They're Getting it!

When I found out I was teaching personal finance again this semester, I was elated. I think every high school student needs to take a course in this important subject before graduating. It is a shame that we don't teach these kids how to handle money.

Later, when I found out I was teaching 9, 10, and 11 year olds, I panicked. The curriculum is geared to teens! How do I do this?

Well, my approach, of just talking to them, reading them stories (the Dave Ramsey "Jr." stories), and taking it slowly is paying off. Today Joshua, whose mom will tell you has the attention span of a flea on a hot brick, not only explained the snowball illustration I gave last week, he left the class saying, "I don't want to pay interest to anybody, I just want to earn interest on my money!"

Hallelujah! They are getting it!


Today is:

Australia Day (Commemorates Captain Arthur Phillip's arrival at Sydney Cove with the First Fleet, on January 26, 1778.)

Duarte Day, Dominican Republic

End of the Fifth Quarter of the Ninth Dozen of the Thirteenth Set -- Fairy Calendar

Lotus 1-2-3 Day

National Peanut Brittle Day

National Popcorn Day

National Speak Up and Succeed Day

Republic Day, India

Spike the Punch Day

Spouse's Day

St. Paula's Day (patron of widows)

Toad Hollow Day of Encouragement

Up-Helly-AA Day, Lerwick, Shetland (fire festival)


Anniversaries Today:

Michigan becomes the 26th US state, 1837



Birthdays Today:

Kherington Payne, 1990
Kirk Franklin, 1970
Wayne Gretzky, 1961
Anita Baker, 1958
Ellen DeGeneres, 1958
Eddie Van Halen, 1955
Lucinda Williams, 1953
Gene Siskel, 1946
Angela Davis, 1944
Scott Glenn, 1942
Bob Uecker, 1935
Jules Feiffer, 1929
Paul Newman, 1925
Anne Jeffreys, 1923
Maria Augusta von Trapp, 1905
Douglas MacArthur, 1880
Mary Maples Dodge, 1831
Emperor Go-Nara of Japan, 1497


Today in History:

The fifth recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet, 66
Vicente Yáñez Pinzón becomes the first European to set foot on Brazil, 1500
Isaac Newton receives Jean Bernoulli's 6 month time-limit problem, and solves the problem before going to bed that same night, 1697
The magnitude 9 Cascadia Earthquake took place off the west coast of the North America, as evidenced by Japanese records, 1700
The Rum Rebellion, the only successful (albeit short-lived) armed takeover of the government in Australia, 1808
Tennessee enacts the first prohibition law in the United States, 1838
Hong Kong is proclaimed a sovereign territory of Britain, 1841
The first US income tax, passed to raise funds for the Civil War, is repealed, 1871
Muhammad Ahmed ("Mahdi") rebels conquer Khartoum, Sudan, 1885
The World's largest diamond, the 3,106-carat Cullinan, is found, 1905
The Short Magazine Lee-Enfield Mk III is officially introduced into British Military Service, and remains the oldest military rifle still in official use, 1907
Former Ford Motor Co. executive Henry Leland launches the Lincoln Motor Company which he later sold to his former employer, 1920