ADVANCING ECONOMIC JUSTICE

This "teach the teachers" workshop is promoting financial literacy in Hawai‘i schools

Chaminade’s Economic Education Center for Excellence has a big mission: To advance economic justice in Hawai‘i and across the Pacific. In addition to tackling research projects and informing policymaking, the center offers training—like its summer workshop for teachers.

The intensive professional development opportunity is designed to give elementary to high school educators innovative pedagogical instruction for incorporating economic principles into lessons. Teachers walk away with ideas—and a newfound appreciation of financial literacy.

Social studies teacher John Silang, a 10-year veteran with Kapolei High School’s Business Academy, attended the workshop this past summer and dubbed it “Adulting 101.” He said he jumped at the chance to attend the training on the Chaminade campus because “I wanted to learn how college educators teach economics and how they apply it in the classroom.”

That’s music to economics Associate Professor Guanlin Gao’s ears.

Gao, director of the center, says learning the basics of financial literacy can help people do everything from balance a household budget to save for retirement. “The importance of financial literacy and basic economic principles can’t be overstated,” Gao said.

“It impacts people’s everyday lives,” she added.

The summer workshop was first held in 2022, and so far the center has trained 62 teachers from schools statewide, reaching an estimated 7,400 Hawai‘i students with financial curricula.

Attendee Daniel Quiamas heard about the summer workshop from a friend who attended last year. Quiamas—a math teacher at Waipahu High—said after just two days he had already learned new ways to incorporate economics and finance into his classroom instruction.

“I was never really taught about financial literacy, so this workshop is very informative,” said Quiamas, after listening to Joanne Ching, a financial wellness partner with HawaiiUSA Federal Credit Union—one of the sponsors of the workshop and a strong proponent of financial literacy.

The ECCE’s summer workshop is taught with a combination of lectures, in-class games and group activities, hands-on projects and field classes. Organizers say the curriculum places an emphasis on reallife examples and situations, and includes economics and personal finance concepts based on the Department of Education Social Studies Common Core standards.

The ECCE’s outreach efforts come amid a greater push to underscore financial literacy in schools nationwide. According to the Council for Economic Education’s latest biennial Survey of the States, more than two-thirds of all states now require personal finance classes for high school graduation—an increase from 2022 when fewer than half the states included it.

On the last day of the five-day ECCE workshop, participants were asked to give a presentation on how they plan to incorporate what they’ve learned into their own classrooms. Some said they would use it as a “bell ringer,” devoting the first few minutes of class to financial literacy. Others planned to take a more comprehensive approach, developing ageappropriate lesson plans.

For Gao, the moral imperative of teaching financial literacy is clear.

“We recognize that there is still much to be done to improve financial literacy in Hawai‘i. However, we take pride in our efforts to make a difference and establish ourselves as a center for economic education,” Gao said. “Financial literacy doesn’t have to be daunting. In reality, we all have innate economic instincts; you might just not be aware of them—yet.”