Discussion

I'm from Honduras, and I got my first financial information when I read "PADRE RICO, PADRE POBRE".

I think the education is deficient in financial subject because the people who designs the school programs don't know what to do and they don't study, For this reason they are and stay in ignorance.

In other hands, the people that knows about these principles aren't interested that other people knows them.

The principles that RICH DAD teaches are universal and applicable to everyone.

Coming from Germany, schools do teach about economic issues, provided, you learn a trade. If you do, every pupil has to visit a vocational school. There you learn much about bookkeeping, corporate structures, legal forms of a company and the like. Topics like balancing one's own budget, evaluation of a company and inflation are seldomly tought, and if so then solely because the teacher wants to and finds the time, not because of any curriculum. And who's to blame the teachers? Most wouldn't know the answer to why the rich get richer, so how could they teach someone else? It's not in their own university curriculum! Luck had it that I stumbled over Bob's book "What the rich teach their kids..." a few years ago. Had I not, I would still only have the abstract, academic knowledge of a bachelor in economics, just like my co-students.

While I was educated in good schools, good communities, good opportunities etc., money was only addressed in the form of budgeting your income (constraining yourself to live on less than you made). If you wanted a good life, then get a higher education and it was o.k. to go into debt for that!

Learning about money did increase as I took a few business classes and learned about banking, however, after 5 years of learning through Rich Dad literature, I'm still trying to unlearn the brain washed living on less to keep from a bad retirement. As I progress in this quest, I find that applying the principles of Rich Dad teachings are possible.

In South Africa we did learn about money a little how to spend it mostly,how to write a cheque in what we called economic and management science.In accounting we learnt how to balance checkbooks and do financial statements.However alot of financial literacy taught and the real meaning of a asset was not taught.However we did a financial literacy course a few kids from the school where we learnt abut Robert financial information and played cashflow

I grew up on parents dream of becoming a doctor. In my mid 30's I succeeded as I received a B.S.-D.C. (Doctor of Chiropractic) in 1990. There was no time during graduate school to take marketing, business or finance courses.

In high school I took trig, physics, advanced bio and chem. Schools did concentrate on business education.

Now my 14 year old son is going through the smae things. He wants to play in the NBA and be a coach someday. He is smothered with learning the difference between a covalent and ionic bond, is forced to read the "classics" and is tiring of having to 'become' a civil war soldier reporting in his daily diary his reaction to it. Little is being done to get him ready for the real world

Thank God for Robert and Kim Kiyosaki. Continue the great work.

Dr. ROd

I believe that education should be specialized according to each student's individual needs, talents, and desires of what they love to do. I have worked in many school systems and see these institutions warehousing our children to become social slaves to the elite members who run society. The school system and curriculum is outdated for children living in the 21st century. Now days the whole school year focuses on teaching students how to pass state board assessment tests, so schools will keep their funding and teachers will keep their jobs. This pressure to achieve academic standards is so dramatic that teachers have been caught boosting students' scores by filling in blank spaces and changing incorrect answers.

I agree with you Robert that kids lack a financial and entrepreneurial educational that will allow them to develop a successful future.

I am presently finishing my Master degree through an on-line university and have seen how this school has created a thesis process with no time line for finishing this degree. The thesis course can last as long as they want it too. So far I have been in this thesis class for one year and still I have not had my thesis finalized for approval. This university has so many steps to the thesis process and they only allow so many steps for each semester no matter if you are done or not. This creates a corrupt class flow for the school. The administration knows a student has put two years of studying into acquiring their degree, so why not stretch the degree out for as long as they can. This new practice is being used by many colleges. I know this because other colleagues and friends are experiencing this new trend in their degree programs. This practice is only adding to American’s debt because young students are placed into student loan debt before ever acquiring employment.

I believe that education should be specialized according to each student's individual needs, talents, and desires of what they love to do. I have worked in many school systems and see these institutions warehousing our children to become social slaves to the elite members who run society. The school system and curriculum is outdated for children living in the 21st century. Now days the whole school year focuses on teaching students how to pass state board assessment tests, so schools will keep their funding and teachers will keep their jobs. This pressure to achieve academic standards is so dramatic that teachers have been caught boosting students' scores by filling in blank spaces and changing incorrect answers.

I agree with you Robert that kids lack a financial and entrepreneurial educational that will allow them to develop a successful future.

I am presently finishing my Master degree through an on-line university and have seen how this school has created a thesis process with no time line for finishing this degree. The thesis course can last as long as they want it too. So far I have been in this thesis class for one year and still I have not had my thesis finalized for approval. This university has so many steps to the thesis process and they only allow so many steps for each semester no matter if you are done or not. This creates a corrupt class flow for the school. The administration knows a student has put two years of studying into acquiring their degree, so why not stretch the degree out for as long as they can. This new practice is being used by many colleges. I know this because other colleagues and friends are experiencing this new trend in their degree programs. This practice is only adding to American’s debt because young students are placed into student loan debt before ever acquiring employment.

I'm 44 years old. A stay at home mother of 3. I've been married for 23 years.

My lack of financial education has put me in a situation so overwhelming that I'm lost. What do I do now?

I graduated from a high school in San Diego Ca in 1983.
I remember jr. high had "Home Ec", a brief overview of cooking a fluffy omelet, sewing a gym sack and maybe balancing a check book.
In high school one teacher(not mine) had his class pick stocks from the newspaper and they followed them.

I think it really needs to be a consistent k-12 program.
My youngest has some exposure and it's a beginning...
WaMu comes to our Elementary every Wednesday Morning and kids can put money in their savings account, This was started for fifth graders to save money for camp.
After school one day a week we have a class about stocks and they are making a portfolio.

My older kids have not been exposed to any of this. I need to find a way that I can make sure they start life better than I did for myself.

How can we get a program into schools from K-12?
I know the "California Standards" are overwhelming for the teachers
and they have a full plate as it is.

Where do we go from here?

All my education has been in private schools on the West Coast. I can't remember being taught anything about finance let alone actually earning money that was not a paycheck.

Even the 1960's college business courses, were about counting money and business law. In today's world, I see many instances of the basic business law I learned in college being ignored. One reason corporations are getting away with ingnoring the law is because consumers don't know their rights and hold companies accountable. Today it seems to take the threat of a legal action to even begin to get an issue resolved.

Also, it appears to built into most companies to ignore customers' valide complaints until the customer hopefully gives up and goes away.

I am excited about this book. It brings together a lot of the thinking I have held in the past about money. I am predicting at this point in the book that entrepreneurialism and small business development is the answer to our financial crisis. I am disappointed that I have not heard more about that from our new administration.

Oscar Carter
Creating A World Community
http://www.creatingaworldcommunity.com