Freedom from Want: Budgeting our Money

Overview:

This lesson is a follow-up to discussion of Norman Rockwell’s Freedom from Want. The purpose of this activity is to clarify the difference between needs and wants. The illustration is also used as a catalyst to learn about the role of banks and other financial institutions in relation to our lives. Please note that the title, Freedom from Want, may be confusing to students. The artist’s illustration depicts a family who does not appear to want for basic necessities.

Do I Need it? Or Do I Want It?: Making Budget Choices by Jennifer S. Larson will be shared and discussed with the students. Students will complete a T-Chart Poster showing items that they need and those that they want/would like to have. The students will have a chance to create a budget for the money they earn or receive (real or imaginary), and to plan for items that they wish to have.

Enduring Understandings/ Essential Questions:.

1. Our basic needs include: food, water, air, shelter, clothing, transportation and family/ friends.
2. There are other things that we “want” that are not necessary, but which we might enjoy having.
3. We must make decisions about the things that are most important in our lives.
4. People create budgets to help them to plan for the costs of things that they need. Budgets also allow them to save for items they may wish to have, as well as for emergencies.
5. Banks and other financial institutions (Commercial Banks, Investment Banks, Insurance Companies, etc.) help people find ways to save their money and increase their wealth.
   • How are needs and wants different?
   • What “wants” seem important to have?
   • How can we get the things that we need and/or want?
   • How do our decisions affect the ways that we satisfy our needs and wants?
   • What is the role of banks and other financial institutions in our lives?
   • What are interest rates and why do banks pay them?

Objectives:

1. Students will  identify the basic needs that human beings have.
2. Students will to state the difference between wants and needs.
3. Students will understand how their decisions affect the ways in which their needs and wants are satisfied.
4. Students will define the role of banks and other financial institutions.
5. Students will understand what interest rates are and the reason banks pay them.

Background:

The title of the illustration, Freedom from Want, can be confusing, especially for  children. Children may interpret it as meaning the freedom to have anything they wish. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in his January 6, 1941 address to Congress, referred to the right of everyone, everywhere in the world, to enjoy “freedom from want of basic necessities.” The United States was just pulling itself out of the Great Depression.

President Roosevelt famously told Americans in 1933 that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” but the nation was justified in its concerns during that turbulent time. The stock market crash of 1929 had swiftly transformed the Roaring Twenties into the Great Depression. Banks closed their doors, bread lines became a common sight, and so-called Hoovervilles dotted the landscape. Jim Crow policies and racial inequality were facts of life for millions, and much of the nation’s grain belt became a dusty wasteland, fostering a mass exodus of destitute migrants seeking jobs that were no longer available.

The President and his New Deal team worked intensively to address the emergency, but they were simultaneously becoming concerned about the international situation.  As they were well aware, much of the world shared in America’s economic misery, and by the mid-1930s a number of aggressive dictators in Europe and Asia who addressed the global malaise by offering a kind of new fascism had begun to emerge. Americans were overwhelmingly isolationist at the time, and concerned about solving their domestic problems first. FDR had to be content with speaking out against international lawlessness, yet as the end of the decade neared, he also began to muse about the meaning of freedom on a worldwide scale.

During the Great Depression, many people “wanted” for the basic necessities, especially food, clothing and shelter. In addition, during World War II, many items such as sugar, butter, meat, rubber, gasoline, and other things were rationed. Families received coupons limiting the amount of these items that could be purchased during a given amount of time. In Freedom from Want, Norman Rockwell pictures some of life’s necessities clearly, including food, water, shelter, family and friends, in an image that both reflected and shaped our vision of the Thanksgiving holiday. .

Materials:

Classroom Supplies:

• Do I Need It? Or Do I Want It?: Making Budget Choices by Jennifer S. Larson
• Chart paper titled: Freedom from Want, divided into 2 sections and labeled as follows: Needs/Wants (wishes)
• Drawing paper for posters
• Drawing implements
• Magazines, computers to print images for poster activity
• Optional: If You Made a Million by David M. Schwartz
• Activity sheet: Budgeting My Money

Activities:

• Read aloud Do I Need It? Or Do I Want It?: Making Budget Choices by Jennifer S. Larson.
• Stop at the end of each chapter. Have students reflect on what the chapter is about and offer their observations.
• Have each student create a poster illustrating things that they need and things that they want. Students may write a paragraph to go with their posters explaining about wants and needs and the choices included on their posters.
• Share If You Made a Million by David M. Schwartz and/or one or more of the videos listed above which give information about budgets, banks and financial institutions.
• Working from their posters, have them create a budget based on their allowances (real or imaginary), gift monies received from family and friends, and jobs that they may have.

Assessment:

• Do student posters reflect an understanding of wants/needs?
• Are students able to explain the difference between wants and needs?
• In written responses, do students support the wants/needs choices that they made in a clear, organized way?
• Do student created budgets reflect a reasonable plan?