You might recognize his name and face, as Patrick Kubeny was one of the teacher’s featured in The Most Important Class You Never Had.   He has been teaching since 1993, long before most people were thinking about teaching personal finance, much less advocating to make it a requirement. But Patrick’s colleague Dori Nevins was teaching the personal finance elective offered at his school back then, and they discussed the need for the class. Patrick took over the class when she retired.  It was an uphill battle searching for materials and professional development opportunities, and he often received pushback when he suggested the class be a requirement.  But he amassed an army of supporters over the years among his students, their parents, and eventually, administrators who helped push Rhinelander across the finish line to become a Gold Standard School.  

Tell us about you.

• Where/how were you first exposed to personal finance lessons in your life?

My parents always used piggy banks with me and my brothers–mine was a replica of a USPS blue mailbox. I can remember enjoying counting money as a very small child. I also recall having a credit union passbook savings account at a very young age, and that is where I learned about the power of compound interest.

• What makes you so passionate about financial education?

It is really hard to beat the feeling one gets from helping others. I did not get to teach financial literacy courses early in my teaching career, but when I did get a chance to do so, I quickly discovered that every single person benefits from being financially literate. And those benefits are not small, those benefits are truly life changing. I want every single person to live the best life possible, and that is impossible to do without understanding how to manage one’s finances. It is so very rewarding helping people, and the best way I know how to do that is through financial education. 

• Do you ever share personal finance anecdotes from your own experience with your students? If so, care to share one that seems to make an impression on them with your fellow educators?

I certainly do–every chance I get. I am a storyteller teacher and most of my stories are about me, my family, my friends, and my colleagues. I love learning from real life examples and experiences myself so that is my favorite way to teach. I believe true stories are memorable and have a more lasting impact than a generic made up hypothetical example. I use my personal paycheck for the lesson on paychecks, I show them my budget during the budget unit, I show them how I pay bills electronically from my checking account, I show them my pension statement, I show them the district pay scale, and I even show them my social security statement and investment portfolio. I believe the one that resonates most with my students is my personal balance sheet because not many students believe a high school teacher and his elementary school teacher spouse can be multi millionaires (in terms of equity). I show them that me and my wife actually are, yet we still need to work and are by no means what anybody would define as “rich”, rather we are upper middle class. What is tough for them to comprehend is how much equity they will need to have when they are 55 years old to be considered upper middle class. 

Patrick uses his personal stories to hook the students, stating that “stories are sticky.”  He also reminds students that “no one will ever care more about your money than you will.” 

Tell us about your school.

• Please describe your school for us.

Rhinelander is located in Northeastern Wisconsin. The city of Rhinelander is just over 8,000. Rhinelander High School is a 9-12 building with about 800 students.

• What class(es) do you teach, and what age are your students?

Primarily Money Management (personal finance), Accounting 1 and 2, and Business Law. Sophomores-Seniors.

• What are your students’ favorite classroom activities?

It really depends on the individual student. Most would say they love the NGPF arcade games like STAX, SPENT, and PAYBACK the best. Others would say when they get some independent work time to complete modules in MoneySkill. And some would say listening to me share real life experiences and examples to illustrate the learning objectives of the day. 

• When/how do you know you have gotten an important concept through to your students? Would you like to give an example?

Through summative assessments/projects. I design a lot of my own assessments/projects, but I also use the unit tests from NGPF to measure their competence.  MoneySkill modules are great for formative assessment purposes. I also love randomly calling on students in class to have them respond to questions I pose–this provides me with immediate feedback to help me determine if they understand or not. The best part of doing this is it allows me to use students as teachers. If a student I call on does not have a clue on how to respond, I will ask the class if there is anybody that can help them out. Ninety percent of the time another student will do their best to explain the answer to my question. Students like to listen to their peers and it is an effective way to allow them to learn from one another. 

Tell us about your NGPF experience.

• Which professional development opportunities have you participated in?

My first exposure to NGPF was at the “Get Your Students Pumped Up on Financial Literacy” conference at Lambeau Field in Green Bay. Kerri Herrild led a session that I attended and I was immediately hooked! I soon after applied to their Fellow program and was fortunate enough to be able to go to CA and go through one of their summer sessions along with some other amazing teachers. Not long after that, I was able to go back out to CA to attend a Summer Institute session with some rock star educators from around the country. I have participated in live Fincamps, virtual Fincamps, virtual PD, and have passed several certification courses. I even presented for NGPF at a Lambeau conference myself one year to come full circle. 

• Can you fill us in on an example of how you have incorporated something you learned from a PD session into your lesson plans?

I love using the SPENT documentary along with the SPENT arcade game together at the beginning of my budgeting unit. Both of these resources get referred back to throughout my course as the students remember the people and their specific situations in the documentary. They remember how they felt living on the edge in the SPENT arcade game. Two very “sticky” resources I highly recommend every personal finance teacher utilize if possible.

• What NGPF resources are your favorites/do you rely on the most for your lesson planning?

My favorites are SPENT, PAYBACK, and STAX. I actually pay out real money to the student in each class that wins the STAX competition–watching the intensity in the room is so fun. I love announcing the positions out loud during the game to fuel the fire. I always have them play the game a second time by themselves and ask them to actually do what they would really do if the money was theirs for real as the first time we play many students go for the home run and day trade the stocks. I also like the “Buying a Car” mini unit because in my opinion this is where most middle class people make their biggest financial mistakes. 

Advocacy 

Patrick’s advocacy efforts began as soon as he began teaching personal finance.  If you would like to understand more about his advocacy journey, you can read the guest blog post published on NGPF in 2020.  Patrick did not stop with making personal finance a graduation requirement for his school.  He has gone on to fight to make it a state requirement, and describes his recent activity below.

Last year, five students and I made the long trip down to Madison to testify in front of the assembly education committee in support of AB 899 to make personal finance a 1 credit graduation requirement. One assemblyman (the current committee chair) told us we changed his mind on how he would vote on the bill. The bill did not make it out of committee as last year’s chair did not believe it should be 1 credit. 

This year, AB 109 has been amended to ½ credit and seven students and I made the trip back down to once again testify in support of the bill. When we were done presenting, the chair said, “Alleluia!” We were very well received and were told by many that our testimony was impactful, passionate, and powerful. We were on multiple local news channels highlighting our advocacy as well as our local newspaper and social media outlets. I am very fortunate to teach in a district that fully supports financial literacy, from my colleagues and parents, to my administration, the business community, and all the way up to our school board. They support our efforts to encourage other school districts and our legislators to do whatever they can to help more students graduate financially literate.

On May 23, Tim Ranzetta joined Patrick in Madison to testify in front of the state senate education committee and on May 25, AB 109 received unanimous support from the committee to move forward.  

Advocacy work has made Patrick leave his comfort zone in terms of public speaking.  He is very proud of the students who have joined him testifying, but he is most excited about how so many of his students have become so interested in the legislative process and advocacy in general.

It is hard for me to believe that I am retiring on June 2, and here I am, honestly, working as hard as I ever have in my entire career to both teach and promote financial literacy in every way I possibly can. I would not want it any other way.

Enjoy your well-deserved retirement Patrick.  I have a feeling we will be hearing more from and about your efforts in the future.

About the Author

Beth Tallman

Beth Tallman entered the working world armed with an MBA in finance and thoroughly enjoyed her first career working in manufacturing and telecommunications, including a stint overseas. She took advantage of an involuntary separation to try teaching high school math, something she had always dreamed of doing. When fate stepped in once again, Beth jumped on the opportunity to combine her passion for numbers, money, and education to develop curriculum and teach personal finance at Oberlin College. Beth now spends her time writing on personal finance and financial education, conducts student workshops, and develops finance curricula and educational content. She is also the Treasurer of Ohio Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy.