"Reality Store" at Shelbyville IN middle school

I'm not sure why this isn't in the School forum but I'm pretty confident it will find it's way there eventually.

I think it's good for kids to understand the realities of finances and the effects of personal choices. Ideally, they would be learning these things from their family. But people (in the US, at any rate) are bizarre about their unwillingness to talk about money and their income, even with their own children. The program portrays everything a little too black and white (good grades equal good income) which isn't realistic.

4evermom wins today's prize for psychic prediction! And yes, this thread has been moved from Unschooling to Learning at School...

Dar

: Lol.

Well, I actually thought it was a good article :

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me too

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(from the article)

Because we all know that students not "excelling" in school are just not applying themselves or working hard enough.

We did something similar in 5th grade and I remember it being very slanted against having children too.

It's okay...ish. These "reality stores" can't predict the future.

My grades in school were excellent. I was an honor roll student from the first day of Kindergarten till graduation, excepting 8th and 9th grade when I had to run a household and school wasn't a priority. But I maintained 2.8-3.3 even then. I got 4.0s in high school so frequently that it wasn't even given special attention anymore after a while. I had the highest ACT score in my school.

I'm seven credits away from a BS in psychology and I've completed courses in pre-pharmaceuticals. By all accounts, I should be able to knock off those two classes, go to grad school and still be able to get a decent job while I do it. According to that store, I should be Just Fine.

But grad school is pricey. And I don't have the 345 per credit hour that I need to finish the classes. The economy is bad. I can't even find a decent retail job. I quit my parttime job because it was too expensive to maintain the house and childcare with it. My high school graduate husband is doing better than I am.

I think that the better reality is to just encourage the kids where they are, in hopes that things are great in the future. Things happen that you can't predict. Life happens. All the education in the world can't prevent that.

The whole grades = good job thing is pretty over-simplistic. (As I think a previous posted pointed out) Its just ONE way to get kids to think about implications of what they do in school vs real life and how the two relate. My guess is they equated jobs that require a college education to those that don't and if you don't get good grades chances are you aren't heading for college. (but not always the case) You can get a good job without college, but thats probably not what they used for examples.

But besides that, I think its a good idea. A LOT of kids now-a-days don't understand the value of money, jobs, and the impact the choices we make have on our lives. While most of us do our best to teach these skills ourselves, there are MANY parents who don't.

And trust me, good grades don't equal a great job with good pay. I was straight As through high school and college (or at least when I was serious about college, lol) and my pay is no where near what some would consider good.

And kids cost a LOT of money if you are talking about daycare expenses. This may be one way to help kids realize that and reconsider their sexual activity as teens or to at least be safe about it. It would cost me $1400 a month to have childcare in the summer for my kids if I worked full time. Yeah, not gonna happen. ( I just got lucky and have a job that provides childcare, but thats not the norm)

I think it sounds great. One of my kids is the right age for this program and it would be VERY interesting to her. It presents a lot of relevant information to kids in way that is interesting to them, and would just sound like nagging if their parents told them. My 12 year old unschooler would much rather do something like this than have me tell her about money.

Raising children IS expensive. We don't have childcare bills because I'm a sahm, which means that raising kids has cost my wages for 12 years, and I have a university degree with good grades. It's A LOT of money.

The reality is that if you want to be a vet, then at some point you have to learn to do school and to make good grades. I can't imagine what that should be kept a big secret from kids who think it would be cool to be a vet.

The kind of choices we make now determines what kind of choices will be available to us later. I'm not sure why that should be kept a secret from kids entering their teen years (schooled or not). Kids leave the program with a much better understanding of where their parents' money goes and with a better idea of the kinds of responsibilities they will have in the years to come.

Ye-eah. Like middle school grades have anything to do with career choices.

Middle school: all A's
High school: over 3.5 gpa
College: over 3.6 gpa --dropped out in my last semester.

Career choices? None of the ones supposedly available to those with high middle school grades.

Meanwhile, my friend who pulled mostly Bs in high school has finished grad school and is working as a research scientist. Hard work gets you a heck of a lot farther than being good at tests.

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Ummm... I don't think anyone is saying that good grades GUARANTEE a good-paying job. I mean, dropping out of college pretty much means you can't be a vet, right? But if you WANT to be a vet, good grades matter. And if you don't put forth effort in school, it isn't gonna happen. I think this is an invaluable lesson for kids.