It’s no secret that financial literacy is a critically important life skill. And yet, financial literacy education efforts have been largely unsuccessful. Midas Financial Classroom changes the classroom dynamic to leverage the incredible power of experience 

 

Why Midas?

King Midas learned a valuable lesson about money in an experience that was vivid, yet ultimately left him unharmed. At Midas Financial Classroom, we gamify financial experiences so that students can play the game, see the results of their choices, and learn the lesson that usually can only be learned through painful experience.

 

Experience is the best teacher.

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The idea that experience is the best teacher is widespread throughout our society and history. Historians have found this sentiment being expressed in writing as far back as 52 BC by Julius Caesar. 

 

Modern financial education research agrees. There are strong correlations between a person’s financial experiences and their financial skills and literacy. Some have used this correlation as a reason to argue against trying to teach financial literacy in a classroom (Willis, 2008). Afterall, if experience is the only way we learn, then why bother with expense and effort of the classroom?

 

There are some problems with learning by experience, however. Sometimes we learn the wrong lesson. For example, a bad investment experience early in our lives often teaches us never to invest at all. (Malmandier and Nagel, 2011) Another major problem is that learning from a financial mistake can often have dramatic consequences that can haunt a person for years. While we may learn not to repeat a mistake, the damage has already been done.

 

At Midas Financial classroom, we seek to harness the awesome power of experience as a learning tool without any of the painful consequences of actually living. We accomplish this through our sophisticated, realistic, and fun personal finance life simulation game.
The story of King Midas truly captures the spirit of our mission and teaching philosophy. You can learn more about his story and how it affects our teaching philosophy here.

 

Sources:
Willis, Lauren E. “Against financial-literacy education.” Iowa L. Rev. 94 (2008): 197. 
Malmendier, Ulrike, and Stefan Nagel. “Depression babies: do macroeconomic experiences affect risk taking?.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 126, no. 1 (2011): 373-416.