Educator Teaches 3rd Graders About Finances By Charging Them ‘Rent’ For Classroom Essentials

A North Carolina math teacher has gone viral on TikTok for her modern-day approach to teaching her third graders the realities of financial management.

Shelby Lattimore has a “class banker” pass out decorated envelopes filled with faux money dubbed “Miss Lattimore Bucks” that equates to each student’s earnings for their classroom jobs.

“We have a teacher assistant, line leader, door holder, recess basket, lunch basket. We have a cleanup crew,” Lattimore told NBC News.

She then charges them “rent” for classroom essentials like their desks and textbooks and allows them the freedom to decide on how to spend their earnings.

@shelby_thatsmee Hard Life Lessons in 3rd Grade, my students had to pay rent for the first time! Year Two of collecting classroom rent and it is still the best feeling ever! #rent #money #teacher ♬ original sound – Ms.L

“All jobs do not get paid the same. The jobs that are every day, like line leader and teacher assistant, like those jobs that you have to do something constantly, get paid more than jobs that are like every now and then or once in a while,” she explains.

It’s not only providing her third graders with early lessons on money management but teaching the children to value the hard work parents and caregivers provide them.

“Watching my students now become appreciative of possibly what their guardians are going through, of course in a safer environment, just kind of gives them that responsibility to then move forward as they become adults,” Lattimore shared.

She is hopeful that her lessons will help bridge the financial learning gag in a Charlotte school with predominantly Black and Latino students.

“Charlotte is known for generational poverty,” Lattimore said. “A lot of my students of color, Hispanic, Black, whatever it may be, they see their parents, they see their guardian, they see their grandmothers, grandfathers, whatever, may be living check to check. They see the money management of not thinking long term necessarily and the consequences of it.”