The sixth season of the Money Sense Mentoring Club for teachers has started in Valga County. The club is aimed at kindergarten and school teachers, youth workers and other education professionals. Its aim is to support the development of participants' financial literacy and to provide practical tools to integrate financial literacy into learning activities for children and young people.
The club starts from the simplest, ABC level to build a strong foundation. The first meeting of the Valgamaa Teachers„ Mentoring Club, focused on budgeting and analysis, took place on 25 September and was facilitated by investor and entrepreneur Kadri Mäsak. ”Money wisdom covers the knowledge, skills and behavioural patterns that are essential for everyone to handle money wisely. Unfortunately, most adults have never learnt money wisdom in school, so they don't know how to pass it on to their children,“ she explains, explaining why money wisdom for teachers is important. In addition to personal money planning, a mentoring club is an important tool for bringing money education to young people. It is in kindergartens and schools that attitudes that will influence future lives are laid. That is why it is important that teachers also feel comfortable with money issues and find ways to integrate them naturally into their teaching. Kadri Mäsak stresses that money education must go hand in hand with the organisation of fairs in schools and kindergartens: ”Even a kindergarten child can understand that the milk, flour and eggs used to make waffles cost something. There are costs and there are revenues. A child in primary school is able to work out how much profit there was. From there on, the next school level can be taught how to price a product, i.e. how to find the cost price and how to calculate the selling price."
In the coming months, the mentor club will be joined by other experts in their field: for example, Leonore Riitsalu will talk about how to nudge yourself towards greater financial well-being, Mari-Liis Jääger will share insights on saving and borrowing wisely, and Liisi Kirch will help open up the world of investing.
The activities of the monthly meetings of the Valga County group and the discussion and development of the topic of money wisdom are supported by the local mentor Katrin Lipping: „It was a great pleasure to see such positive-minded teachers who came to learn about money wisdom, to apply it in their everyday life and to share it with their students. The teachers“ knowledge and habits in different ways of collecting vary widely. Some of the ideas shared in the group were of such interest to the participants that many decided to implement them themselves," says Lipping, summing up the first Money Sense Mentor Club meeting.
The Money Wisdom Mentoring Club is now in its sixth season and over 700 educators from all over Estonia have participated. In the new season, 11 groups will open again in different locations. In total, more than 220 participants have signed up for this school year.
The Valgamaa Teachers„ Money Sense Mentoring Club is part of the cooperation project “South-Estonian Entrepreneurial Youth (LEEN)„, which is co-funded by the European Union with the support of the measure “Attractive Regional Entrepreneurial and Living Environment".
Photo: Valgamaa Development Agency