To Grade 9 and Grade 10

Dear Students

And now it's come to this - the end of the year and the end of our time together at Nanke.

Know that you - each and every one - have been an amazing student. You have worked hard and laughed loud!

I will miss each one of you.

Although we spent so much time together I feel that there is still so much I want to say.

Be happy! You are all beautiful and healthy. Enjoy life!

And when you have a moment e-mail me and tell me all the wonderful things you are doing!

And watch this when you have a moment to think...

All the best

Anthony Cluver

P.S.
A little bit of Cape Town for old times sake...

A Glimpse of the Future

Take a look at this very cool video of the way the world might work in the not so distant future.

A Day made of Glass from Corning

Angry Birds

From Newsweek Magazine

Angry Birds is the first mobile game to have real mainstream success. So what’s next for the game that pits fowl against swine?

Any time in history when two dominant forces have had to share space—such as the PC and Mac, Google and every other search engine—someone tends to get mad. According to Peter Vesterbacka, marketing and branding manager for Rovio Mobile, that’s what happened on a remote island where birds and pigs were the primary species. The gluttonous pigs would eat the birds’ eggs. The birds sought vengeance by launching themselves in a slingshot at the pigs in hopes of killing them and destroying their forts. This battle, by the way, rages on in the form of the Angry Birds mobile game played on millions of smart phones every day.

 And while pitting fowl against swine is a whole lot of fun, what makes the game particularly special is that it’s managed to move beyond traditional gamers and strike a cultural chord. Since its creation in 2009, Angry Birds has been downloaded more than 80 million times. There are plush toys—a million sold since they debuted in October—a board game coming soon, a partnership with Twentieth Century Fox, and videogame versions in the works. In the midst of a mobile-app boom, Angry Birds is, in effect, the first of its kind to go mainstream, ingraining itself in everyone from tweens to Al Gore. “Our vision is to build this into a massive entertainment franchise, along the lines of Mario Brothers or SpongeBob [SquarePants],” says Vesterbacka, also known as “Mighty Eagle.”

Read more here

Growing up and Money

Time Magazine says at 13 you should know this about money:

Teens spend about $200 billion a year on toys, games, clothing, movies, live events, arcade games and electronics — all forms of immediate gratification that run counter to sound long-term money practices. [The] 13-year-old is about to chart a course through this wasteland of spending and would benefit from having a grip on a few core concepts. By now, [he or] she should be well acquainted with saving and understand how impulse and peer pressure can set back her longer term goals. She should be able to research products, comparison shop, and make good decisions about what offers the most value. The budding teen should also be skeptical about advertising claims and familiar with identity theft. He/She should know how to fill out a job application, be able to set up a personal spending budget, and understand the difference between stocks and bonds and mutual funds. Her three jars should be emptied; the money should be in a bank account with check-writing and ATM card privileges and she should know how to make deposits and withdrawals and track her balance.

At 18 you should know this:

Here come the college years and very likely the last chance to make any kind of real impression on a child's money habits. He/she will go off to school (or work) and navigate his finances from here on out pretty much on his own. By now, he should have a credit card in addition to an ATM card and understand all about late fees, interest expense, the importance of paying bills on time and the scourge of making only minimum monthly payments. Young adults are often appalled to learn that a $5,000 balance can take 20 years to pay off through minimum payments. Meanwhile, the card company will reward them with an ever greater credit limit if their payments are on time, and before they know it they have more debt than they can repay. "They shake their head and say, 'Hey, I didn't think I was doing anything wrong,'" notes JumpStart's Levine. Knowing about credit is most essential at this age, and that includes understanding what a credit score is and how to find it and why it's important. But he should also be able to do things like evaluate if financial information is objective and current and use an online calculator to research things like car loans and mortgages. He should understand that student loans must be repaid with interest and have some idea what career he'll be pursuing before loading up on student loans he may never be able to repay.

Question: Do Nanke Bilingual students know enough about money? Why or why not?
Please post a response.