At Beacon High School in New York’s Hudson Valley, Financial Math co-teachers Karen Hoben and Samantha Veltri are giving students the financial education they wish they’d had themselves. “We love NGPF at Beacon High School!” they shared, crediting the curriculum with helping them bring money lessons to life. Learn how Karen and Samantha work together to empower their math and inclusion section students with essential money skills.

How long have you been teaching? And how many of those years have you taught personal Finance? 

Samantha: I have been teaching for six years now as a general education teacher and have taught a version of personal finance for five of those six years, all at the high school level. 

Karen: I am a special education teacher of 23 years and have been teaching personal finance for the past eight years, approximately. 

What makes you passionate about personal finance education?

Coming from two different generations of education, we both wish we had a class that was thorough in teaching us about financial responsibilities, concepts, and potential pitfalls before we needed to learn them on our own out in the real world.

We are supplying our students with crucial skills and personal anecdotes from our experiences to help our students become successful in a complicated and ever-changing economy. 

What is one of your earliest money memories?

Samantha: My first money memory is from when I was seven years old. I gathered every piece of change I owned and put it together so I could buy a Cabbage Patch doll.

Karen: One of my very first money memories was when I got a scholarship to take ballet classes, which took the strain of paying for them off of my family. 

Can you provide an example of how a lesson taught in class helped a student and/or someone in their family make a better money decision?

So many examples! One in particular from last year stands out. We did a project during our entrepreneurship unit (where we used NGPF resources) and one of our students created her own small business that helped women understand themselves better through bullet journal entries, which helped them to love and accept themselves.

We are also keenly aware that our credit and budgeting units (also resources from NGPF) prepared our graduating seniors as they were leaving their homes to attend college. 

How has being part of the NGPF network helped you personally? Professionally?

Personally, we as teachers have increased our own knowledge and abilities by using NGPF resources, which benefits our students greatly. Professionally, we have appreciated the way that NGPF has laid out the lessons and the lessons’ objectives, aiding us in the creation of more encompassing and effective activities for our classes. 

Can you explain how your co-teaching system works? What are each of you learning from the other?

One of the best aspects of our co-teaching relationship is that we bring our own experiences with finance to the table and end up learning from each other as well in the process.

In regards to our co-teaching system, we use a variety of strategies and humor (though it may be corny at times) to best support our students. When teaching the whole class together, we also seem to finish each other's sentences, almost as if we can see each other’s thought process and anticipate the questions that the students may have. 

We look forward to maturing in our co-teaching partnership and in our professionalism as financial literacy teachers. We are excited for all the ways in which we will expand our knowledge and skillset to better impart critical knowledge of personal finance to our students.

What advice do you have for other personal finance teachers? 

Definitely take advantage of the NGPF resources, whether that means you are using their resources actively in your classroom or you are simply looking at how their lessons are laid out.

Also, continue to expand your skills and your toolbox of activities and lessons so you can continue growing in your ability to educate learners with diverse abilities. Today’s economy is dynamic and changes quickly enough that you have to stay on top of new ideas and trends, making information from textbooks of yester-year obsolete. 

About the Author

Hannah Rael

As NGPF's Marketing Communications Manager, Hannah (she/her) helps spread the word about NGPF's mission to improve the financial lives of the next generation of Americans.