HOW IT WORKS

The Money Academy curriculum is designed to guide students and teachers through an exploration of money: What money is, how it works, and what can be done with it. At its core, The Money Academy program is focused on empowering teachers and students to be knowledgeable about money and to be responsible for the choices they make in how to use their money. The objective is for students to have a map for creating and sustaining financial stability for their lives.

One key component of how our curriculum works is the methodology we use. Teachers are guides with questions, not experts with all the answers. Hence, students are the creators of their understanding and knowledge about money. In addition to the online training modules that teachers complete, our curriculum manual incorporates supporting notes to assist the teacher in working within the context of discovery and exploration. We offer suggestions for questions and actions the teacher can use throughout each session.

Another key component of how our curriculum works is that the students form themselves as one team. Beginning with the first session, students are guided through how to form a team, how to support members of a team, and what makes a team work or not work. Throughout the program, leadership is modeled and fostered.

Each session begins with a quick review of the previous session and introduces the concept for that day. This is usually done through questions for the students. After the review and introduction, there is an activity, followed by discussion of what the students observed or noticed during the activity. The teacher then guides the conversation to bring out key elements relevant to the day’s topic. In most of the lessons there are times when students are required to apply basic skills, i.e., basic mathematical calculations, graphing, reasoning, predicting, etc. Each session ends with a Conclusion of the lesson and a time for team members to acknowledge each other.