A Date with Money

- April 28, 2016

Volunteer work as a form of dating-- guess I can scratch that off my bucket list now. KH likes to join his company's corporate social responsibility activities and when he found out that they lacked volunteers, he roped me in. I was supposed to teach standard 4 and 5 kids about money. We arrived at Sekolah Rendah Subang Jaya at 9:00 AM. A strange feeling walking into a primary school with all the kids around. Normally its five years once to vote. LOL. All the kids were huddled into the hall together with the volunteers. More volunteers turned up and less kids attended. So my help wasn't really needed. Started off with a short briefing and the kids were split into eight groups of six. KH and I got to know our kids (super hipster names these days) and we distributed the breakfast packs-- bottled water, a vegetable samosa and a stunted doughnut.

When I looked at the training material from Junior Achievement, I doubted that the kids would get it. The "JA More Than Money" program had 6 modules that touched on topics like bank accounts, earning money and running a business. Heavy stuff for a kid really. Have to translate and simplify for them to get the idea through. Most of the kids revealed that they have a bank account but do not know how much money they have in it. One kid surprised me by saying, "I think there are two commas in the number". Interspersed between the boring rote learning stuff were games that combined board games and book keeping. Most of the kids were intent on saving money when presented with decisions, but I was most shocked by one particular question:

You find a wallet on the street.
a) You send the wallet to the nearest police station.
b) You keep the wallet.

Most of the kids chose (b) because they thought they would get money from that answer. They were obviously disappointed when I told them they get no extra money regardless of the answer. The kids were getting restless so we breezed through the modules. When it came to the part about being a smart consumer, we got to ask them about their wish list. The favourite was iPhone 6S and a hoverboard. Kids have expensive tastes these days. In the end, we took a wefie and waited for the other kids to finish. Lunch was provided in the form of Happy Meals. Funny that the volunteers were more excited about the Monchhichi toys than the kids.

KH and I were so tired after the session. I won' be doing this again any time soon. Got our coffee fix at After Black, a cafe that seems popular with the student population nearby. Cheap prices and good coffee. And I got to cuci mata with a hunky guy who was on a coffee date with a caucasian leng lui.