Head of School Brings Personal Finance to MTS 8th Graders

Teaching What School Never Taught: Head of School Brings Personal Finance to MTS 8th Graders

This spring, Head of School Andrew Davis is doing something a little different – he's teaching a class to our 8th graders.

"Futures" is a personal finance course Andrew developed and has been teaching to Mount Tamalpais School's 8th graders during the second semester. Once a week, students follow a fictional 25-year-old named Jordan Casey as they navigate the financial decisions most young adults face and that many people are still figuring out well into adulthood.

Over the course of the semester, Jordan's story has taken students through budgeting, bank accounts, credit cards, mortgages, taxes, and investing. The goal isn't to produce financial experts. It's to make sure students aren't blindsided when these moments arrive in their own lives.

The class is deliberately hands-on. Students have decoded pay stubs, filed a simplified tax return, and, in a recent highlight,  invested a hypothetical $10,000 in a stock market simulator, writing their own investment thesis before committing to a pick. Some learned the hard way that the companies they were most excited about didn't always perform as expected.

Andrew leveraged Claude heavily in developing the class. With AI assistance, he created numerous custom calculators and simulations to bring topics to life. Check out a few of them here:

• Credit Card Cost Calculator - Helping students understand the importance of paying off a credit card bill.
• Mortgage Calculator - Students understand the impact that a credit score has on the total expense of a home.
• Investing Simulation - Students learn the challenge of stock picking and the benefits of an index fund.
• Compounding Calculator - Paired with a problem set, students see that Jordan has more at retirement if she saves from 25-35 than from 35-70.

Financial literacy rarely finds its way into K-8 curricula, and Andrew sees that as a missed opportunity. By the time most people encounter these topics in real life – a first paycheck, a credit card offer, a lease agreement – there's real money on the line.

"I wanted to make sure our students weren't encountering these things for the first time as adults," Andrew said. His greatest hope for our 8th graders is that they understand the power of compounding and, as a result, always pay off their credit cards and start saving for retirement as soon as they are eligible.