Contact: Allison Matthews
STARKVILLE, Miss.--Mississippi special education teachers are being invited to share in a grant program designed to help them provide high school students with lessons about personal finance.
Mississippi State University's Center for Economic Education and Financial Literacy, in partnership with the Mississippi Council on Economic Education, recently received the $10,000 federal award to support the Financial Fitness for Life curriculum. As many as 100 special education teachers may benefit.
The Excellence in Economic Education grant is funded by the U.S. Department of Education. The project specifically targets 9th-12th grade teachers working in Mississippi Occupational Diploma programs.
Participants also will be part of a free one-day training workshop on how to best utilize the curriculum.
Registration at www.mscee.org will include a choice of workshop locations and dates. They include Delta State University, March 23; MSU, March 30; University of Southern Mississippi, April 13; and Mississippi College, April 20.
Thomas Henry, an MSU instructor of finance and economics, serves as the project's director.
"We want to assist teachers as they strive to prepare their students to be successful in the workplace and to develop an understanding of personal finance that will help them throughout their lifetime," he explained.
While this program only involves high school grades, the overall Financial Fitness for Life effort provides a comprehensive personal finance curriculum that begins with kindergarten. Whatever the level, the curriculum teaches how to make thoughtful, well-informed decisions about important aspects of personal finance, including earning income, spending, saving, borrowing, investing, and managing money.
Henry said economic concepts form the foundation of all the lessons, providing students with a decision-making framework for the real world. Content is based on national standards, and correlates to standards in economics, personal finance, mathematics, and language arts.
Henry said many teachers have not had opportunities to participate in training specifically designed to help them plan lessons regarding economics and personal finance.
An applied economics doctoral graduate of MSU with a master's degree in political science, Henry said he got the idea for assisting special education teachers with the economics curriculum through a personal connection. His sister is a special education teacher and his mother also has worked with special needs students throughout her career.
"Having a connection to the teaching profession helps me have the awareness of needs from the teachers' perspective," he said.
"Our goal with this grant is to help as many special education teachers as we can around our state," Henry added. "Of course, by helping these teachers, we are indirectly touching countless numbers of students whom they work with currently, as well as their future students."
For more about Mississippi State University, see www.msstate.edu.
For more information on the training program, also contact Kristi James, programming director with the Mississippi Council on Economic Education at 601-974-1096.