The Financially Literate Teacher

Teacher”

The energy and passion Mark has in running his business and to reach his goals is tremendous, and comes through on the pages of this book. We benefit from that energy through his desire to help others by teaching our Business Planning classes and working with clients to achieve their goals and dreams. This book is an excellent resource for others interested in doing the same. If you work with business development or with minority students and financial literacy, you should definitely read this book.
—Mark Shupick, 2010 Minority Small Business Champion of the Year

Mark is on the same page as I am when it comes to educating teachers about the possibilities of teaching students about personal finance and entrepreneurship. We realized upon training teachers with our curriculum models in personal finance and e-ship that many teachers were intimidated with the subject matter and didn’t feel comfortable teaching the activities. This book is the greatest solution to taking this fear out of the subject areas that I have ever witnessed. I think it will make everyone that reads it realize that we all have our ups and downs but we are able to overcome them if we realize we are not alone in the day to day struggles of life. I say kudos to this book and hope everyone enjoys it as much as I did.
—Cora Mae Haskell, 2008 Outstanding Entrepreneur Educator of the Year

Don’t ask; don’t tell. Students often don’t ask teachers the really tough questions because many don’t think they have the right to be personal. Many teachers don’t respond well to personal questions because they are afraid to reveal their inner weaknesses to their students. We spend our developmental years in a kind of strange dance in which we ask every question of each other except the ones that are the most important. We gracefully waltz around the elephant in the room. You do it and I do it. We all do.

What do I know about financial literacy? This is a fair question and one you can expect your students to ask of you. If they don’t ask, you should still tell. In fact, be prepared to answer this for everything you teach. Let me give you the brief story here and fill in a few gaps in the next few chapters.

I am a sixteen year veteran teacher, grant writer and program manager from one of the most challenging and personally rewarding teaching assignments imaginable: I taught in a Junior High School classroom in a federally-managed school on one of the largest, poorest and most economically isolated Indian reservations in the United States, and I loved it.

I grew up on the reservation as the sixth son among eight children (seven remaining) of a divorced, single mother and son of a penniless, infrequently employed alcoholic. I identified with many of my students and their troubles related to family economics because my family had them as well and because I have personally lived through many of these difficulties myself.

I knew what it was like to sleep next to a heater vent on the floor of our poorly constructed, low bid, government subsidized apartment next to an indoor snowdrift during bad winters because it was too cold near the drafty windows by my bed. I knew what it was like to bail water (and occasionally fuel oil) out of a flooded basement in the summer because we couldn’t keep out the rain. I know what it’s like to spend years eating bulk foods like the Spanish rice and goulash my mom made (and made well) because these were the best meals for spreading a pound of hamburger around a growing and very hungry family. I know what it is to grow up without abundance.

I know what it’s like to wear shoes from a bin at K-Mart, hand-me-downs from my brothers and identical checkered pants (really) multiple years in a row. I know what it’s like to travel three hours to the closest big town and spend hours getting groceries, only to be denied after finding out my dad wrote bad checks on mom’s account. I know what it’s like to shop at the dump for bike parts and “necessities” because there was no inexpensive way to get them (legally). That was my reality. Half of our silverware and dishes were from grocery store incentives. Our family saved box tops, Green Stamps, and sent in rebate forms for prizes. I understand now that some of these actions and strategies are among the defense mechanisms of the poor.

Mom seemed to be at our every activity at school; she got paid to attend ball games and concerts as an adult supervisor. I thought she loved fresh cow’s milk; it turned out she saved lots of money buying bulk 5-gallon pails of un-pasteurized milk from local farmers. I thought mom loved to bake; it turned out she couldn’t afford to feed us without baking at home. I thought she loved tent camping; it turned out she couldn’t afford hotels with all of us kids. Mom didn’t date much so I thought she must be very selective; truth is a man would have to be out of his mind to accept financial responsibility for an additional eight mouths to feed! I realize now that many of the actions and activities engaged in by my mother were driven almost exclusively by the necessity of caring for a very large family alone, and in a climate of need.

My mother and I laughed about these facts after I grew up, but we didn’t at the time, and I still don’t know how she did it by herself with absolutely no government assistance. We realize now that these are indicators of poverty, yet I was no different than most of the other kids in my neighborhood. We all seemed to have at least one parent dedicated to feeding and clothing us and helping us turn out alright, but we all knew we didn’t have anything.

Like most kids, I wanted out but had nowhere to go. Since my mom was an educator, she told us at an early age that to get out we needed an education. She also told us that she was not in any position to pay for that education for us; that the expense for our education was our responsibility. We all got one. However, if not for a full-ride Army ROTC scholarship, I would not have been able to afford college. I thank God for the Army to this very day. I still took out a ton of loans and had a lot of fun in college, probably thinking I deserved rewards for doing well and maintaining a heavy work load, but my grades and finances suffered. But they were some good, highly entertaining and very expensive years and I got my college degree.

After college, I left the reservation and moved one thousand miles away to a large city to begin my professional career (as what, I didn’t know), thinking that opportunity was “out there” and not in my own backyard. In the big city, everything cost much, much more than back on the reservation. No one knew or cared who you were. My neighbors were all night people; hookers, dancers, drug dealers, police and evening street and utility repair people. These were interesting and sometimes very frightening times.

I learned what pride was only when I had too much of it. I was beyond broke. There were two separate entire weeks in which I didn’t have a single bite of food. I lived across from a soup kitchen, but refused to go there. My pickup was destroyed by an uninsured driver. I walked miles each night through some of the worst gang land in America (where busses wouldn’t go and police wouldn’t go alone) to get to my job that started at midnight. Tense? Like a crack-head on Red Bull. With no bank access, I cashed my checks with a guy pointing a shotgun at me. I couldn’t afford fun, at least none that cost money. Slowly, and through other moves and jobs, things began to get better. But it was a long, hard climb out of lack; of not enough.