Knowing stage – What is money?
In the Knowing stage students engage with the basics of money and develop a foundational understanding of consumer and financial literacy. This understanding includes what money is, the different forms of money, how to calculate change, how to work out its value, what it is used for, and where it comes from.
To support teachers in engaging students with this stage the following are provided:
•An overview of the stage
•Community and cultural considerations
•Scene setting scenario to inform and support discussion
•Four units comprising focus questions and suggested activities
This resource is intended to be used as a starting point to generate teaching and learning opportunities that are relevant, authentic and reflect students' cultural and community contexts and individual learning needs.
Overview
There are four units in the Knowing stage. Although presented as separate units it is envisioned that some of the activities within the units will be ongoing and simultaneous such as the classroom economy, establishing the classroom shop and preparing for the market.
•Understanding Money - This unit encourages students to explore all aspects of money, its purpose, value and history. Students will learn to order coins, count in stages and realise that money can come in different forms.
•Classroom Money - Students use what they learned about money in the Understanding unit and apply it in a simple classroom economy. Here they learn about saving and spending, and how money can bring both good for the community as well as some tensions.
•Spending Money - Students will continue to build on learning to focus on exchange of money for goods and services in a classroom shop. They learn about value for money and what that means for them. They explore how their consumer choices may be influenced. They also relate the classroom shop to local businesses in the community.
•Your Market - Students are introduced to the idea of enterprise and begin planning an enterprising activity based on community needs. They establish a small scale market and include the community. Students have opportunities to practice money exchanges and use money in a practical setting and then consider how they can give back to the community
Vocabulary
In undertaking activities in the Knowing stage, students may need to develop an understanding of the following terminology and concepts.
•Worth, value, benefit, wellbeing
•Economy, enterprise, business, exchange, barter, trade, currency
•Goods, services, products
•Funds, funding
•Essential
•Volunteer, employment
•Influence, advertisement
•Unit price, discount, balance
•Budget
Learning outcomes
Sharing the learning outcomes of this stage with students may encourage discussion and emphasise to the importance of these learnings to students and how related activities will help them meet the learning goals of the stage.
•Students will know and recognise Australian coins and notes and gain an understanding of how the money system operates
•Students will be able to identify the difference between a want and a need
•Students will be able to confidently and accurately handle money including counting and giving change
•Students develop an understanding of how money is used to access goods and services
Enduring understandings
•Money is a finite resource, so need to keep track of spending
•Effective use of money can bring about long-term wellbeing for individuals groups and communities
•Accessing money electronically makes it harder to keep track of your money
•Values and experiences influence decisions on needs and wants and how money is used
Community and cultural considerations
In delivering this stage of learning, teachers will need to consider a number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural and community factors. The overarching challenge and opportunity for teachers is to make learning about the basics of money meaningful by connecting with, and building upon, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander family circumstances, community values, world views and lived experiences.
The following seven guiding ideas provide support to teach consumer and financial literacy through the Knowing stage in a way that is meaningful and empowering for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. These ideas support the incorporation of community and cultural considerations in a learning context. They provide an opportunity for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from within the school and in the broader community to share stories and experience with students especially where values are highlighted ensuring student understanding is reflective of their community.
Guiding ideas
CONNECT with community & cultural identity
History shows that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have engaged in trade, exchange and bartering for tens of thousands of years. Teachers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students can draw upon these practices to affirm the importance of trade and resource exchange.
Teachers could assist students in undertaking research into, for example, traditional trading routes in the local area. Students could then compare and contrast traditional trade (exchange of goods) with modern trade (exchange of goods including time, skill and knowledge for money).
BUILD on your students' real-life experiences
Capitalise on the experiences of students as they arise. For example, if a student has just returned to their community from a visit with family to a major regional centre, then invite the student to share their money related observations and experiences while they were away. Or ask students to share stories about their money observations from the previous weekend.
Students may reflect upon using public transport, a family outing, going shopping, playing sport. Having students share their stories can help everyone develop deeper understandings of money, its purposes and how it works in the community.
GATHER information about prior experiences with money
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students' prior experiences with, and understanding of, money will vary. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students will see money being used in their homes and communities in varying ways; including money being spent at shops, being shared amongst family, or being exchanged for services (such as paying for a taxi, ferry, bus or other form of transportation). In more geographically remote areas however, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students may not have access to a wide range of experiences in directly seeing money in operation due to a lack of retail outlets, banks, public transportation, and other services that larger centres may take for granted.
Teachers should consider these gaps and facilitate meaningful consumer and financial literacy learning experiences. This can occur through a simulated classroom economy that may involve creating a shop or market experience and may also involve games that are supported by online exercises.
RECOGNISE the power of story
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander societies are founded on narrative-based cultures. The power of story has shaped lore, identity, law and connection to country. In contemporary teaching, story-telling can be used as a powerful learning tool to share experiences, explore students' insights and differing perspectives, find meaning, and shape ethics and morals.
Teachers can build upon the strengths and interests of students by creating stories and scenarios that reflect their cultural experiences while they share their learning about money. Thereby strengthening their understanding of mathematical concepts applied to operations with money, counting and giving change.
REINFORCE cultural values of sharing
In some communities, the connection between money and culture may not be immediately apparent and may be seen as incongruent and inconsistent with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander values. However, by working from an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander values-system point of view, all teachers and learners consider other perspectives about how money is used.
Through your teaching, you could help reinforce an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural message that 'money can be used for sharing and caring'. This goes to the heart of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ethos of reciprocity, sharing and looking after each other. By working from this perspective, students begin to appreciate that money can be a resource for community wellbeing and not just individual wealth. Students should reflect on the various organisations that operate in their community (such as a health service or a cultural centre) and how they need, attract and use money.
EMBRACE diversity
Social and cultural diversity will exist among your students and care must be taken to avoid stereotyping. As with all students, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students will enter school with differing interests and varying degrees of prior knowledge and skills. They may also enter the school with varying degrees of cultural understanding and sense of identity, due to historical factors (such as the Stolen Generations). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students more often than not have shared cultural values and social experiences.
This often includes a common world view through their Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander identity, a deep sense of obligation to family, and similar upbringings in places of poverty and financial hardship. Use these realisations and understandings to facilitate learning experiences that resonate with your students. Have students consider the diversity within families and roles in the family by drawing their family and sharing with others. Examine the cultural diversity within the class and share differences in food choices, music and language.
CELEBRATE achievement
Quality teaching in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander contexts means adopting strengths-based approaches to teaching and learning. This means teachers will be continually building upon what students know, as opposed to highlighting what they do not know. Adopt a 'two way learning'* approach to your teaching whereby you share your knowledge and experiences about consumer and financial literacy while students share theirs with you and their peers.
Quality teaching in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander contexts also means that teachers will be positively reinforcing cultural identity. This could mean exploring the story and achievements of David Unaipon on the $50 note or invite role-models from the community such as successful social, cultural and environmental entrepreneurs who are helping attract funds to the community for the community's benefit. This could also mean that students undertake a major project where they research and then deliver a presentation about the trading practices used by local communities in the past and present.
Students could learn through participation in a rewards system whereby groups (not just individuals) are rewarded for group-based project work within a classroom economy.
Scene setting scenario
Context
This scenario has been developed to provide real life context that could frame the unit and the learning opportunities as well as generate discussion on developing an understanding of money and specific cultural aspects of money relevant to this stage.
Teachers are encouraged to adapt the scenario to suit the context, level and learning of their students.
Tyrone has to catch a bus to see his Aunty Jackie who has been sick. His Mum has given him $5 for the bus to Aunty Jackie's place and to get back home. "You make sure you go see Aunt, she's crook," his Mum says.
Waiting at the bus stop, Tyrone's cousin Aleesha asks him for money so she can buy some food and a drink. Aleesha hasn't eaten all day.
Tyrone has $5 in his pocket, but has $20 in his bank account. He has been saving for months for $20 to go and see his favourite football team play next weekend.
What should Tyrone do?
Note for teachers
This scenario has a number of aspects to it that students can consider. The first is that money can take various forms: cash and electronic. Secondly, the scenario asks students to make choices and problem solve. Thirdly, it includes a tension of needs (family) versus wants (football). Finally, the scenario brings in a cultural consideration - namely, obligation to family.
There isn't a right or wrong answer, but students need to justify why they have reached their decision. They need to consider the advantages and disadvantages of the decision that they have reached.
Unit 1 - Understanding Money
Learning focus
This unit encourages students to explore all aspects of money; its purpose, value and history. Student achievement from this unit will vary depending on the individual learner, but it is anticipated that students will be able to order coins, count in stages and realise that money comes in different forms while considering money in the past and what money means for them now.
To enable students to engage with the basics of money in real contexts and facilitate meaningful learning experiences a variety of learning experiences have been devised which include games and online exercises, a classroom economy the simulation of a shop and showcasing learning through planning and implementing a market or small enterprise.
The ideas and activities could be used exactly as described, or might provide a springboard for teaching and learning opportunities or ideas that inspire teachers to develop alternative activities that meet the specific needs of their students and curriculum requirements
Focus questions
Focus questions are provided as a guide to assist teachers to engage students in key concepts addressed in the unit with a view to addressing the learning intentions of this stage. Through guided questioning, teachers can establish student levels of knowledge and awareness of money.
Building understanding
•What is money?
•Where does money come from?
•How did people get what they needed before money?
•What is trade and how was it used in the past?
•Why do we need money now?
•How do people get money?
•How do people use money?
•What forms can money take (cash in the hand and money in the clouds - electronic)?
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander experience with money
•How did Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people get what they needed in the past (before money)?
•How do Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people get what they want and need today?
Personal experience with money
•Are there examples in the broader school community where needs and wants are met without involving money (e.g. volunteering, community gardens, trading one good or service for another)?
•How is money used in a family? At school?
•What do we need to know/understand about money?
Unit 1- Understanding Money -Suggested Activities
After consultation and discussion with students (using the provided focus questions as prompts) teachers could select activities from the following topics:
•Money in the past
•Money in the present
•Counting, adding and ordering
Activity 1 - Money in the past
Trade
Exploring trading in traditional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander societies (including practices that are still happening)
In introducing this activity, teachers support students in exploring the traditional trading practices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander societies.
Copyright:
•Start by playing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander related game of trade based upon traditional trading routes and Dreaming pathways. Ask students to make, collect or bring items from home to integrate into a simple trading activity.
•There may be someone in the community the school can invite to share stories about traditional trading.
•The Aboriginal Languages Map could be used for this activity -
•For ideas, see ASIC's MoneySmart Teaching Year 1 Unit (page 22) Bertie's Socks – Activity 6, Too many shells.
•Reflect on this activity and discuss the items that were traded and how values were assigned to make the trading fair.
•Draw or paint a map of Australia on the oval or cement play area. Clearly mark the trading routes and discuss the processes involved in trading items.
•The ABC series First Footprints is a four part documentary which tells the story of the history and culture of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people over the past 50,000 years. Episode 4 provides a history of trading activities by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
In this topic, key ideas relate to what items were traded, protocols and ethics associated with movement across traditional boundaries, negotiating travel, the physical elements and the spiritual elements.
Extension
Students form groups (clans) and work collaboratively to create fictitious trading scenarios which include routes to be travelled, goods to be traded and exchange protocols.
Use different areas of the school to represent certain points on the trading routes. Students negotiate the travel and navigation using their maps and the cues determined by their clan. The travelling party follow the markers to reach their destination point. Along the way, the travelling party can undertake and complete physical challenges relational to the distances travelled and the finding of food and water. Challenges can be set to test the wares of each travelling party.
Upon arriving at their destination, students follow the protocols of trade and good behaviour when operating in another clan’s country. The underlying elements of respect, ethics, negotiation and sharing are all manifest components of this activity.