CMS teacher devoted to financial literacy at grass roots

COURTESY SHELBY LATTIMORE

Shelby Lattimore, a third-grade teacher at Renaissance West STEAM Academy, helps students understand the concepts of money as a financial literacy initiative. “It didn’t really start off as ‘Well, I’m going to teach these kids financial literacy,’” she said. “I wanted to incorporate money because money was a big motivator when I was a kid.”

Shelby Lattimore equips third graders with money skills they’ll need as adults.

Lattimore, who teaches at Renaissance West STEAM Academy, helps her students understand the basics of financial literacy to become financially stable adults.

“It didn’t really start off as ‘Well I’m going to teach these kids financial literacy,’” she recalls. “I wanted to incorporate money because money was a big motivator when I was a kid. So, I started using [play] money instead of stickers or candy to really get the kids motivated. It also gets them to have better attendance as well.”

In an era of cashless financial transactions, many children don’t understand the concept of physical money. They’re familiar with Cashapp or Zelle, but Lattimore wants her students to understand money is more than an app on a smartphone.

To demonstrate real-life situations, she assigns various jobs during the school day and pays in play money. She also charges rent for activities like using their desks.

“I realized that these kids had no concept of how to earn money, how to spend money, how to save money, like physical money,” she said. “They knew they could pay for things with an app or whatever, but they had no idea as to where money comes from or the value of it. So, that is kind of where all of this started.”
Lattimore uses money apps herself but wants students to know where it comes from and the concept behind money first.

“Not to say it isn’t good to have cards or these apps,” she said. “Like, I’m an Apple Pay person., so I can understand that Bitcoin and things like that are the way we are going, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But I think what is happening is we are skipping a building block. We are skipping the fundamentals. I can’t multiply without learning how to add first.”
Lattimore emphasizes bringing her students – who are 8- and 9-year-olds and often from low-income families – along slowly.

“The way we start is by taking very small steps,” she said. “At first, we don’t talk about rent, we don’t talk about inflation and stuff. It is simply ‘Here’s money.’ How do we count it? You’d be amazed at how I can put a $10, $5, and $1 bill in front of a third grader, and they don’t know how to count it. To us, that’s simple, but to them, it isn’t.”

Lattimore has quickly risen to fame on social media hitting over 1 million followers on her TikTok account as parents use Lattimore’s tactics and implement them for their children.

“This has definitely brought a lot to light,” she said. “People in other countries are doing it. People teaching kindergarteners and even high schools are incorporating it. Parents and guardians are using it at home. I got an email over the weekend from people in prisons wanting to incorporate some kind of economy lesson with the prisoners that they have.”

Lattimore said that she never could have imagined how her social media presence would blow up – but is glad it has, to help more people learn financial literacy.

“The first video I posted was in the 2022-23 school year,” she said. “That first video has about 800,000 views and just blew up, like the first video. Since then, people have kind of been locked and loaded. After my interview with NBC, it just kind of exploded.”

Other media have highlighted Lattimore’s financial literacy work, including USA Today and the syndicated “Tamron Hall Show.”

Financial literacy doesn’t have to be complicated or overwhelming, Lattimore insists. At its core is making smarter decisions with money at any age.

“The program I’m doing can be adapted,” she said. “It’s adaptable to many different types of people, people with various ages and I think a lot of people are picking up on how important this really is.”

Lattimore wants kids to have life skills when they leave her class and be able to use those lessons well into adulthood.

“I feel like with every generation and new technology makes certain aspects of life easier, they expect us to skip over all the other fundamental parts,” she said, “but it’s extremely important to know the fundamentals.

“A lot of people say I’m trying to bring old school teaching back, but I love it. I feel like you’ve got to incorporate both [old methods and new].”

Comments