Moving Out! for Teens (Ages 13-16)

This summer we're bringing our teen program, Moving Out! to Santa Barbara.

Moving Out! is more than a financial literacy program for teens. It is life-preparation curriculum unlike anything you've ever seen before.

Your teens will leave our program knowing what it will take to live on their own AND have far more appreciation for what you're providing for them right now.

Here's the scenario: Imagine being 15 years old and having your parents tell you they signed you up for this prorgam called Moving Out!

You walk in at 9 am, slightly resentful, probably cranky, definitely sleepy. You hesitantly take your seat next to someone who you think you’ve seen around school before and then cross your arms in defiant resignation. Remember that?!

The instructor takes the front of the room and tells you that she has just been informed by your parents that you'll be living on your own in five days.

The question is: What do you need to know in order to move out successfully by the end of the week?

Your teenagers will learn how to:

• hunt and apply for an apartment
• buy a car
• apply for a credit card
• pay utilities
• go grocery shopping
• identify and apply for a job
• open a bank account
• read a paycheck
• budget their income for saving, spending, and most importantly, investing
• and so much more.

We have found that once you actually get teens in the door, they have endless questions ranging from what a corporation is to the dangers of credit cards to how to apply for a job permit. This program gives them the space to ask these questions and get real answers. The all-new Moving Out! program will give them real world experience that will generate more questions so, by the time they really do move out, they'll be ahead of the game, not behind.

July 19-23, 2010 in Santa Barbara.
Space Limited to 20 Teens. Sign up now!

Because we know it can take a lot of convincing to get a teen to attend five days of "education", we figure you'll want to know what they'll be getting into and what benefits they'll receive for your effort! This is probably more than you need, but here is most everything that's gone into and will come out of the program!

Rationale for the Moving Out! Curriculum

Moving out of the family home is a situation all young people face sooner or later – some with joy, high hopes, and excitement; others with sadness, uncertainty, and trepidation. The better prepared teenagers are for this inevitable event, the more successful and enjoyable their transition to adult responsbility will be.

Our 21st century world is ever-changing, fast-paced, and unpredictable. Children starting school in September 2009/2010 will be retiring somewhere around the year 2075. As Sir Ken Robinson so eloquently explains: “Education is meant to take us into this future we can’t grasp...Nobody has a clue what the world will look like in five years time, and yet we are meant to be educating (children) for it.”

There is compelling evidence to suggest that we need to “rethink the fundamental principles on which we are educating our children”. (Sir Ken Robinson)

Our Education Philosophy

Education today needs to be dynamic, engaging, and sensitive to students’ varying learning styles. It needs to address students as individuals, strengthening their ‘self’ skills – self-confidence and self-esteem; their curiosity and imagination; their critical thinking ability; and their oral and written communication skills. Education needs to nurture problem-solving skills, leadership qualities, and the ability to learn, unlearn, and re-learn. Students must be led to realize that maturing involves making mistakes, and that mistakes are an opportunity for growth, not a deficiency or weakness in themselves. At the same time, group activities and discussion must foster teamwork and collaboration, as well as empathy and a talent for social networking. According to the research cited by Tony Wagner, these characteristics constitute the mindset and skill-base future generations are going to need to meet the demands of a rapidly changing society.

The Quantum Teaching and Accelerated Learning techniques that are employed throughout the Moving Out! curriculum are what make it especially appealing to learners. Teachers become facilitators of the students’ learning experiences: providers of an appropriate context within which understanding can be acquired; practical activity supervisors; discussion coordinators; and coaches cheering students to success. In this way, information heads straight for the long-term memory.

RESULTS:

Immersing teens in the Moving Out! program gives them the opportunity to practice these skills and develop into more competent, confident, independent, and adaptable adults, who have overcome the fear of making mistakes. Teens who attend Moving Out! demonstrate the ability to make better life choices; they become adults who are capable of being the authors of their own lives, rather than simply letting life happen to them.

It is intended that Moving Out! will:

• Strengthen students’ confidence in their ability to take control of their own lives physically, emotionally, and financially.
• Reinforce the idea that people always have a choice.
• Help create more competent, confident, independent, and adaptable adults, who are able to work through their fears, evaluate problems, identify solutions and opportunities, and make reasoned life choices.
• Foster an attitude of cooperation and teamwork, combined with empathy: the keys to higher levels of success and achievement.
• Encourage students to take responsibility for their own financial future.
• Reveal to students ways to resist the power of advertising.
• Teach students the basic universal principles of sound money management and affirm for them the power of good financial habits.
• Light the spark of curiosity so that students will seek to increase their financial knowledge throughout their lives.
• Enable students to discover their own ways to effectively and efficiently make, manage, and multiply their money.
• Create a generation of adults who are financially free and who can thus positively impact future generations.
• Give students skills and knowledge consistent with Jump$tart Coalition’s National Standards for Personal Financial Literacy, 3rd edition, 2007.

BIG IDEAS:

Moving Out! is a financial literacy curriculum that focuses on how people can create income for themselves, how they can effectively and efficiently manage the money they make, as well as how they can multiply their money to create the passive income that leads to financial freedom. We do that by communicating around some very big ideas:

• Understanding of self and how beliefs, thoughts, and attitudes determine wealth potential.
• Creating the future through effective goal setting.
• The power to make a difference.
• Choice.
• Developing the right financial habits.
• Ethics in relationships and business.
• Becoming an informed, wise consumer.
• Financial freedom.
• Managing, not avoiding, risk.
• Team work and social networking (word of mouth) as tools to success.
• How to make, manage, & multiply money.
• Keep a portion of all you earn: pay yourself first.
• Save early; save often.
• The power of philanthropy.
  

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS:

• How do we stay curious and open to possibility, and why is it important?
• Who am I and how do I view money?
• What are my beliefs, especially about money & how do they influence my thoughts and actions?
• When might it be necessary to challenge our belief systems, values, and attitudes?
• How important is our mind in determining our ability?
• How can a person’s decisions and actions change his/her life, from both a general and financial point-of-view?
• How do my individual financial actions impact the world economy?
• How does what others think about you affect how you think about yourself?
• How do our personal experiences, beliefs, and attitudes determine how we see others?
• How does the media affect how we see ourselves and others?
• How can we develop habits that serve us?
• Why is it important to set short, medium, and long term goals?
• Why are mastermind groups so powerful?
• What does it mean to “grow up”?
• What is wealth?
• Is being rich the same as being wealthy?
• How can people live within their means?
• What could someone do to increase his/her wealth potential?
• What is financial freedom and how do I make it a reality in my life?
• How are financial freedom and responsibility related?
• What sacrifices should people make for financial freedom?
• What is happiness and how important is it in our lives?
• What is fear, how does it affect our lives, and how can we overcome it?
• What is ethical behavior?
• How do you determine what is the ‘right’ thing to do in any situation?
• What do you understand by the term ‘the American Dream’? Does it have a different meaning for different people or just one meaning?
• How can I create income for myself?
• What causes some people to be money-rich and others to be money-poor?
• What sets millionaires apart from those who aren't?
• Is it theoretically possible for everyone to become a millionaire? Why or why not?
• Why should a person practice philanthropy?
  

PERFORMANCE/EVALUATION TASKS:

• Each student is required to actively participate in small group and whole group discussions and all other activities.
• Each student will create a dreamboard illustrating their life goals and give a 30 second speech highlighting their most intense desires.
• Every student will participate in visualizations to show the power of the mind.
• In groups, the students will brainstorm ways of creating income, search for jobs, complete job application forms, write resumes, write application and thank you letters, and write a letter of recommendation for another student.
• Each group of 6 students will come up with an entrepreneurial idea, promote it in the form of a skit, build the company, advertise their product or service, debate ethical business behavior, and take their companies public by buying and selling shares.
• Each student will be responsible for creating a spending and savings plan (budget) based on their particular life-style choices.
• Each student will complete a Financial Mindset Questionnaire and discuss it.
• Students will participate in activities designed to enlighten them as to the nature of their own personal belief systems, their attitudes, and values, and how these have an impact on how they live their lives and spend/save their money.
• In groups, students will determine where they are going to live by researching local available housing and complete the required property rental agreements.
• In groups, students will complete the profiles of their assigned personages and then, by participating in a simulation, will make financial and life choices that will bring that person to the state of financial freedom.
• Throughout the program, students will be required to make decisions based on the knowledge they have acquired with the goal of achieving financial freedom.
• Students will decide whether to buy a new or used car or lease one, will complete the necessary paperwork, and make decisions about insurance.
• Students will demonstrate their knowledge of managing money through tracking their income, assets, liabilities, and expenses on a spreadsheet designed for that purpose.
• Students will participate in activities designed to instruct them on using their own money as well as leveraging with other people’s money, using credit cards wisely, and protecting their identity.

So, if all of this doesn't get you excited about preparing kids for adulthood, we don't know what will. Most adults wish they'd learned this stuff when they were younger!

If you'd like to be trained in this extensive curriculum and the powerful accelerated teaching methods that make it so effective, please let us know. We'd love to have you on the team!

July 19-23, 2010 in Santa Barbara.
Space Limited to 20 Teens. Sign up now!