For many high school teens, it’s the classes with real-life applications that have the most impact. Students are motivated to acquire knowledge which has a direct personal connection to them. They realize that this learning can be useful, not only in their current situations, but also for their futures.

At Woodinville High School, Personal Finance is an example of one such course that students can easily see the relevance and strong applicability potential.

“It’s great preparation for my future,” comments sophomore Arianna Wilson. “I find it fascinating to learn how to be financially independent because I know I will have to support myself one day soon.”

Senior Julianne Yaholkovsky concurs and adds, “This class should be required for all students because it gives a basic understanding of what you’re going to need to be financially successful in life.”

Instructor Terry Ley has been teaching the class for several years and openly admits it’s one of his favorite courses. He says, “I love having the opportunity to give the students a chance to not only make some of the silly financial mistakes that so many of us have made in our lives with credit, budgeting and reconciling bank statements, but also to get them excited about investing early for future goals and retirement.”

Ley uses the “On Your Own” program as the core of his curriculum, as he feels it provides wonderful simulation exercises for the students to do, as they practice various skills. The course focuses on practical activities, such as opening checking and savings accounts, setting up a budget, applying for and building credit, preparing income tax records, looking for housing, examining transportation options, purchasing auto insurance, checking out the rights and responsibilities of the consumer and taking steps to avoid identity theft.

“Another one of the goals is to help students learn to make a distinction between their needs and wants,” adds Ley. “This will hopefully make a difference in some of their future financial decisions and purchases.”

There are several simulation games that the students get to play over the course of the semester. The online stock market game, in particular, is always a popular activity, according to Ley. He discovered the simulation through his connection with Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) and first began using it eight years ago when he taught at Snohomish High School.

As Ley explains it, the class is broken into groups of three, and each group is given a fictional $100,000 to invest in the stock market. They can invest in almost any stocks, except penny stocks and mutual funds, over the approximate two and a half month time period that the game is played. Students in the class compete against other students from all over the country and currently for this semester, there are 165 teams. The goal is to have the largest increase in portfolio value on the last day of trading.

Ley gives “awards” when a group has an increase in the value of their portfolio from one week to the next. The portfolios are also compared to the performance of the S & P 500.

Students make their trades online, which allows them to participate at anytime day or night. They can also make trades over the weekend, which then are put into a queue until the opening of the market on Monday.

“I require students to make at least three trades a week to earn credit for the week,” explains Ley. “And each group has to keep a handwritten portfolio to track all of their trades. I believe that it makes more of an impact when they physically track it rather than just having the computer do it for them.”

The game gives cash awards to the top three portfolios in the nation and one year when Ley taught in Snohomish, he had a group of students actually win money.

The simulation also comes with curriculum, which allows Ley to teach his class about some of the terminology behind the stock market and the strategies that investor use.

He says, “A challenge that I have with this particular simulation is that the students’ goal is to make lots of money in a short time, which means that they invest in higher risk stocks than I would really like them to do in real life. In real life, I want them to understand that they have an advantage over people like you and I – they have time on their side!”

“I’ve really learned a lot from playing this game,” comments sophomore Brittany Torres. “I’m learning how to watch market trends and how to use investment strategies. I’m also more attuned to the news and how it can affect the market. And I actually pay attention to the stock market report, whereas before I never understood anything that was said about stocks and never listened. It’s really crazy, though, how the market can waver so much!”

Some of the groups in Ley’s class are doing well with their portfolios.

Evan Stoll’s group, “Fast Cash,” is currently 10th in the nation. Evan attributes the success to a strategy of investing most of the money in one main stock that’s solid and then spreading out the remainder in small amounts on several other companies.

He says, “We bought 6,000 shares of a company at a low share price and we’ve held on to it. I think you have to have faith in your selection. It’s really been exciting to see how well you can do, but even though we’re doing well, my view of stocks is basically that they’re a fun investment. I don’t think anyone should rely on them for their college funds or for their retirement. Things change so quickly and you can’t depend on them.”

Kuniors Brooke Kircher and Nick Cheng have felt challenged by the game. Their groups are doing poorly, although they started out strong. The pair acknowledges that their groups took some risks that didn’t pay off and that they made some impulsive choices.

“The stock market isn’t predictable,” comments Nick, “and the investment time period is very short, so we’ve had some problems. We just seem to continue to spiral downward and we haven’t gained any of our money back yet.”

Brooke adds, “The mistakes we’ve made have shown us that our way of investing isn’t working, but this is something we have learned through experience.”

At this point, Brooke has a difficult time viewing stocks as a good investment because, as she says, “there are so many things to consider when investing in stocks and even when you think you are making good choices, you can still have bad results because there’s also luck involved, which you can’t control.”

Personal Finance at WHS attracts a wide variety of students at each grade level and according to Ley, they come for a variety of reasons.

Some are motivated to take the class on their own and others are encouraged by their parents to enroll in it. Some don’t want to be in the class, but their counselor has put them there. Ley feels once they’re actually there, they seem to really enjoy it.

“I honestly don’t understand why I only see 60 students each year,” he says. “I would think that the counselors would see the importance of this class and guide more students toward it. I think, however, that the WASL is having an effect on the number of electives students can take.”

It is Ley’s belief that Personal Finance should be a required course for all students at the high school: “Too many students and young adults get in trouble with credit and bad financial decision-making early in their lives. They rack up way too much debt and don’t invest early, which often affects their careers and relationships. I wish I had been able to take a class like this when I was younger because it would have helped me use better judgment regarding my finances!”