TD Bank banker and HEC professor Yacine Abou and I did our second financial literacy workshop today at Roslyn Elementary School. Our workshops are part of a Blue Metropolis project called, "Money, What's It For?" That's becaue Blue Metropolis, a Montreal-based literary foundation best known for its annual literary festival, believes young people need to know not only how to read, write and do arithmetic, but also how to handle money!
Today we worked with Mr. Trister's Grade Six students and they were DYNAMITE! They had so many great stories and questions. Yacine told them the most important thing they need to know about handling money is COMPOUND INTEREST. If they put their money in the bank, it will grow and accumulate interest. He also discussed scams, cryptocurrency and tariffs.
I got the class to do two writing exercises (but don't worry, they were on the topic of money!). In the first exercise the students came up with a list of ways to earn money. Anna wrote "chores," Thomas wrote "allowance," and Eamon wrote "stocks." Good answers! Later, we talked about the importance of sharing and I asked the kids to write about ways they could share their money to make our world a better place. Nahvee wrote she would, "donate to a hospital in Montreal." Mark wrote, "I would give to a charity that cleans the ocean," and Anna wrote, "I would donate a lot to an animal shelter or women's shelter. And I would volunteer." Which led us to discuss VALUES -- and how we don't only have choices to make about how we spend our money, but also how we spend our TIME. Anna's plan to volunteer demonstrates her values as much as her plan to donate money. And we can all volunteer -- even kids! Just as we don't have to be rich (or grown up) to share with others.
Yacine, who as you can imagine is a very busy man, stayed a little longer to answer questions and hang out with Mr. Trister's class. And because I wasn't in a rush I stayed even longer to talk a little about writing. Mr. Trister, you have an amazing class! Thanks for sharing them with us today!
You can see most of us in today's pic. Thanks also to Blue Met for making this workshop possible. And thanks especially to the kids -- what a treat it was for Yacine and I to be with you today!