Hands on Banking Works with Middle School Financial Education Curriculum

> If we spend everything that we earn, we don’t end up with a lot left over. > Personal finance is now a regular part of social studies class for these middle school students. > If we get our bank account now, and we just keep adding money, then it’s gonna put interest onto it, so then it's more money and then you can save that for college. > Yes, absolutely. > And the Hands on Banking program is a big part of how they're learning about building their financial futures. > Interest is something like they add more money to your total of what you put into the bank, so it adds on. > Saving money is usually a boring thing to hear for a 13 year old, but Hands on Banking doesn’t make it seem like save money, save money, save money. It’s teaching them how to make their money grow and teaching them how to intelligently manage their money and they appreciate that skill that they can take into the future with them. > Hands on Banking teaches basic money skills in an easy-to-understand curriculum. And it's available online to anyone -- free of charge. > Wells Fargo's Laraine Davis and the Missouri Council for Economic Education saw the program's potential. So they collaborated on coursework that satisfies St. Louis school's system-wide mandate for financial education. > We worked over a period of several months meeting with the teachers at the St. Louis Public School district…and we actually were able to create a program that the teachers just love. It is very appropriate for the age of the kids, and it was a tremendously successful initiative. > Successful because the online lessons fit right into the schools' social studies curriculum. > Every other class period that I plan for usually involves about an hour or two, sometimes three hours of planning for the 45-50 minute session here in the classroom. For Hands on Banking, it’s about five minutes of preparation for me because the program kind of runs itself. > Putting yourself in control of your money is a smart way to help you get what you want faster. > After just a few weeks, students like Mickayla Anderson are seeing just what managing their money can mean for them later in life. > When I get older, I’m going to take the money and go to college with it because I want to excel in life and get a degree. > Anytime you can get the students in the classroom to be glued to you or whatever they are learning and be that excited and engaged and asking those questions, that’s what you teach for, that’s what I signed up to teach for. And Hands on Banking has given me that experience. > I am still learning about money. (MUSIC OUT)