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As the stock market is making the news recently with the Gamestop and AMC stock events, students at J-DHS need to understand what’s going on. Unfortunately, J-DHS does not have any classes directly related to the stock market that students can take and learn about in a school setting. Students need to learn about the financial opportunities in the stock market and how to manage their portfolios responsibly, and the school should offer a course for them to learn the basics.
A stock market course would be a half-year elective students can choose to take. It is important to preface this as an elective and not a mandatory class because students who truly care will be able to take it while others won’t have to take it.
This class would cover all the basics of the stock market so students can effectively read the tables and analyze the graphs to decide which companies are good to invest in. But they will also have to learn the risks of the stock market and that there is a possibility that they will lose their money if they invest incorrectly.
After the basics are explained, there is a free game online known as the Stock Market Game. It was specifically made to teach students about how to invest and read the stock market. Essentially, each student starts with 100,000 “dollars” (all money and companies are fake but follow trends from real companies). Over the course of two months, students decide which stocks to hold, which ones to sell, and which ones to buy. At the end of the game, students will be able to analyze what they did well and what they wish they did. In addition to this, they will be able to look at risks they took and the risks they didn’t take, and the outcomes of those decisions.
Financial freedom is what leads to a free life. Once one isn’t under the thumb of companies piling on bills and late fees, they decide how they spend their hard-earned money. An essential part of financial freedom is derived from passive income. This is income that you gain without doing anything. An example of this is stocks. If someone invests correctly, they will be able to get those extra boosts of cash quarterly from dividends, in turn, making their life easier.
J-DHS has a responsibility to the community to prepare students for college and beyond. A basic, non-required half-year course on the stock market is the least the school can do to prepare students adequately for their future financially.
