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This episode features Dr. Darla Bishop, who joins our conversation to discuss the importance of family-school partnerships and financial literacy for children.
With a background in education and public health, Dr. Bishop is passionate about helping people build healthier relationships with money. She believes in the importance of teaching financial literacy from a young age and partnering with parents and educators to do so. Dr. Bishop discusses the mindset changes necessary and provides many practical tips and strategies in this episode to talk to children of all ages about money. The Big Dream Dr. Bishop dreams of an educational system where schools are seen as safe havens and key learning environments. Even more than that, she envisions a world where children are taught about money in developmentally appropriate ways, which empowers them to break generational cycles of financial mismanagement and become financially literate individuals. Mindset Shifts Required Parents and educators are encouraged to move away from seeing money as a taboo topic. Instead, they should consider the lifelong impact of teaching financial literacy, and that kids can be the carriers of social change and make lasting impacts in their lives and the lives of those around them. Action Steps The reality is that we’re already teaching our kids about money, whether explicit or not. Kids are picking up money lessons. So what does it look like to be more intentional with what we’re teaching them? Here are some key action steps Dr. Bishop recommends: Step 1: Pay attention to what money messages you’re giving your children. Does it sound like, “We don’t have money for that,” or “We can’t afford that”? Or, what are the conversations you have at the store? That helps you know what kind of messages you’re sending your children and focus on what you might want to change. Step 2: Begin having open discussions about money with children, even when they’re young. It can start by reading the prices at the store or identifying the coins and understanding their use in everyday transactions. You can also encourage kids to take part in small financial decisions, like handling money during grocery trips, to illustrate financial concepts in real life. Step 3: Set targets for children not just to spend but to save and donate money, thus nurturing a balanced financial mindset. Step 4: Form partnerships between schools and families to educate children on money. Dr. Bishop’s curriculum outlines tasks for teachers, students, and parents so each person is involved in building financial literacy. For example, if students are learning about counting multiples in math class, the teacher can ask a parent to help at home by pulling out specific coins and teaching the children to use them in real life. This reinforces what they learn in school and gives real-world money applications. Challenges? One of the significant challenges highlighted by Dr. Bishop is adults' varying relationships with money, which can often impact teaching it. Families may hold onto outdated financial beliefs, and teachers may feel unprepared to venture into financial education due to their complex financial relationships. One Step to Get Started Because one of the key challenges is our own varying relationships to money, Dr. Bishop recommends adults take stock of their own financial beliefs. Ask yourself: “What are the rules I have about money?” Write them down and then ask if they make sense for you today. You may find that they’re based on outdated ideas or other people’s ideas and values. This self-reflection aids in creating a healthier narrative around money that can be passed on to the next generation. Stay Connected You can find this week’s guest on her personal website, the Piggy Bank Pathways website and Instagram. You can also check out her book for children, Madeline’s Money Adventure, or older teens, How to Afford Everything. To help you implement today’s takeaways, our guest is sharing Piggy Bank Pathways Activity Hub with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 263 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below. Quotes:
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TRANSCRIPT
Lindsay Lyons: Dr. Darla Bishop, welcome to the Time for Teachership podcast. Dr. Darla Bishop: Thank you so much for having me. Lindsay Lyons: I am really excited to dive in. So I have a few things on my mind since I've, like, learned about all of your stuff and, and you've sent me materials and everything. That's so exciting. Um, I also imagine you have things that you want listeners to know or keep in mind as we kind of go through, uh, the general questions. But things on my mind, and I'm gonna throw it to you, and let, let us know what's on your mind. Family school partnerships, like how schools and families can work together to help kids. Huge. I think I'm really excited to know your ideas there. Um, also just healthy ways to talk about money with kids as well as, like, what exactly do we talk about with the kiddos? I'm so excited we got a guest. Dr. Darla Bishop: Yeah, and so what's so awesome about schools and parents is they already work together already, right? And the idea that I approach this as a parent who's also been a teacher, um, for little kids and grown-ups, is if we put a bit of attention behind it, a bit of intention about how we see our role, how we see the other side's role, and whether or not those things match, and we're to make sure we're kind of talking in the same way so that it's easier for us to meet in that middle, where we're all concerned about the same thing anyway, right? We care about raising and having great citizens, and them displaying those behaviors now while they're in the school environment, while they're home with their siblings and family, while they're in the community doing, you know, their sports or just out and about living normal life, right? And so since we all have that same goal, that if we just put a bit of intention from all sides, that it will all go smoother and the kids will benefit even more. Lindsay Lyons: I love that. I think, I mean, part of what you're saying actually leads into my next question, so I'm just gonna ask it. Um, but Dr. Bettina Love talks about the idea of freedom dreaming with a quote that I admire. She says, "They're dreams grounded in the critique of injustice." And so with that in mind, like, what is that dream that you hold for education broadly or, or, you know, um, y- youth and, and finances and financial literacy? Like, however you wanna interpret that. Dr. Darla Bishop: Well, there's a couple pieces of that, right? Like, part of it is in the school environment, right? Like, how do we help kids from all types of situations feel that school is their safe place, and that they love it, and that the adults there are there to love them in whatever way that feels right and appropriate, and teach them and guide them and support them? Because not everybody has a great home, and so maybe that they're getting some of that from school, which I know is heavy for teachers, but like, hey, it, it is what it is because that's how we've built our society, right? For better or worse. The other part on the money side is the reason I'm so passionate about helping kids learn about money is layered. One, my background in education and public health, we know that whenever we need to change something in the public's health large scale, writ large, that when we teach kids the behaviors that we want to see in society, they go enforce it with their grownups. Perfect example, seat belts, right? When seat belt law started to change, state police and other safety organizations went into schools, did safety presentations. Fire safety went into schools, did safety presentations, taught the kids, "Here's how... Here, here's what you need to do every time you get into the car. If someone in the car isn't using their seat belt, remind them, because maybe they don't know." And so that means that the children end up being the carrier of this social change. And so when we teach the babies about money in very simple age and developmentally appropriate ways, a few things happen. One, in case their parents never got these lessons, we're starting at the ground, and so it's okay because now the parent learns the lesson too, right? The other thing that happens is when the child notices how the grownups and/or older kids in their life are using money, they start asking questions based on what they learned in the school environment The next thing that happens is just in case there are forces that don't allow the parent, the grown-ups, to get it together, right? They can't ever figure out how to save. They can't ever figure out to, to work consistently. They can't ever figure out how to just move out of whatever space they're in. Those lessons that those kids get in the classroom end up being protective. Because once that child grows into a young adult who's then working and earning a little bit of money, even if the parent or the grown-up has said, "Well, now you're working, you need to contribute to the house," they might say, "Mm, but I remember I'm supposed to save $5," even if it's just $5 from my check for some reason. And then all of a sudden we have a 16, 17 or 18-year-old who maybe has been working an after-school job, a weekend job, and they've got a few hundred or even a few thousand, um, dollars saved up because they remember this lesson from when they were a kid, even if the grown-ups in their life were unable to take the action, they were. So then they're starting off their life as an adult, perhaps independent, perhaps not, but with these behaviors that they learned as a kid. And so they can be the grown-up who teaches the next generation or the one above them. When I learned about money, when I taught everybody in my life about money, it changed three generations of my family. My s- me and my siblings, because I, of course, put them on a budget as soon as I could. And then the grown-ups because they say, "Hey, we notice you're doing okay. Well, how do you do this?" And they kind of ask in their own way for how they could do things differently in a way that still worked for them. And then my kids are super money smart, just because they swim in this water where we're talking about money all the time. And so that, that's where it comes from. And I know that was a long answer, so I'll be quiet because let's talk. Lindsay Lyons: Oh my gosh. My brain is exploding right now. I'm taking furious notes. Um, wow, where to even go next? I mean, so I just wanna kind of like echo back some of the things that are really resonating with me. So this idea of kids being the carriers of social change, like, mm, I just want people to sit with that. That's really good. I also am really excited about the idea of asking questions. Like inquiry pedagogy from the teacher lens, also the family lens, like how do we continue conversations over time? I love that you're-- It's making me think of your curriculum, you know, K-5 being like, okay, and we grow this over time. We don't start in pre-K with like, here's how to budget for this, like, thing that you, you want necessarily, but we're doing like a foundational piece to eventually do that. Um, I just, I think there's, wow, so much that you just said that's literally blowing my mind. Um, but also I, I'm curious to know, like- I have heard so many families who are families of preschoolers, families of, uh, maybe elementary kids particularly say, I literally have a family say to u- say to us, um, we were doing, uh, how to talk to kids about social issues. It was h- how do I, do I literally say the word money? Like, they were like, "I have grown up never having been told to talk about money." That was, like, a taboo subject. Um, I also have, have been thinking about, um, folks that I know that are, like, very stressed when it comes to money because families have shared the dynamics of money, but not necessarily in a healthy way. And so I'm curious, I think there's some probably shifting or, like, a, a term I often hear is, like, the re-parenting, right? Like, you're, like, re-parenting yourself. You're shifting how you grew up thinking about money and now we gotta do it different. Like, for the family members listening to this or engaging with this episode, like, w- what has to happen for that shift or what's, like, a mindset that you can help coach us through that needs Dr. Darla Bishop: to happen? Yeah. Uh, and I'm s- thank you so much for hitting on that. I think part of it is we don't always realize as parents that our voice ends up being that inner monologue for a long time, right? Especially if you're in the stage where you have some older kids, like they're 12 and up, and so they're not listening to you. They're listening to their, their friends and their, their peers. But really, your voice ends up be that, is that, um, inner monologue really probably until early to mid-20s. And so what you say and what you do matters, not to put pressure, but it matters more than you're probably giving yourself credit for. And so one of the things I often th- say is, like, if you're wondering how you're already teaching your kids money lessons, because you are. We're constantly teaching our kids lessons about relationships, about money, about values, about how we treat one another, right? Whether we are explicitly doing it or just living our lives, 'cause they are watching, right? That if you are wondering how you t- how your kids are picking up the money lessons is for 30 days, s- start at, say, like, and put it in your calendar even. Just make a note in your phone or if you're a journaling or diary type person, every time you hear your kid say something about money, ask for something that has a cost, a, a financial cost, or react, just so that you can kind of create a list of the things that you hear your kids say, or even better, that you say to the family, right? And then after a couple weeks, three or four Look at your list, and we are not looking at this with any judgment of ourselves, of anything. We're just simply-- This is we're, we're being anthropologists. We are being NCIS. We are being curious. We are investigating, not making any judgments yet about, hmm, so what are the things that we've said out loud to one another about money? And if you look at that list and you're like, "Cool, that's what I want their inner voice to say," stay exactly there. Keep using those messages. But if you see the list and you're seeing things like, "We ain't got money for that. Stop asking for stuff. We can't afford it," and if you don't want those to be the main messages rolling around in your child's head, then you gotta figure out what to say differently. And I'd like to give this example of being in the store with my child, right? Like every once in a while we've gotta go to a big box store because we need trash bags and light bulbs. So the way that I set us up for success is I specifically say, "This is the purpose for this trip. We are going to this store because we need trash bags and light bulbs." And I recruit the kid to help me remember, quote-unquote, that we're here for trash bags and light bulbs. "Oh my gosh, what are we here for again? Oh, trash bags and light bulbs. Okay." 'Cause they're helping me stay on track, and which is great. You give a kid a job, and they're gonna do that job most of the time, right? The second thing I do is when they notice something that catches their attention, a toy, a dress, a candy, something colorful, I don't, if, especially if we're not in a hurry, we don't have somewhere to go, I don't rush them past it. I say, "Oh, well, let's stop and look at it. Well, what do you like about this dress? Oh, you like the color. Oh, okay." Okay, so I g- engage them in a thirty-second conversation, a one-minute conversation, and then usually that actually satisfies it because I didn't rush them past the thing, and they got to tell me why they liked it, and we got to spend a little time with the thing, or they got to pick it up, or they got to touch it. That's like eighty percent of the time enough, and we can move on. Now, for that other twenty percent of the time where they actually make the ask, "Mom, can I have?" I say, "Hmm, well, do you remember what we came to the store for?" And they say, "Trash bags and light bulbs." Perfect. "Did we get our trash bags and light bulbs?" "No, not yet." Okay. Well, let's get that first. So I can either move them to the main purpose we came to the store, or I can say, "Well, because we didn't come for the dress or the toy or the candy today, we're not gonna get it today. But can you look, tell me what numbers it says on the price tag?" And then it makes them look so that they can recognize prices, because that's an important life skill. That's an important skill to have when you send them to the store to pick something up when they're old enough to do that on their own, right? They need to be able to look and identify prices and compare, "Well, this one costs $2 and this one costs $2, but this one's bigger, so maybe that's the one I want," right? And so, "Oh, what's that price?" "Okay, it's $7." "Do you think you have $7 in your piggy bank?" "I don't know." "Okay. Well, we know that you like it. We know that it costs $7. Now that we have our trash bags and light bulbs, we're gonna leave the store. But as soon as we get home, let's check your piggy bank, and if you have the $7, well, the next time I come to this store, or I might even make a special trip, and I'll come get that thing for you." Right? And then if they don't have the $7, "Well, darn, you, you only got $5. Well, what could we do to help earn the extra two that you need? Is there some special jobs you could do around the house? Do our neighbors need anything? Do you have any birthdays or special occasions coming up where Granny or this other person in our life usually gives you a small gift?" My son, when he goes to the barber shop, the barber is so nice and usually will tell him, "If you sweep the floor, you can have $2." So my son will say, "Can we go to the barber shop?" Because he knows he can, he can get the $2 he needs there, right? And I know I explained this in a long way, but that little interaction of, "Well, how much does it cost? Okay, let's check your piggy bank," only took a little bit longer than, "No. Put it back. Stop asking for stuff," and develops a much richer, friendlier in, in relationship with money. Lindsay Lyons: Wow. That was... I'm, like, taking notes 'cause I'm like, "I'm gonna do that thing next," 'cause I've totally found myself being like, "No. We can't. We're not doing that. Stop asking." So this is so good. Oh, wow. And I also just love how much, like, there is so much you're teaching in that conversation. I mean, I imagine, I'm already thinking, like, two conversations ahead too to, like, okay, maybe we buy the thing for $7, and then the next time we're at the store and we identify this other thing, and now we don't have any money in the piggy bank, right? Like, what a wonderful opportunity to now engage, like, well, because you made a choice, right? Like, and we... Oh my gosh, there's so much potential, and for a continuing conversation about- Dr. Darla Bishop: For a continuing conversation, right? Because we're teaching our kids about money every single day. Every single day. And so if we can put a bit of intention about it, then it just l- opens up a world of possibilities for the kids. And when you don't, and I'm not telling anyone, parents or teachers, that you have to have the answers, but have a few questions ready. Because when you have questions ready, the kid will carry the conversation. Lindsay Lyons: Absolutely Absolutely. A- and, and what I love, thank you for sending, uh, me a little glimpse of, like, what the, your curriculum looks like. It's beautiful, and what I really wanted to just say I love is in each lesson you have, like, here's what the task is for the teacher, here's what the task is for the student, here's what the task is for the family member. And I, I just love that those three, wi- within the lesson it is assumed and encouraged and invited that everyone is an equal participant in this. So you have student agency, you have that home family connection or home-school connection immediately, and I think, I, I, I just love, one, that as a mindset of just when we're doing this, here's a prompt I'm gonna send home for families, or here's a prompt I might tell families ahead of time. Um, I- do you mind sharing some of the ways that might come up in the curriculum or that you've seen be successful with, like, I'm doing something as the teacher at school, here's, like, a move a teacher can make or an ask a teacher can make of the family to, to bridge that partnership or to form that? Dr. Darla Bishop: Yeah, absolutely. And so one of the things that I've heard from, like, my credit union and banking partners is they're realizing that kids are not spending much time handling real money. And so when they're doing the math lesson, you know, if you've been a elementary school teacher, you have the math book and it's pictures of the coins. The kids are having a much harder time getting that concept of which coin is which value because they literally haven't handled them, right? And so one of the things I might do, whether I'm the math teacher, the social studies teacher, or the teacher who's been tasked with doing this money workshop, is I'm going to ask the parents, "Hey, can you specifically find some coins and talk with your child about counting the coins, sorting the coins, identifying the coins, and telling you how much the coins make?" Because this is something we're doing in math to teach them multiples, and if you do it in real life where they get to touch it and smell it, 'cause pennies smell funny, and see which is bigger and which is smaller and which are the same color and which is a different color, then it'll make my work in this math lesson where we're teaching multiples way easier. Lindsay Lyons: I love that. I mean, even just there was an article I was reading the other day, and I said something to my three-year-old and I was like, "Oh my gosh, they're not gonna make pennies anymore." And he's like, "What does that even... Like, what does, how is that even a thing?" I was like, "Oh, right, 'cause you don't handle pennies. Like, you don't handle coins 'cause everything is on our credit card." So that is so good 'cause I, I feel like there's so many other things, like current event articles like that, that could now make meaning because you have handled the physical thing. Dr. Darla Bishop: Right Lindsay Lyons: Go ahead. Um, I am curious about, also I'm sure, uh, like, the audience is, is curious about, like, what is a potential trajectory from, like, a pre-K conversation to, like, a fifth grade conversation about money? Like, can you give us a couple examples of, like, what does it look like in fifth grade, and then what does it look like m- several years later to kind of like illustrate how we build over time, whether I'm a teacher or honestly a family member as well? Dr. Darla Bishop: Yeah. So let's stick with the physical money conversation, right? So in the lower elementary, we're gonna be actually handling physical money and showing that the numbers on the paper, the symbols on the coins matter, and that's how you can tell what the value is. And that we use these things, this paper and these coins, to trade them for other things we need or want. So it's really basic, right? And then we also talk about all the different ways we can use these papers and co- pieces of metal. We can use them to save, s- because we know we want something and we need to take little bits of money over time. We can use it to spend because we are ready to now trade it for something we need or want. We can use it to share or give to others because that's one of the thing that's really important to do, is when you have, is to make a plan to share. And it might be that you share the money or it might be that you share the toy or the food that you bought with the money. But we're also getting in that sharing is caring language, right? Now, the fifth grader, we're gonna talk about, okay, so you know that all the grown-ups either tap their phone or use this plastic card to use money. So how do you know how much it's used when it's not the physical paper? So we're gonna be really trying to get them to think about how to keep track when it's not the physical thing that if they had a stack of dollars, they could see it get smaller, but instead they're just tapping or swiping. So what are all the different ways they're gonna know how much is in the bank, right? So that they can think about what their limit is, what they can spend, what they can't spend, how to get more, what happens when it's too low, right? So we're gonna have them problem solve so that they have that reminder from when they were little that there is a physical thing behind the plastic card or the tap. Now, when they are teenagers, and maybe they are more- Um, they are more consistently doing things to trade their time or skills for money, like babysitting or mowing lawns or, you know, working at the ice cream shop or the car wash, right? So, like, having them think about, okay, so you know that every time you spend an hour of your life at the car wash, you- you're getting $10. And if you want to go buy those shoes, it's gonna cost you $100. So that means you had to trade 10 hours or a full day plus some extra hours working in order to buy those shoes. Is that still worth it? How long will the shoes last? How are you going to use the shoes? How are you going to take care of them? Because if something breaks, if they, if they get damaged, that means when you go to replace them, because it's really hard to get shoes fixed, at least that kind of shoe, when you go to replace them, you gotta do that whole thing all over again, and it might be $110 now instead because they don't have that one. They have a- the newer model, and it just cost a little bit more, right? So then we're still connecting that physical paper and coin from when we caught them in first grade to now trading their time for money and what that really looks like, because it's, they had to put their effort or their work or their sweat in order to get the money, in order to trade it for the thing. Lindsay Lyons: Oh my gosh. Okay, two things I'm absolutely loving. One, this idea of, like, is it worth it. Th- that to me is, is, coming back to that initial example in the grocery store, right? Like, is it worth it? Yeah, we do have $7 at home in your piggy bank. You've saved for a whole year. You've got it. Is it worth it to, to give all that there? Or do you want that thing for $10 that you've been talking about for the last year and you wanna, like, save up for that, right? Like, I love that framing to just as a parent have in the back of my head to be like, "Oh, right." Maybe it's not the literal question I ask my three-year-old, but, like, it's, it's, it's there in my mind to guide our conversation. But I also just really wanna name that sharing piece. That is so good. I constantly, like, try to, to think about how to par- parent well in all the dimensions, and I keep them separate sometimes. I'm like, "Oh, it's a money conversation. Oh, this is a, a community conversation, how to be a good community member." But actually, they can totally be the same conversation, and I just love that you named that, so thank you. Dr. Darla Bishop: Yeah, no, for sure. And part of it too is one of the things that I've recently realized as a parent is I was doing the business of our lives without my kids, because it's just faster, right? It's faster to go to the grocery store without the kids. It's faster to run this errand without putting everybody's shoes and socks on. It's like, okay, hey, the other parent's here. You're good. Okay, I'm gonna run to the store. I'll be back in 25 minutes. You need anything, right? But then I was like, wait, but that's how I learned how to do this stuff with my own parents, by being drug around to the post office, and the, the clerk where we had to drop things off, or to the grocery store, right? Like, and so if I, for my own convenience, leave the kids out, how will they learn how to do these things in real life? And so I'm gonna have to just leave more time to go grocery shopping so they can come along. I'm gonna have to leave more time or pick which day we're gonna go to the hardware store so they know how to say, "Excuse me," and, "How can I find this?" Or, "This is what I'm looking for." Because those are all interactions we need to know how to do, and if I don't model it for them, if I don't give them a chance to practice this while I'm here to guide the interaction, then how will they know what to do when they are on their own? How will they know what to do when I'm ready to send them to the store instead of me going? Lindsay Lyons: Absolutely. I'm already trying to scaffold toward independence for little things. Like, that's a huge one, right? You go, get those groceries. I can remember doing that as a kid, we just, I had to go a million times with my dad first. Dr. Darla Bishop: Yep, exactly. Lindsay Lyons: I am curious. I, I named a few challenges that were in my brain that I had heard people share. Um, is there any challenge that you've noticed with families or teachers talking about money that they've kind of come up against? Um, whether it's, like, resistance to talking about it at all, or, like, you know, I talk about it in this way, but, like, really I should, like, talk about it in this healthier way, or yeah, I'm curious to know what your, like, big ahas are for us so we don't have to, like, muddle through that ourselves. Dr. Darla Bishop: Yeah, I mean, it's because we all, each of us has our own relationship with money. Each of us. And even in a married couple, because we came into that marriage with all types of experiences before we became a married couple, that each individual's relationship with money Could be totally different than what that couple as a unit's relationship will be with money. And that's why, not to bring everybody down, you know, 40% of marriages that end often say it was because of, of financial disagreements, right? And so in the school-family-child dynamic, the thing that comes up is that we often, often, I don't wanna say all, but we often have not fully examined our relationship with money. So here I am trying to teach it, but I don't even know how I feel about these things. Um, and the other piece too is teachers, you know, while in our society we say teachers, you know, are underpaid and underfunded and have to do so much work. I don't know if you know that statistically speaking, a teacher has a much better chance at retiring as a millionaire than a physician, right? Yeah, statistically speaking, you have much better odds to retire as a millionaire as a teacher than you do as a physician. And think about it, right? Because if you're a teacher, you probably started your career, unless you had to take a different path, m- r-right out of college at 22. You only, if you had loans at all, you only had the loans from that four-year degree, because if you go for more schooling, you usually do that while you're already teaching, and the district will help to subsidize that expense, um, so that you can continue to, you know, develop as an educator. Um, and then depending on when you became a teacher, you might have access to a retirement plan where the school district is putting a portion or a percentage of your salary in, again, right at age 22. Um, or you might even still have a pension. There are a few school districts that still offer pensions, and so you're starting your retirement, um, financial situation right at 22. That's great. That's great. And then because you went to a teaching university or, and only spent four years in school, your loan balance is probably much lower than someone who went to medical school. 'Cause if you go to medical school, that means you're probably not actually working and earning a big, a big salary, yes, but you're not earning that salary until 28 at the earliest, 32 if you did something special. And so that's a full 10 years that person has not been participating in retirement savings. So you've got that time power of money on your side. And as a teacher, no one expects you to drive a luxury car. No one expects you to have a huge house. No one expects you to have three kids in private school. In fact, if you do, they'd be like, "Wait Why do you drive a fancy car, have a big house, and have three kids in private school, right? But if you are a physician, those lifestyle expectations are there, so you start it with a lot more debt. You have to have ... You have high expenses because you have to pay your liability insurance, your, um, malpractice insurance, and then there's all those lifestyle pressures. And as a teacher, if you go thrift shopping every weekend, no one bats an eye. If you drive a used car for 20 years, no one bats an eye. So it is statistically speaking way easier to be a millionaire as a teacher than it is as a physician in this country. And so what if we leaned into that? That hey, I c- I'm, I'm potentially a million dollar teacher just because I've been putting in retirement since I was 22. Lindsay Lyons: I love that. I've never heard that statistic or thought about that. That is brilliant. I also just love the, like your encouragement for introspection around like the how do we, how have we come to money in a partnership, and like, and now I'm teaching about it. Like, there are so many things that we hold onto that like, you know, not everybody's excavating in therapy or something, you know. Like we have to actually- Right ... dig in and like think about it. Oh my gosh. Wow, you have given me so much to think about. I'm realizing we are almost out of time, so I'll move- Dr. Darla Bishop: Oh my gosh ... Lindsay Lyons: last few questions. But I- I'm curious, what is like one thing that an audience member can do when they end the episode, and it's like I wanna just put some little nugget of this conversation into practice today or tomorrow? Dr. Darla Bishop: The very first thing I would suggest is get a piece of paper, and I love blank pieces of paper for this. Colorful if you have it. So if you're a teacher listening, go grab a yellow or a bright orange from the copy room. I won't tell on you. Because th- that something about the bright color actually sparks some creativity. And I want you to write one question: What are the rules I have about money? And then write down all the rules you have about money. I cannot spend this. I'm supposed to save this. And rules can be good, bad, or neutral. J- but just write down all the rules that you have in your brain about money, whether you follow them or not. We're just writing all the rules that someone has ever told you about money. And then I want you to go through and ask, "Does this rule make sense for my life today?" Because one of the things that happens with how we learn about money is we learn from the grown-ups around us when we're growing up or coming of age, right? And their context may have been completely different, so the rules they gave us made total sense for their life, for their situation, for their generation, for their income, for their whatever, right? But might not make sense for us in our life right now. And so- Just see if there is a rule that you've been carrying around, and maybe even feeling bad that you haven't been able to follow, but doesn't make any sense for you. Like, if my rent is $1,500 a month, and if I wanted to go live the American dream and buy a house, but my mortgage would be $2,200 a month, then it actually does not make sense for me to be a homeowner. And so every time my parents ask me why I haven't bought a house yet, I should tell them, "Well, Mom, Dad, it's because my rent is 1,500 and my mortgage would be 2,200. It doesn't make math sense, and I can do math." And that'll shut down the conversation, at least that time. Lindsay Lyons: Oh, that's really good. Okay, thank you for that. Next question: What have you been learning about lately? It could relate to our conversation or it could be totally not related. Dr. Darla Bishop: So I've been learning about how to be an online influencer or content creator or, depending on who the teacher is, they use different words, because I'm realizing that that's where a lot of people are getting information. And so if I've got good information, I need to be there to kinda, like, soften up all the not-so-great information that's out there. 'Cause maybe people will pick up my book, but they're probably more likely to find me on TikTok, so let me make sure I'm over there. Lindsay Lyons: Yes. Okay. So now, that's a great segue, I want to just give space to talk about your book, and also, like, where people can find it and you online. Dr. Darla Bishop: Oh, thank you so much. So we have a few books. So we have How to Afford Everything, and that's the book for grown-ups. So this one is best for someone who's e- earning money, so, like, 16 and up. Now, a 16-year-old's probably not gonna write it. Most of my readers are, like, 25 and up. And then I've got How to Afford College, because many of us, depending on how we grew up, education can be absolutely a pathway to a different life trajectory, right? A different type of career, a different type of environment, a different city and state. And so if I don't understand the financials of getting to and through college, I might end that college with more debt than I needed to have, just because I didn't know any better. I didn't know any different. So that's what How to Afford College about. And then the book that I shared with you is the children's book, which is part of a bigger series that will be coming out in 2026. It's called Madeline's Money Adventure, and this is our storybook version with that lesson for that early elementary, so the, like, f- four to 10-year-olds, right? Like, the 10-year-old can read it to their little sibling but will be bored by it kind of thing. And this is, introduces the basics of money and some of the language and how we can relate to it. And it's bilingual English/Spanish because that was important to my family and my community, so we put the, both languages right on the same page. The easiest way to find me is go to darlabishop.com, and all the links are there Lindsay Lyons: Oh my gosh, I'm actually gonna go buy that children's book right now 'cause I have not yet. And thank you for this conversation, Dr. Bishop. This was so fun. Dr. Darla Bishop: Yeah, thank you for having me. I know we chatted a long time, so sorry listeners, this was a long one. Lindsay Lyons: No, it was an excellent long one.
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AuthorLindsay Lyons is an educational justice coach who helps schools and districts co-create feminist, antiracist civics-based curricula, discussion opportunities, and equitable policies that challenge, affirm, and inspire all students. A former NYC public school teacher, she holds a PhD in Leadership and Change, and is the founder of the blog and podcast, Time for Teachership. Lindsay believes all students deserve literacy, criticality, and leadership skills. Archives
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