Why most teen financial literacy lessons don’t stick – and I’m looking for testers for my new course
Last Saturday, I was wiping flour off my kitchen counter after baking banana bread when my 16-year-old niece slouched into the chair, phone in hand, and sighed that her concert ticket order got declined. She’d saved $120 from three months of weekend babysitting, had the exact amount in her checking account, and couldn’t figure out where the extra $12 went. I asked if she remembered the convenience fee, the processing fee, and the sales tax. She blinked. “They add extra fees on top of the price they show you?”
That question stuck with me, because I hear some version of it every single semester in the high school business classes I’ve taught for the last 12 years. Last year, a senior came to me after class confused about why his bank charged him a $35 fee – he’d sent his friend $20 for pizza via instant transfer on Venmo, and didn’t realize the 1.5% fee would overdraft his account. The year before that, a 10th grader told me she’d agreed to let her cousin use her Venmo to receive money from a side gig, and ended up with a $90 tax form she didn’t know how to handle.
The standard financial literacy lessons we teach in school, and the advice most parents pick up to share at home, just don’t match what teens are actually dealing with right now. Textbooks spend pages teaching how to balance a checkbook, when most of my students have never written a check in their lives. They spend weeks talking about compound interest for retirement, but never mention how buy now, pay later services hide the total cost of a $30 hoodie by splitting it into four small payments. They cover credit scores in vague terms, but don’t explain how a missed $15 Netflix payment that goes to collections can tank your score before you even apply for your first car loan.
I’ve been ditching my textbook for ad-hoc lessons I pull together myself for almost a decade, but six months ago I decided to organize all those real-world questions and examples into a full, short course for teens. I work on it for an hour after school most days, and on occasional Sunday mornings when my own kids are at soccer practice. It’s 8 30-minute lessons, built entirely around the decisions teens are already making right now, not the decisions they’ll make 30 years from now.
Last week, I tested the first two lessons with my after school study group of five 10th and 11th graders. I put a screenshot of a typical sneaker checkout page on the board, with the $100 advertised price front and center, and all the fees stacked at the bottom. I asked them to calculate the total cost, then compare what would happen if they paid with debit, credit, or a four-part buy now, pay later plan. Three of the five didn’t know that BNPL can run a hard credit check if you miss a payment, and all five said they’d never stopped to add up the full cost before – they just looked at the $25 per payment number and decided it fit their budget. That’s exactly the gap I wanted to fill.
Over the years, I’ve talked to dozens of parents who say they don’t know how to teach this stuff. Many say they’re not comfortable with their own money skills, so they don’t know where to start. Others say they just don’t have time to build a lesson plan from scratch. The good news is you don’t have to. The most effective thing I’ve seen parents do is tiny, 30-second examples in everyday life. Next time you order pizza or concert tickets online with your teen, pause at checkout and point out the extra fees. Just say, “See this $8 processing charge? That’s why the total is more than the price they showed you first.” When your teen gets their first paycheck, sit with them for five minutes and scroll through the pay stub together. Point out where taxes and FICA are taken out, so they’re not shocked when their $800 check becomes $650 take home. If a friend asks them for money, talk through what happens if they don’t pay it back, and how to say no if you can’t afford to lend it. These small, casual moments stick way better than a formal lesson from a textbook.
Now that the first draft of the course is done, I need honest testers. I’m looking for two groups: parents of teens ages 13 to 18 who want to work through the lessons with their kid at home, and high school teachers or after school program leaders who want to try it with a group. Testers get full free access to everything, no strings attached. All I ask is that you fill out three short, 5-minute surveys along the way and tell me exactly what you think. If a lesson is boring, tell me to cut it. If I missed a topic your kid keeps asking about, tell me. If something is confusing or feels off, I want to hear that. I don’t want sugarcoating – this is a rough draft, and I need real feedback to make it work. The course has no corporate sponsorships, no hidden ads for bank accounts or credit cards, so you don’t have to worry about biased content.
I’m only taking 20 testers total right now, so I can actually read and respond to every piece of feedback. I still don’t know if this will turn into something lots of people use, or just a resource I keep for my own classes. That’s part of the point of testing. I’ve seen too many useless financial literacy programs that were built by people who haven’t been in a high school classroom in 20 years, and I don’t want to add another one to the pile. Right now, it’s just about building something that meets teens where they are. If that’s something you’re interested in being part of, the sign up link is below. I’m looking forward to hearing what you have to say.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » Why most teen financial literacy lessons don’t stick – and I’m looking for testers for my new course