During fieldwork, a case manager said something that’s stuck with me: “I need something I can reference when I’m trying to figure out where to send clients. Something that explains […]
The Adult Who Was Never There
Gutman and McLoyd’s research found something specific: children whose adults actively organized their engagement with school, institutions, and community resources developed measurably stronger academic self-efficacy than children whose adults were […]
Learning in Circles, Not Lines
Standard curriculum design assumes learning moves in a straight line. Module one, then module two, then module three, each building cleanly on the last. That is not what I’ve watched […]
Support, Challenge, Vision
I didn’t design our fifteen-month curriculum around a theory. I designed it around what I watched work, and only later found the theoretical language for it. Daloz (1999) describes effective […]
Redundant, and Ignored Anyway
Tout (1997) made an argument I think about often: the phrase “critical numeracy” shouldn’t need to exist. Real numeracy, properly defined, already includes critical thinking. Adding the word “critical” in […]
The Debt That Was Never a Choice
Some of the residents who come through Fresh Start Housing arrive already carrying debt they never agreed to. Pogrebin et al. (2014) documented this precisely for returning citizens: parole fees, […]
Numeracy vs. genuine financial literacy
Foundations: Two Kinds of NumeracyThere are two very different things people mean when they say “numeracy,” and financial literacy programs almost never distinguish between them. Merriam-Webster (2023) defines numeracy as […]
Whose Knowledge Counts
Fricker (2007) describes something called epistemic injustice, the harm done when prejudice causes someone’s testimony to be dismissed, or when a conceptual gap prevents someone from being able to articulate […]
Four Hundred People Over Seventeen Years
I get asked sometimes why I lean on phenomenology, a fairly unfamiliar word to bring into a conversation about financial literacy, rather than just saying “we listen to our residents.” […]
An Unexamined Assumption
Most financial literacy programs are built on an assumption nobody bothers to state out loud: that financial literacy is primarily a technical competency, numerical reasoning, budgeting calculations, understanding financial products […]