Feedback on adoption of our books

You may not know this, but our books have been recently adopted by an elementary school in Millard Public School District, rated one of the top 6 % in the nation. The finance course was created to teach principles of finance using the series “Finance for Kidz” to high school and elementary school children . Here is a quote from the lead faculty, David Wilhelm, the creator of the course, on its successful completion in fall 2010:

Hello Prakash:

Happy New Year! Thanks for your message. The class created last Fall was a COMPLETE success and both the high school students from the finance academy and the primary grade students thoroughly enjoyed it. In fact, one day while visiting the class and observing the student interaction, I was told by an administrator that enrollment had to be “capped” at 20 students as the demand for the class far exceeded their expectations and they had to “turn away” primary students because of space limitations. Isn’t that amazing?

Anyway, the class was called, “Finance Applications in the Field” and is now part of the Finance Academy for second year students in Millard Public Schools. As such, it will most likely be offered every Fall semester now that the two year academy just completed its first cycle of students. You should know it was a success and feel a sense of accomplishment that your books and lesson materials contributed significantly to help these students better understand how finance affects their future.

Lastly, my dean has repeatedly expressed a desire for this academy program to be self sustaining at Millard Public Schools and their faculty will assume full responsibility for the class instruction, activities and assessment beginning with the new school year in the Fall 2011 semester. What this means is I will only be helping with course development going forward and NOT expected to facilitate, instruct or evaluate student performance. I hope this indicates the program is in the sustaining mode and the high school faculty will now assume full responsibility for the classes.

I hope all is well with you and apologize for the long e-mail response but certainly wanted to update you on the outcome of the class. I leave you with one comment made by a finance academy student who expressed personal satisfaction on a job well done in the written assignment which summarized the course. In the paper, she said,

“Today was our last day with the Cottonwood Elementary students and we will most likely never see them again. While I am sad, it gives me great pride knowing our efforts the past 8 weeks will help them appreciate the important role of finance in their young lives. We know the students enjoyed the experience with us for the short time we shared with them and somehow my sadness with the end of this class is offset by the satisfaction of watching the progress made of what started as little finance caterpillars turn into butterflies.”

I don’t know about you but to me its reading these comments which is the essence of why I chose a career in education.

Thanks,

David

— David Wilhelm, Faculty, Metropolitan Community College, Omaha, Nebraska