We are offering Financial Algebra for the first time at our school this upcoming school year. Myself and my former student teacher (I say that because we work awesome together and we hired her last year!) will be teaching 2 sections each of the third-year elective math course. I'm both very excited and crazy nervous! When I taught Integrated Math 1 the past 2 years, we discuss simple and compound interest and I become SOOOO passionate about the topic. Last year we even discussed credit card statements and the "minimum" payment!!
As we started preparing things for this year, we decided to do Chapter 3, Banking Services, first. The first two sections are on Checking Accounts and Reconcile a Bank Statement. It got me thinking ... does anyone use a check register or reconcile their accounts anymore? My counterpart said she just looks at her account balance online. Although I'm about 5-6 years older than her, I kept a written check register for the longest time (probably stopped in 2005 - my husband still keeps receipts for me because I used to make him do it all the time!!). I've been using Quicken for almost 10 years to manage my checking and savings accounts. I enter every transaction and categorize every expense. Am I the only one???? In asking a few others, I feel like I am! So, I wonder at what generation did that switch occur?
We decided to introduce the idea of how to balance a checking account by seeing if the students could with little to no direction. We figured this generation isn't writing a ledger of transactions, but depending more and more on the information provided online by their bank. I also decided that I wanted to see what others did, so I'm having each student quickly interview 3 people (Survey document) as homework on the first day. I haven't yet decided if I want to do a Google Form yet for the data, but I think the results may create a great discussion in class.
Since we only have 3 days figured out of this course, I'm back to planning. But, what are your thoughts on reconciling accounts?
Experiences of a high school teacher.
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