My 12- and 14-year-old daughters love to learn. At school, they’ve studied scientific notation and explored political systems. They’ve interpreted everything from bar graphs to Shakespeare. They’re bright, curious – and thanks to a family investing challenge with their grandfather, they’ve even started buying stocks.
It raises the question: Why aren’t they learning more in school about investing?
We tell young people to be smart with their money. We warn them about debt, praise the virtues of saving and toss around terms such as “diversify your portfolio.” But what we don’t do – at least not in any systemic, curriculum-based way – is teach them how.
My in-laws, Stan and Susan, learned this lesson the hard way. They started investing in their 40s but panicked during the dot-com crash, selling off their entire portfolio. “We messed up selling our stocks,” said Stan (known to his grandkids as Pappi Stan).
His father had rolled the dice on some penny stocks but never understood enough about investing to teach him properly. That lack of financial education left Stan ill-prepared to handle short-term market losses. Now retired and actively managing his own portfolio, Stan believes kids need to start learning early.
“They need to be involved,” he said. “Even if their ideas seem crazy, like hoping for ‘100 baggers,’ they’re learning. Losing money teaches you just as much as winning.”
Does being a stay-at-home parent make financial sense?
Susan added that some teachers may not be equipped or motivated to teach investing. “Who’s going to do it if not parents and families?”
Fortunately, there are exceptions. Gary Bieler, a Toronto public school teacher, regularly talks about the stock market with his Grade 5 and 6 students – and sometimes even younger kids. “If you want to be financially free, you have to make your money grow for you,” Mr. Bieler told me.
He weaves investing lessons throughout the year, encouraging kids to pick a company to follow. “If someone is wearing Air Jordans, we might talk about Nike,” he said. “They learn what market cap means, who owns the company, and what a price-to-earnings ratio is.”
He says kids really get into it when it’s brought down to their level. Still, he agrees that the topic remains taboo in many classrooms. “Maybe it’s because people don’t talk about money openly – there’s stigma around it.”
Ontario recently took a positive step forward by strengthening its financial literacy curriculum. The province introduced mandatory personal finance education in high school and incorporated basic money skills such as budgeting and credit in earlier grades. While this is encouraging, Mr. Bieler sees it as just the beginning, with plenty of room to build on these foundations.
He suggested partnering financial experts with schools to create more online resources tailored for different grades, giving teachers the tools and confidence to teach personal finance more effectively. “If Investing 101 was built into the curriculum and teachers knew how to teach it, that would be a win-win.”
Meanwhile, my daughters are not completely in the dark. In class they’ve learned the basics of financial literacy – from how to save money to the concept of compound interest. These lessons lay a solid foundation.
We’ve also tried to build on that at home – including through a short video I made with them about how starting early can pay off, called Time Makes You Rich, available on YouTube.
But if Canada is navigating an affordability crisis, we need to shed the stigma, as Mr. Bieler put it, around the topic of money. After all, many young adults already have.
Having grown up in a culture of sharing, this generation of investors is much more comfortable discussing their investing journeys, whether through TikTok or YouTube. I’ve contributed to that conversation too, with other videos on compound interest and how a penny doubled over time can demonstrate the power of patience and discipline.
That openness only strengthens the case for formal education on the subject.
The reality is that managing money wisely is a crucial life skill. We teach children math, science and history – so why leave out the one subject that affects their future financial independence and security?
If policymakers want to close the knowledge gap, personal finance and investing need to be a core part of the curriculum. That means age-appropriate lessons from elementary school onward, offering real-world investing basics.
Until then, families like mine will keep trying to fill in the blanks – with a little help from Pappi Stan, a family portfolio and lessons learned the hard way.
Jon Erlichman is the founder of Ticker Take on YouTube and a contributor to BNN Bloomberg.
