Entering the High School years, ninth and tenth grade students now have the opportunity to pick and choose classes they find interesting and want to learn more about. Many students decide to take Economics (see Basic Economics Lessons) because the business world interest them and this course is the first step in deciding if working with finances is the step toward a future career.
Students find that their economics course, although has a lot to do with money and numbers, also is dependent upon a certain way of thinking. Honesty and morals is part of this course, as well as some psychology and future financial planning. Investments and where to invest their own money, as well as client’s money, becomes a risk and some students find after the first class comes to an end, economics is not for them.
The course usually is broken up into different sections from the basics, which ninth and tenth grade students attend, to the second level for the upper classmen to take. Also, students find the teacher not to be a math teacher but a Social Studies teacher! Why would a humanities teacher be teaching an economics course? As students attend these courses, they begin to understand why.
The students will learn about the costs and benefits of money in regard to the standard of living, income, markets, and trade. Teachers will discuss investments (see investments lessons): what they are, which ones are traditional, which ones are risky, market values of property, and the role that government partakes in our economic lives. Of course, with ninth and tenth graders working their first jobs, the most important concept to them all is taxes and how come half of their paycheck goes to FICA!
After the course is complete, then students understand why a math teacher usually does not teach this course. Many humanities teachers majored in economics or had once worked in the field from a stockbroker, real estate broker, lawyer, and beyond. Teachers show students how to analyze the market, learn business ethics, how competition and consumer choices determine the market value, as well as the laws of supply and demand.
Economic courses are considered an elective and not in place of any math courses. Typically, ninth and tenth grade students are taking this course because they chose to. In addition, many students find a new respect for their Social Studies teachers when they are teaching them a subject they find interest in.
Since electives last for half a year, after economics is complete; students can take business management, advertisement, minorities, or psychology the second half of the school year to add to their knowledge of beginning to understand the financial world.
Many of the economic concepts are only introduced in the first course and if students find interest in finances, there are many other business related courses and clubs they can join, now that they are in high school from DECA to being the treasurer of the student council.
