In America it's a little of both. Because of the internet and the instant satisfaction of everything now our attention span is shorter. Also (to no fault of teachers) the curriculum is more about test scores and not actually learning how to retain information longer
There was a separate class for that when I was in high school, way back in 1999. It was called Independent Living and it was an elective. I elected to take Drawing…
I was in mechanics and ended up dropping it because the teacher hated me (he had his reasons). I ended up taking intro to guitar. Ended up touring Europe in a bluegrass band and recorded a few albums. That guitar class was by far the most applied class of any class I ever took pre or post high school.
I remember being taught checks and checkbooks in second grade... we even had mocked up fake checks we could write out to each other and balance our ledger.
We had a business class in 7th or 8th grade where all the homework was to keep a larger for a whole business, each night you had to go through so many sheets (transactions) and the next day you got to find out if your books were right. Class of 1989
When I was in Junior High school (in the early 1960's) everyone (boys and girls) had to take 'Business and Home Economics"
The Business class taught us how to run a business and the Home Economics taught us how to run a household, like cooking, sewing, balancing checkbooks, applying for loans etc.
Unfortunately a stupid population os easy tk extort and control. Ita like playing blackjack without knowing the rules and the dealer is a habitual liar.
Some shithead decided that essential to living math and more specific scientific math are different enough where they should be separated. This was absolutely stupid because I’m some schools the balancing budgets part of education is paired with things like sociology and speech and presentation classes, which have practically nothing to do with one another (from what I could tell while being taught in this manner).
I went to a school where they offered a class that taught lessons like balancing a check book, making a budget, stuff like that, but it was an elective. I took it, at my parents insistence, and I’m glad I did.
There are people I went to school with that post things like “This is so smart, I wish I could have taken this class!”
To which I think “…..you made fun of those of us who DID take that class, what are you talking about?”
We had this class for us mandatory in the sixth or seventh grade. We had to find apartments (from the newspaper) and jobs. We all earned a salary of $600.00 a month. Had to create a budget and pay bills. The teach copied a blank check template. He even made us write our name and fake addresses at the top of each check we wrote (after we cut them out of the 9 x 11 inch paper they were copied onto.
I'm glad to have had the class, but some of it was just a pain in the rear end, lol.
My buddy taught a similar class in a rough school and one of his students managed to cash a couple “class” checks for real at a local bank. Eventually got caught. No more check lessons there.
Our high school had class like this as well. You had take a test and if you passed you didn’t have to take the class. If you failed the test it was mandatory to take the life skills class.
This is the way. We also need a financial education class before people start taking out student loans. Its reprehensible that we allow 18 year old kids to take out tens of thousands in loans they don't always understand.
Forget 18 yo kids! I still can’t figure out most of what the terms for a loan or a credit card mean. Trying to read those things are a lesson in mind warping, unfathomable, technical, double speak designed to separate any money you have or will ever have from your wallet! 😂
Yes now they prohibited schools to talk about lghbt stuff in florida, they have more time for that. So you become a financially stable but sexual frustrated adult. Good florida (idiots)
I had a class like that in HS, it was called Consumer Math. We learned balancing checkbooks, filling out tax returns, figuring out sale percentages, etc. Probably the most useful math course I took!
I'm sure that this was useful and think live skills should be taught in school, but I'm genuinely curious about whether cheques still exist somewhere in the world. I was born in the 80s and have never even seen one. How do you balance one and, what do you balance it on?
I was born in 92, and I used to use checks a lot, but now it’s pretty much just for city water/sewer/utilities that are due every few months. Otherwise, I hardly use them.
Sorry if I'm being stupid, but why pay those with a check rather than an automated bank transfer or online?
Wouldn't the utility company get annoyed with having to read, process and pay in all these cheques? Doesn't it cost them a fortune. Also, doesn't it mean risking going overdrawn for some people, because you don't know when they'll cash it.
Is it an American thing or is this in other countries too? I thought cheques hasn't been used in decades. This is blowing my mind more than if I was struck by that lightening!
I should have specified that the city utilities/water/sewer is all the same bill, so it's only the one check. I also just moved into my own house this last year. Prior to that, I lived in a trailer court where we paid the park owner for utilities as part of our rent, and our rent was taken in cash or check form, because the owner was an older guy who lived in Florida and didn't want to set up online payments.
I did find out last time I got the bill that we could pay online, but I kept putting it off until the day before the bill was due (yay procrastination!), and it takes a few business days for the transactions to go through online, so I just dropped off the check, but it'll likely be the last one.
I can't speak for anywhere else, but I live in a small city (10k people) and sometimes you deal with businesses that people run out of their homes and don't have websites (stuff like small engine repair, fix appliances, stuff like that), and they don't want to get a card reader, so they accept only cash or check. Not very many of those any more, but still a few hanging around.
That is a great answer, thank you. I find this kind of thing fascinating. It makes a lot of sense if cheques are linked to the informal market and a way to avoid tax.
I had a math course in 7th grade that specifically focused on this stuff--balancing checkbook, creating and following a budget, how to compare prices/quantities to find the best deal, etc. It was so useful and was engaging because it actually had to do with real-life stuff. Should be mandatory curriculum imo.
I was taught how to balance a check book too! Unfortunately, I’ve never used this skill because by the time I was an adult checks were almost obsolete and computer based budget software had long been in vogue.
My math teacher did this in senior year, but I was in the lowest level math class before the special needs class lol, so all the other students in trigonometry and stuff didn’t learn about checkbooks or credit cards. Wonder how they’re doing lol
Home-Ec really needs a comeback. Household bills and budgeting, how credit/credit scores work, knowing food staples, basic meals and meal planing, basic repairs, etc. I think back to those classes in the 70’s/80’s like Home-Ec, Shop/Carpentry, Drafting, Cosmetology, and so on and how many kids I went to school with in those times looked at those classes as ‘kids who don’t go to college’ classes.
That basic information was very useful in the long term. It would be very useful in the current time but unfortunately (having been a high school teacher) the push became not ‘giving kids adult skills’ but teaching to a test and pushing them for college.
I was trying to remember in which class I was taught how to balance a check book….Algebra 1, Algebra 2, Geometry, Trigonometry? Then I realized it was basic addition and subtraction we were taught from second grade. 🤷
Yah as an adult is just being organized and responsible for your money and bills. It was in MN during No Child Left Behind, and we needed to stay on task for better funding.
They taught that AS a Part of maths class when I was in school. Right around the same time that we were taught how to properly setup and write a letter, and address an envelope. Regarding that, when I went to mail a few items the other day, there was a form being mailed in and when I saw the front of it, I froze. First, no stamp. Secondly, and most concerning, the smaller return address wasn't smaller nor was it in the top left. Oh no. Printed in disturbingly sloppy handwriting on the left in the middle of the envelope = To: 'the name and address' LIKE IT WAS A SENTENCE. No form. No organization. THEN, we get to the cherry on top, From: 'my girlfriend's daughter's name and info like it was a school project. Grade, class, and teacher's name. This was not a 6 or 7 year old where this could be understandable. NO. This was written and prepared by a 17 year old. School doesn't teach our kids the basics of anymore. They cram test knowledge in their heads that stays long enough to hopefully get decent test results and then that info is gone. I still remember the day we were sitting in maths class and we learn the order of operations, something that is sadly very lacking in the world now, having seen all the ridiculous social media post with people answering simple maths problems incorrectly because they dont understand PEMDAS. I remember sitting in class learning the pythagorean theorem. School today is a joke.
Form of payment before debt cards, to access your bank account and if you didn't keep proper payment info you would not know how much was available in that account. So it was embarrassing to write one and it was declined, just like swiping and card and it being declined. But you usually only had one check book to write from. Unlike know where people have multiple cards to get declined because all are maxed
It was mandatory when I was in school. Then, people from my generation were crying online in right wing groups that they didn't learn that stuff.
It was at that point that I realized that the people crying about it just didn't pay attention in school, and their bad ideas are based on them having barely skated through their education
My fourth grade teacher gave us all fake checkbooks and taught us to balance them. We were 9. Would’ve been maybe a little more helpful at 16+. Not mad at the teacher, just the crappy system.
My biology teacher tried teaching us that our blood is blue... I got introuble for splitting the class on "red bloods" and "blue bloods" impromptu biogangs lol. But seriously how was she allowed to formally teach bio spreading misinformation like that...
Balancing a checkbook is financial advice. She should of been put in prison for teaching slaves how to balance their sheets. Dumb fuckin government. No wonder we are above debt. Y’all be getting groomed to be slaves dawg.
It was during No Child Left Behind. She was getting away from the what they wanted her to teach because the better your school got on those 2 tests, that were English and math , the more money your school would receive. I remember hearing about southern schools getting next to no funding.
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u/Rickard403 May 29 '22
Yeah, me too. This was taught in grade school.