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Real-World Learning
Students embrace the financial literacy
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From cowrie shells to crypto, new program boosts money IQ
Students barter for basic goods and services in a card game that also highlights fundamental financial inequities.
If there was any doubt as to how vital teacher Melissa Tighe thinks financial literacy is for teens, the first slide of her introductory PowerPoint says it all: “The revolution begins right here, right now.” It doesn’t take long before students start to understand the urgency of some of the topics Mrs. Tighe wants to shine more light on in this new, four-year program, from the gender pay gap to credit card debt. “Just from seeing the statistics of how people are struggling due to lack of financial knowledge makes me wonder why many schools don’t apply education on such an important subject,” says Vicky Wang ’24. spans all four years and covers a huge swath of financial topics (see sidebar).
The first lecture focuses on the history of money, from the ancient bartering system to cowrie shell currency in 1200 BCE, and from the development of paper money in China to the current-day global rise of cryptocurrency. Today’s class is a group of juniors in Strub Room 301. Mrs. Tighe breaks the students into groups and randomly hands out envelopes filled with cards representing items to trade, like clothing, food, water, fuel and medical care. The game ends when one person barters successfully to collect the 10 essential cards required to sustain life. The exercise makes
Indeed. It’s something Mrs. Tighe, a former financial analyst, has been working for years to address. Over her 28 years on campus—as a math teacher, department chair and now Director of Innovation and Community Partnerships—she has sought out creative ways to share her financial expertise with Mayfield students. So, when she was finally able to realize her dream of a formalized course last fall, she dove right in with characteristic zeal. Although this new class only meets once a quarter as part of the Formation of Self (FoS) seminar program, the ambitious financial literacy curriculum
— MELISSA TIGHE, DIRECTOR OF INNOVATION
AND COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS
Teacher Melissa Tighe walks junior students through investment portfolio options.
it clear why transactions like these eventually evolved (it’s pretty inefficient to transport all of your chickens everytime you want to barter for water), but inequities also surface quickly in the post-game conversation. As Liz Goethals ’23 observes, “Some of us were dealt better cards than others.”
Mrs. Tighe capitalizes on this comment to tie the game into much bigger questions: “Is that any different than for every one of us in this room? Did we have any control over the country we were born into? Or the gender? Or family, or time period? None of that,” she says. “This is just a card game. But this is people’s lives and it is just as indiscriminate at the beginning.” This assessment seems to tap into the driving forces behind this financial literacy course. “How do we play the hand we have been dealt?” asks Mrs. Tighe. “And how do we help others who— through no choice of their own— were dealt a different hand...”
Over the course of the year, students in all grade levels will go from these discussions of macroeconomics (like understanding financial systems), to microeconomics (like creating a budget based on a future salary). Zora Hinrichs ’23 is especially interested in the personal applications of the course. She found the fact that two-thirds of American families don’t have an adequate savings cushion a particularly sobering statistic. “I was very surprised that so [few] families knew how to budget,” Zora admits. “The most intriguing part of the financial literacy program is to learn how to budget and possibly learn to increase my budgets by being smart with money,” she adds.
All in all, Mrs. Tighe is pleased that this class is sparking new awareness, starting new conversations, and offering students “an invitation to be part of the solution.” She also thinks equipping high school students with these tools before they launch into their adult lives also “gives them a real chance to solve the problems of their time and place.”
Sofia Olona ’23 is up for the challenge. “I found myself really disheartened when Mrs. Tighe read some new statistics about unequal pay among women,” Sofia admits, “but that opened my eyes to the real importance of teaching young girls financial literacy: We’ll have to be the ones to fix it.”
Financial Literacy Curriculum
The new, four-year financial literacy program offers students insight into everything from budgeting basics to building their own business.
Freshman Year
Behavioral Economics Consumer Skills Budgeting I & Paperwork Savings & Investing I
Sophomore Year
Checking & Types of Credit Identity Theft & Protecting Yourself Social Justice & Ethics Financing College & Decision Matrices
Junior Year
Taxes Managing Credit Investing II & Cryptocurrency Entrepreneurship
Senior Year
Career Planning Philanthropy & Charitable Giving Insurance Budgeting II & Taking F.L. on the Road
Alum advisers invest in Mayfield students
We’re indebted to two alum experts who have generously lent their support to help launch our financial literacy program. Special thanks to Anne Kortlander ’66, a Wharton School MBA who has worked in the financial services industry for decades, whom Mrs. Tighe credits with “jump-starting” this essential endeavor. We are grateful that Ms. Kortlander will continue to provide mentorship as the curriculum evolves. Students also benefited from the expertise of Anna Gooch ’13, J.D., a former international tax consultant who now works as a research fellow with the Center for Taxpayer Rights, who not only helped create the lesson on taxes but also went on to answer technical and career questions in a video interview.
Mayfield’s student journalists learn the tools of their trade, including courage
Learning to navigate the perennial challenges—and rewards—of the storyteller’s life
Journalism teacher Kimberly Gomez advises award-winning podcasters Chloe Leong ’24 (left) and Bella Guerra ’24.
The new Digital Media Lab—one of the rooms added in the recent Strub Hall renovation—is humming on this March afternoon. Journalism teacher Kimberly Gomez, a former print and television reporter, calls this productive space “part classroom, part newsroom,” and the characterization feels spot on. Her students have a deadline coming up: an eight-minute submission for the second annual National Public Radio High School Podcast Challenge. Gathered around a large square table, laptops open, everyone is working on their own projects; some in pairs, some solo. Many have headphones on, deep inside audio editing software, while others are focused on rewriting and editing script elements. But whenever Ms. Gomez cues up something on the big screen, everyone looks up to offer feedback.
Students are given free reign to decide the topics they want to explore for this podcasting project, whether it be highlighting the pressures of high school during a pandemic or exploring big-picture issues close to their hearts (see page 21). “Latinos in Film” discusses reasons behind the lack of Latino representation within the film industry and the repercussions of this exclusion. “That’s So Wasian” is a conversation between two high schoolers exploring the struggles and joys of being halfwhite and half-Asian. In “That’s What You Need to Know,” the co-hosts focus on the conflict in Ukraine in the hope that their peers will get more involved and educate themselves on the complexity of the situation.
Others choose to share their spin on universal teenage topics like friendship, food and, of course, technology. As Editor-in-Chief of the Mayfield Crier, Grace Sandman ’22 has distinguished herself as an award-winning reporter tackling social justice issues, but when she and classmate Grace Gannon ’22 “dipped [their] toes into podcasting,” they decided to explore something ostensibly more ordinary: text messaging. They saw a lot of complexity and potential humor in this almostuniversal topic. “We knew there were unsaid rules about texting in today’s age,” says Grace Sandman. “Many of these unsaid texting ‘rules’ were completely unknown amongst the adults in our lives, so we knew we wanted to talk about that and share some funny stories in our podcast,” titled “Exposing Text Lingo with Gracie².”
Podcasting is only one element of the journalism syllabus. Ms. Gomez considers the raison d’être of both her beginning and advanced journalism courses as “writing for publication.” The classes certainly cover what might now be considered traditional journalistic writing; Ms. Gomez is careful to give a historical overview of the profession, from First Amendment rights to journalistic ethics. She introduces the distinctions between breaking news, enterprise stories and team reporting. But she also understands the 21st-century zeitgeist—even the way the term “publication” has changed dramatically in a short amount of time, now encompassing everything from Twitter journalism to photojournalism essays to newspaper-sponsored podcasts. And she wants her students to get a sense of it all.
In Strub Hall’s new Digital Media Lab, journalism students get hands-on experience in 21st-century reporting, storytelling and production. Student photojournalists on assignment in Theresa Peters’s biology class
Students enroll in journalism electives for many different reasons, and Ms. Gomez does her best to tailor each student’s experience to her specific goals, while elevating her writing to a higher professional level. First-time journalism student Drew Valentino’22 says the course has “pushed me to write in so many different ways…and has developed my way of thinking.” Classmate Le Anh Metzger ’22, who knew she wanted to major in communications and media studies, will take real-world skills—and a featurewriting award from the national Student News Online judges—with her to UC Santa Barbara this fall. “This class has helped me improve my writing skills and has taught me how to disseminate information effectively,” Le Anh says.
Something that distinguishes this class is its emphasis on submitting material beyond the gates of Bellefontaine. “You must submit; that has always been a focus,” says Ms. Gomez. It’s an important habit built into all of Ms. Gomez’s publications classes— be it journalism, yearbook, creative writing or newspaper—and she certainly isn’t insensitive about the anxieties associated with that prospect. “Let’s face it, writing is pretty vulnerable,” says Ms. Gomez, adding that it’s the reason why “most people are afraid to do it.” But the routine of submitting, she hopes, will make the process less precious and help take the sting out of rejections a bit, cultivating a you-win-some, you-losesome sensibility. On the plus side, if you submit more, you win more. And there
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have been many accolades to spread around (see sidebar).
Perhaps the way this classroom most resembles a newsroom is the sense of camaraderie among students across grade levels. They are taking risks together, trying new things, succeeding in some arenas, stumbling in others, but always learning from each other along the way. Marina Muradian ’23, for one, appreciates being in an environment where she and her classmates are given “the independence to brainstorm our ideas.” Ms. Gomez calls them all “courageous,” and with revisions and rejections built into this course, this doesn’t feel like an overstatement. This courage seems contagious, too. Watching the success of one student helps inspire the other students, who suddenly see that the same kind of success is within their reach. Ms. Gomez explains the buoying sentiment students share when they see a classmate win a prize or accolade. ”If she can do something like this,” they think, “maybe I can too.”
Cub reporters. The new Digital Media Lab has proven to be just that—a testing ground where student journalists can experiment with and hone their craft. This spring, students collaborated on an ambitious new video newsmagazine called Cub Student News. The slickly edited 18-minute program is an entertaining showcase of their expanding repertoire of reporting and production skills, from on-camera interviews to B-roll footage, greenscreen editing and more. Scan the QR code to watch the pilot episode of Cub Student News.
Prizes for “putting yourself out there”
It’s non-negotiable—and nerve-wracking: Mayfield journalism students must share and submit their work outside of class. Since journalism and publications teacher Kimberly Gomez arrived at Mayfield in 2014, her students have won hundreds of awards in every possible discipline, from essays to poetry to flash fiction. Here are some of this year’s student accolades.
PODCAST PROPS. Sophomores Bella Guerra ’24 and Chloe Leong ’24 (pictured on page 26) earned an honorable mention in the second annual National Public Radio High School Podcast Challenge for their “I Am My Own” podcast, placing them in the top 3% of more than 4,000 submissions from students around the country. (Read more about their very personal episode on page 21.)
NEWSPAPER NODS. Mayfield Crier Editor-in-Chief Grace Sandman ’22 received a Best of Show recognition for editorial leadership from the Journalism Educators Association/National Scholastic Press Association. Crier Entertainment Editor Madison Rojas ’23 earned a coveted honorable mention from The New York Times—one of only 25 awarded from more than 4,000 student submissions around the world—for her review of a Harry Styles concert. And staff writer Le Anh Metzger ’22 had her feature writing selected for the Best of Student News Online showcase. SCHOLASTIC SUCCESS. Congratulations to this year’s regional winners in the prestigious Scholastic Art and Writing Awards: (from left) Annika Mashiko ’24 (two Silver Key awards for poetry), Emma Mendoza Muñoz ’24 (honorable mention for poetry), Avalon Dela Rosa ’22 (two honorable mentions for poetry), Madison Rojas ’23 (Silver Key award for flash fiction and honorable mention for poetry), Olivia Sandford ’22 (Gold Key award for photography), Lucy Martinez ’22 (Silver Key award and honorable mention for flash fiction) and Nina Copado ’22 (honorable mention for painting).
POETIC POSTSCRIPT. Avalon Dela Rosa ’22 and Monica Zepeda ’24 both had their poems published in the American High School Poets quarterly, which publishes less than 2% of all submissions.
The lessons acquired from Moot Court are anything but
An immersive Moot Court assignment gave AP Government and Politics students a hands-on look at the inner workings of the Supreme Court.
Agroup of seniors and a handful of juniors arrive in Strub Room 113 in neat business attire. Near the dryerase boards, five students slip black robes over their suit jackets to represent members of the Supreme Court. Desks are arranged into two pods, and the legal counsel for opposing sides settle in. Moot Court is in session.
The docket for today’s AP Government and Politics class—the culmination of months of work—includes three landmark Supreme Court cases, with students taking turns playing lawyers, justices or spectators in the gallery for each case. First, New Jersey v. TLO, dealing with the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures. Second, University of California v. Bakke, dealing with the complexities of affirmative action. And finally, the most well-known case: United States v. Nixon, which dealt with executive privilege and immunity of a sitting president.
These are not reenactments—students aren’t simply embodying historical figures and reciting speeches. Student lawyers can present their cases in the very real hope that they will be able to sway the court, at least in the Mayfield classroom. This potential to rewrite history was never more apparent than in the U.S. v. Nixon presentation. Both sides were well-prepared for their oral arguments, but Emily Vargas ’22 and her teammate, Nina Copado ’22, who played the attorneys defending President Richard Nixon, had a major uphill climb because the ruling against their client was already so well-known.
“There were not many sources supporting Nixon, so my partner and I had to get creative,” Emily admits. “We had to use our historical and constitutional knowledge to construct our original arguments.” Emily worked to direct the court’s attention away from the idea that tapes might be covering up wrongdoing, like the Watergate breakin. Instead, she and Nina emphasized national security and the kinds of unique, sensitive and world-altering conversations that can take place in the Oval Office. Emily mentioned that potentially sensitive material from these tapes—like discussions on the ongoing Vietnam War—could be dangerous if released to the public, and suggested that there was real peril in terms of international disasters.
And this seemed to work, because the student-run Supreme Court took extra time for this Nixon hearing—they even returned to the classroom for further questioning before adjourning for their second, and final, deliberation. Ultimately, Mayfield’s court decided with the original ruling against Nixon. But, ever so briefly, it did seem that the former president might have a reprieve after all!
AP Government teacher Tina Zapata wanted to experiment with squeezing the Moot Court material into her already packed curriculum this year because she knows just how valuable these hands-on assignments can be for students.
Lily Fontes ’22, who played the Chief Justice at one point in today’s class, said she found the process incredibly rewarding. “I think Moot Court helped to enrich our understanding of the actual Supreme Court because it showed how arguments made by the attorneys for each side could influence the court’s opinion,” she explains. “In many cases, our court decided differently than the real case because of how strong one attorney’s argument was.”
The way Moot Court can bring a reexamination and reimagination of even the most well-established moments in U.S. history makes it clear why Ms. Zapata was willing to include it in her lesson plan. This is not simply memorizing facts and figures. The Moot Court assignment is focused on critical thinking above all else, and students are graded on their research, written legal briefs and oral presentations. Ms. Zapata wanted to use this assignment for “a little more of a stretch” because it would require students to get “creative in [their] arguments.”
Eva Gullon ’23, one of the few juniors in the class, talks about how the subject material challenged her and gave her opportunities for growth. “The most exciting part about this assignment was the interactiveness, and being able to work as a team,” Eva says. “It also gave me an opportunity to apply things we had been working on in class in real life, and how this would be applied in a courtroom setting.” And, she adds, “It boosted my confidence, and pushed my limits to what I could have been comfortable with.”
The final verdict on the value of this assignment? Anything but moot.
