One major advantage to teaching in the CORE FOUR subjects (math, ELA, social studies, or science) is that you would likely have an entire network of teachers in your school building. Professional development abounds: There are conferences, workshops, websites, Twitter chats, etc. Colleges and universities have entire departments devoted to these subjects.

On the other hand, let’s consider the personal finance teacher. You may be the only teacher in your school or even the entire district. Maybe your course is “elective” at your school or state, and you couldn’t find someone to compare resources or lesson plans for 10, 50, 100 miles around, even if you tried. We asked about your professional networks in our most recent Flash Survey, and the median number of people in a personal finance educator’s network is a lowly 5.

Next Gen Personal Finance is thinking hard about how to expand your networking possibilities, and we hope to test some innovative solutions in the coming months. As a first step, we’d like to share the open-ended responses you shared with us, on organizations or conferences you rely on to network with like-minded educators. These entries were entirely generated by teachers in our NGPF community. If you think we’ve missed some good ones, send me an email and let me know what to add.

Thanks for being part of our personal finance network! We’re proud to be a part of yours!

About the Author

Jessica Endlich

When I started working at Next Gen Personal Finance, it's as though my undergraduate degree in finance, followed by ten years as an educator in an NYC public high school, suddenly all made sense.