinery that is destroying the environment, and on the Internet, which is enormously destructive to our mental health and makes it easy for corporations to track everything about us. I think people should be able to opt out of these things if they want; but that is becoming harder and harder to do.
Oh, wait, I guess it wasn’t a Sesame Street video. It was something called $martPath. I just assumed it was Sesame Street cuz it looks like it & is on PBS.
Hi William, I really enjoyed reading all of your insightful comments regarding the video you watched and our economics class last week. I agree it is really difficult navigating the task of teaching our students how a fair system should work but then have them go out into a world that is inherently unfair to the majority of persons. But in regards to economics, I feel a lot better about teaching the subject due to all of the tools we were given by Dr. Stohr and Dr. Bland. I now see history and social studies in a whole new light. I’m glad you were able to access the links I provided and thanks again for your response. Take care, Tera
Hello Tera!
Thank you for your response and helpful links!
In this week’s class, my “aha” moment was when Dr. Bland had made the statement that “every children’s book is an economics book.” I had never thought of a children’s book covering economic concepts, but looking at the list, I can definitely see how there are various connections no matter what book you pick up.
I can’t really remember when I was explicitly taught economics in school, but I do remember being taught how to count money, supply and demand, and more complex topics once I got to high school. My high school did have a personal finance class, but I wasn’t able to take it because of my schedule. I regret not taking it though because I think I would have greatly benefited.
I really enjoyed this session. I feel like we covered a lot of different ways to integrate economics into the classroom. I am looking forward to learning more about how I can incorporate economics into my classroom in the future.
Carstyn K
Hi Tera,
Thanks for asking so many good questions in your post. I want to respond to the notion of a cashless system. When my son started kindergarten, I was shocked to learn that he would not be bringing money to school to buy milk but instead would enter a pin code in the lunch line. We teach kids about money in the context of math, but they have so few experiences to really use it anymore. I always had loose change and would let William count it. He worked hard to save money so he could buy things he wanted. I think we lose out on many economic ideas when we remove cash purchases from the realm of kids’ experiences. Even though this is how I feel as a teacher, I can tell you that I use my phone and debit card to pay for everything. I can’t tell you when I last used cash, so this is a real conundrum.
I’m glad you enjoyed the varied activities during class and had an aha moment regarding the teaching of economics.