Teaching Tech: What Is A Recession?

by Nicole Ouellette

Now More Than Ever, Students Should 'Get' Economics

With the housing crisis, the stockmarket tanking (well, except the last two days), oil prices rising, many families (and their kids) have money on the brain. Teachers can either ignore this or take the opportunity to empower young people to learn more about our current economic situation. (Gee, guess what I think?) If you think about it, I bet if more of us had more substantial money management education, our current recession wouldn't be so bad.

With the advent of the internet, it is much easier to do simulations of the stock market, something I looked forward to doing in school but never got to. There are programs like this one (it's apparently free and you can do it as an individual or with your class). Stocks are a good illustration of where it can go wrong on a smaller scale; it's a little easier to understand what happened to Bear Stearns after one of the student's stocks has bit the dust.

Of course, there are government resources that our tax money pays for so might as well use them, like the National Council On Economic Education and they've got links for days of resources you can use in your classroom. Finding activities, games, and simulations to make the economy and money fun can make this period of economic uncertainty a learning opportunity rather than a wild ride we just all happen to be on. I hope some of you are up to this challenge!

Nicole will post "Teaching Tech" (formerly Tech Tuesday) about internet resources for your classroom whenever she thinks of it, which is incidentally never on a Tuesday. She doesn't teach anymore but works at a newspaper and maintains her own personal finance blog: http://www.breakingeven.typepad.com.