The Green Reaper

Today has been a great day so far! I spent the day volunteering at Wildwood Middle School in Jefferson County, West Virginia, mostly participating in the financial literacy program called "Get a Life" for 7th grade students. This program gave students the chance to see how to manage a budget with and without higher education, especially given the amount that is up to chance in life.

This element of chance became my job for the morning: I spent two hours in a grim reaper costume, bringing mostly bad luck to kids who soon learned to run away from me to avoid anything from car accidents to bad weather to a pet's therapy for separation anxiety to winning lottery scratch-offs. Sometimes I had to chase kids and other times I had a posse circling me as if that meant that they would not be chosen for a new fortune or misfortune. Some soon learned that leaving your life up to Chance is not generally a good ideas...

In the second hour, I gave a student a card saying that he had to pay to fix his house after a tree fell on it, which would cost him $800 since he did not have insurance. I spent the entire rest of the game chasing him like the IRS, and he never gave in. Another kid had the misfortune of getting a card from me saying that he had to pay $200 to fix his car and he was already in debt. He got down on his knees begging me not to fine him, but chance has no compassion. He never forgave me.

This game was extremely fun for the kids and for me, but was especially great because it was so practical and really gave the students a chance to learn how life works. Many students started off trying to buy as much and as fancy stuff as possible but learned after getting a chance at a new life that college education and frugality are much better for making life a little easier financially.

For the rest of the day, the 3 other ASB participants and I observed two sixth grade classes and then played one last round of "Get a Life." The first class was a reading class and was pretty boring, although the teacher had warned us that this was her 5th time teaching the same lesson that day. The next class was a math class. That teacher was very high-energy and well respected among her students. She had this policy that her class was like a one-woman show or a concert, and used that analogy to explain why students should not interrupt class. She was really great! For the final hour of "Get a Life," our staff advisor, Conrad, dressed up in the reaper costume while I took his place making utilities sales. We really had an amazing time today! Maryland public schools should learn from this and start similar financial literacy programs!