Seventh-graders get taste of life, finances in the ‘real world’

By Ed Runyan

Each pupil was assigned a pretend adult job and salary, and given choices on how to spend it.

AUSTINTOWN — Seventh-grader Austin Cooper was suddenly a 25-year-old aerobics instructor earning $20,000 a year.

At that salary, after paying essentials like housing, food and cable television, he only had enough money left for a dial-up Internet connection and a bus pass instead of a car of his own.

Austin, a pupil at Austintown Middle School participating in a class lesson called “Real Money, Real World” last week, began to consider the implications.

“I was having second thoughts about whether I would go to college, but since this [lesson] I’ve been thinking about going to law school to be a lawyer,” he said this week.

The class, which was taught by 21 Austintown Fitch High School students to all of Austintown’s seventh-graders, suggested something to Ken Kilpatrick, too: “Do well in school,” he said.

Donna Burnell’s high school Independent Living class spent a couple of days at the middle school, teaching their younger neighbors how much various jobs pay, what various things cost, and explaining things like credit card interest and life insurance.

Burnell first taught the information to her high school students, but she felt they would get more out of the lessons provided by the Ohio State University Extension Office in Canfield if they also had to teach it to someone else, she said.

Before they could interact with the seventh-graders, Burnell’s junior and senior students made poster board presentations to the younger kids.

Then, groups of about four worked together at various stations to explain how much it costs to borrow money from a credit card company, to buy insurance, to buy clothing and to receive services like cell phones, Internet and cable television.

On simulation day May 13, each seventh-grader was assigned a job and the salary typically paid for it and told how many children they have.

Then, each seventh-grader was told to make at least one selection at each station. The cost of the selections was added up, and a computation was made of whether the pupil was living within his or her budget.

If not, they were directed to a booth where someone assisted them in making changes to balance their budgets.

Marissa Ranalli says she wants to be a doctor, but a part of her thinks it would be nice to leave school after her senior year in high school, she said.

But after seeing what kind of life a woman has making $28,000 a year as an animal breeder, she thinks getting a good education is a better option.

“I couldn’t even afford a cell phone,” she said of her simulated adult life.

“Gas prices and food prices are so much. You can’t really handle all the things you want,” said Scott Williams after learning what things cost.

“I think Americans need to think more about what they need instead of what they want,” he said. Scott says the simulation caused him to consider a career in politics instead of working on the railroad, a longtime (but lesser-paying) interest.

Carol Poulton, who teaches the quarter-year “Skills for Life” class to the seventh grade, said she thinks the class helped make the point that pupils need at least technical training, on-the-job training or college to live the kind of lifestyle they want.

Jacqueline Cohol, one of Carol Burnell’s high school students, said she noticed a change in the attitude of the seventh-graders after they realized how much it costs to have a house, car, cell phone, nice clothes and high-speed Internet.

“They all wanted to have a mansion,” she said.

Eventually, they learned that even “going for a walk in the park costs money,” said senior Kara Roche, explaining that driving there involves the cost of gasoline and car insurance.

She noted that the youngsters especially didn’t understand that there are a lot of unseen costs associated with being an adult, like insurance, interest on credit card debt and taxes that reduce their take-home pay.

Courtney Davis, a junior, said she showed the seventh-graders that an average American’s $1,250 in credit card debt costs $667 over eight years to repay if the minimum payment of $50 per month is paid. That changed their perception of the cost to use credit cards, she said.

Perhaps more meaningful to the kids was when Courtney told them about how she ran up a credit card once last year on a trip to Myrtle Beach without realizing what would happen.

“I didn’t know anything about interest. I bought and bought and my parents freaked out,” she said.

runyan@vindy.com