Bianca Ely, 16, waved dismissively at her computer screen late last week. She’d just lost $16,000.
“I bought a lot of stock yesterday because they were going up,” said the junior in an economics class at Vienna’s Oakton High School. “And then they went down yesterday afternoon, and I lost. A lot.”
Luckily for Bianca and her classmates, the dollars are virtual and used only for a class project. But her concerns have turned a financial bust into a classroom boom.
“There’s obviously been turmoil personally, but it’s made for great teaching,” said Bianca’s teacher, Tim Hudenberg, who added that the current crisis is his most teachable moment in 18 years of economics classes. “They’re asking, ‘How does it affect my college funding? How do I get a loan?’ ” Hudenberg said. “And they’re talking to their parents.”
Across the room, senior football players Trey Watts and Joey McCallum stared helplessly at their online spreadsheet. In what they called “a mixture of strategy and laziness,” the young men have recently taken a hands-off approach to their original $100,000.
“You can really screw yourself over,” Joey said, adding he’s been searching for tips in his dad’s investor newsletters. Trey added that “my parents and I have something to talk about instead of ‘How was school?’ ‘It was good.’ ” “We have more in common now,” he said.
Hudenberg has been thrilled with the reactions and plans to milk the interest down to the level of Fairfax County’s local budget.
“We know budget cuts are coming,” he said before turning to Joey. “Isn’t that right, Joey? They’re cutting football next year — did you hear?”
The joke earned a grin, but the reality of cuts and the chaotic nature of the crisis have inspired class projects to fit the times: Students have paired up to update 2001 textbook chapters on topics such as monetary policy and the public debt.
Kurt Waters, high school social studies specialist for Fairfax County schools, said that, as opposed to older generations, today’s students are perfectly primed for such projects. They’re more comfortable with rapid change, he said, due to the ever-evolving Internet and social networks.
“Twenty or 30 years ago, we looked backwards to see what had been done or what worked in the past — information was more finite,” Waters said. “Now, students and teachers aren’t looking back so much as looking outside the box.”
