Published: April 03, 2009 12:34 pm      

Real life lessons for students

A couple of Garvin County communities, including Pauls Valley, will be well represented during a fast approaching event meant to give some high schools students a better idea of the money demands in the world of grown-ups.

Months of planning by the combined forces of several will bring the Reality Check 2009 event to the nearby Mid-America Technology Center in Wayne next week.

Among the 450 or so high school freshmen from seven area schools expected to take part are a group of students from Maysville, while a few business professionals from Pauls Valley are volunteering their time to help offer some real life lessons about money.

More specifically, the event set throughout the day on Wednesday, April 8 is geared at teaching basic skills in financial and career planning, goal setting and decision making.

Phillis Cothren, educator at the OSU Extension office in Pauls Valley, is hoping this regional event will be the first of many to come.

“This gives students a budget to find out if they know how to spend their money and make good choices with their budget. It will throw them into difficult real life scenarios,” Cothren said.

“At the very end if they have money left over and they budgeted well, they will get a Payday candy bar.

“If they have no money and went into the hole, they will get a Zero candy car.”

Modeled after a school program in Yukon, next week’s event in Wayne is being sponsored by the OSU Extension offices in Garvin, McClain and Cleveland counties and various departments at the Mid-America school.

The way it works is students are asked to predict their occupation at age 25 while living in Oklahoma.

They will then be provided a fictitious monthly salary associated with the occupation and sent out into the “real world” to obtain housing, transportation, insurance, clothing and other necessities of life such as groceries and child care.

That’s done by having students make stops at various booths occupied by real life business professionals now working in those particular industries, including some from businesses here in Pauls Valley.

Students invited to part are from the Mid-America feeder schools in the area, including all those in Garvin County.

The one that accepted the invitation was Maysville.

“This is something I wish everybody could take,” Cothren said.

“I feel strongly this will educate and help the kids grasp it better,” she said, referring to finances and budgeting.

“We’re also hoping this will give (students) a better idea of what they want to do and the education to go with it.”

Yet another hope of Cothren’s is this event will become an annual thing with more schools involved.

“I’m hoping more schools in this area get involved in the next one we do,” she said.