Tech

Cryptocurrencies arrive in the classroom

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The year was 2021 and the United States was in the midst of cryptomania. Ads promoting the cryptocurrency Bitcoin featuring celebrities such as Megan Thee Stallone AND Tom Brady received a lot of attention from young fans.

Some ads touted cryptocurrency as a new type of currency gained a lot of buzz. While those ads were right about the hype, they were wrong about cryptocurrencies being new. Even when those adverts were made, Bitcoin – the first successful decentralized cryptocurrency – had been around for over a decade. Now, 2024 will mark 15 years since the launch of Bitcoin.

15 years is a drop in the bucket in historical terms, but literally a lifetime for teenagers.

Yanely Espinal, host of Marketplace”Financially inclined“, he’s been talking to teens about cryptocurrencies and says they have so many questions. He spoke with Marketplace’s Lily Jamali about how teachers are trying to figure out how to handle students curious about cryptocurrency.

The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

Yanely Espinal: Teachers are coming out saying we need cryptocurrency assets, our students want to know more, they have a lot of questions about it. And in the state of Georgia, for the first time ever, there are some learning standards that teachers need to align instruction with, which actually includes cryptocurrency and historical examples of purchasing speculative investments. And so now that teachers realize they have to explain how it works to students, they’re looking for resources to help them understand it first.

Lily Jamali: You’re listening to the teachers, but you’re also talking to the students. You just finished a national tour in which you spoke to kids from 37 high schools across the country. What are some of the questions you hear from students about cryptocurrencies?

Spinal: I get a lot of questions about cryptocurrencies and investing in general from students. I think one of the most important things students want to know is: where can I invest my money to grow it? They recognize that inflation is high, they see the headlines in newspapers and social media, and they even see celebrities coming out on social media complaining about inflation. I think they are very aware.

Jamali: And you just tell them I’m not crypto? That cryptocurrencies are not the right place to grow your money?

Spinal: Well, I think we need to avoid two things. The first is that we must avoid evangelizing any particular financial topic or strategy. But we must also avoid the opposite, that is, trying to actively dissuade students from pursuing any type of financial behavior or activity. So, I think as educators, our job is to educate them, empower them, inform them and then say to them, so what do you think now that you’ve learned everything that we’ve talked about in this course? Now that you’ve studied, explored and analyzed it, what do you think? Do you think it’s a safe investment for you? Or a good place to put your and your family’s money?

Jamali: Over the past two years, many people have lost a lot of money investing in cryptocurrencies and we know that there has been predatory behavior against people from marginalized backgrounds for these types of investments.

Spinal: Right. And I think that’s the problem. At the moment, what we know about cryptocurrencies is what we often hear from the media and what happens online, and not really from an educational source. It is very difficult to find someone who has not invested in cryptocurrencies or who is actively against the idea of ​​cryptocurrencies and is just neutral. Like an educator who says, “I have no part in the game, I just want you to understand what it is and how it works so you can decide whether you are ready to invest in cryptocurrencies or whether it is best to stay away.” Since you don’t have to invest in cryptocurrencies, you don’t have to participate, but what you do need to do is make informed choices with your money. So, you have to understand cryptography, you have to know how it works and why it was developed. Why are some people for it and why are some people against it and which side do you stand on.

Jamali: Do you think younger people, like high school students, have a different approach to cryptocurrencies than someone who is older and has made more investments over their lifetime within the traditional U.S. financial system?

Spinal: Oh yeah. 100%. I met students who told me they already had cryptocurrencies and had invested 50 or 100 dollars. I met a student who said he had invested almost $1,000. The thing is, they’ve seen so many celebrities talk about it and they’ve seen the hype around it. That hype machine creates FOMO. The fear of missing out has a very strong psychological influence and they wanted to be a part of it, especially when they see people they admire doing it.

Jamali: That’s what worries me, though. There is so much hype and there are so many questions about whether celebrities like Larry David or Tom Brady should have sent that message about cryptocurrencies. These are people that these kids look up to and were rewarded for doing so.

Spinal: Exactly. This is why it is important for us to encourage students to analyze what is happening and what the source of the information is. They say: “I saw Megan Thee Stallone teaching me what Bitcoin is in a Cash App commercial.” And I’m like, okay, take a break and let’s go back, right? It’s a Cash App commercial. We need to try to teach them to think this way. Because I have to say that this generation, among the students I worked with in high school, is part of a generation that does not see the lack of privacy online and the constant bombardment of advertising and marketing tactics used against us online, they do not see it as a invasion of privacy. They don’t see it as something manipulative or negative. They just see it as normal. Because from the time they remember using an iPad for the first time or playing on mom’s phone for the first time, this is always. It’s been the normal Internet they’ve experienced and known. So it’s up to us as adults to tell them, “You’re being manipulated by what you see online and taking it as fact instead of recognizing that it’s an advertising campaign.” We need to teach them how to recognize and decipher between information presented in a factual manner and from an unbiased source and information that is clearly promotional material.

Jamali: It seems like some financial literacy is taught here, but also some media literacy. What has your experience been like teaching teachers about cryptocurrencies and providing them with the tools to teach them?

Spinal: It’s very funny because I teach a nine-hour certification course and the tenth hour is an exam that teachers have to pass to prove that they have actually mastered the content. And the first session of the course consists precisely in understanding the history of money. Teachers get so shocked because they say “aren’t we going to talk about Bitcoin and blockchain?” I say, no, no, no, no, before we even get into any of this, we need to all agree on a common definition of money. Because most people think that money is dollars, coins or credit cards. They think about the types of payments they have experienced, rather than thinking about the concept of money, which is really anything that can generally be accepted as a form of payment for goods or services or to repay debt or to pay taxes.

Once we start talking about these things, let’s go through a historical lens and I share with them Aristotle’s six principles of what is considered sound money. Whatever you use as money must be scarce. It must be durable, recognizable, divisible. It must be portable and fungible. So when teachers start learning these things, they say, “Wait what? Aristotle was talking about what makes something a good form of money around 350 BC? So when we start to think about money through this historical lens, we can understand why cryptocurrency might be criticized for not being a good form of money or why it might be perceived as a potentially good alternative to traditional forms of money. Because we look at it through the lens of the Aristotelian principles of sound money,

Jamali: I can tell you; I never learned these things in school and I’m so happy that that education is reaching people now. And on that note, 25 states now require students to take a personal finance course before they can graduate. Is cryptocurrency part of that curriculum?

Spinal: It really varies from state to state because in each state the legislation doesn’t necessarily tell you specifically what you have to teach. Most states will choose to create their own personal financial literacy teaching standards and then teachers will need to align their lessons and goals with those standards. I think we’re in an exploratory phase right now. For example, we expose students to these concepts that they themselves are curious about. It’s interesting when you have a class about money and then students come into that class thinking we’re going to talk about what they perceive as money, like they think cryptocurrency is money, and then you don’t even talk about it in class, then they feel like your instructions they are irrelevant. They say, “You won’t even tell us about cryptocurrencies, how’s this money lesson going?” So, I think it’s very important for educators to stay up to date with the instruction that they teach their students so that students can actually see that this is relevant to their real life.

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