A couple of weeks ago, a newspaper report in the UK stated that schools would start teaching students in that country how money works, as part of the curriculum. I can't decide if this is a good thing or not.

Obviously on the face of it, teaching money to kids is a wonderful idea. How much less likely would our children be to fall into debt or other financial distress if they were taught earlier on how to avoid such situations? And in Bermuda, where many meaningful careers are on offer in the financial services area, how incredibly relevant such a course would be.

So far, so good. On reflection, however, problems arise. For one thing, Bermudian children, on the whole, like children in most places, tend not to learn at school. How else would one explain a 38 percent (or whatever the number is; reports vary) pass rate at the tests that are already taken?

The major reservation I have is that lessons in how money works are probably the preserve of parents. There are arguments for and against that view. Life suggests that children learn the most important stuff from their parents. Look around you. How hard is it to spot the financially well-behaved as the children of the financially well-behaved? And the wastrels as the offspring of wastrels?

Equally, one might argue against letting parents teach their children how money works. Since many parents have no idea how money works, how can they teach their children?

Further, money is one of those subjects, like love, where the lessons best learned are from mistakes we make ourselves. My Dad went on forever about not lending money to people. I didn't listen, lent money to three friends, and not one of them ever paid me back a cent. I'll never do it again not because my Dad said so, but because I have learned the hard way.

Any of us who are alive and not in jail for fraud can be said to have understood something of how money works, to a greater or lesser extent. If people were as useless financially as they sometimes tell me they are, they'd be sleeping rough. I hope that these columns might open your eyes to some concepts you might not otherwise have thought of, and even perhaps persuade one or two people to learn better habits. But it's not necessary for me to explain to you how people earn and spend money, or how the difference between the total of their income and the total of their spending is the difference between happiness and misery.

The socially liberal line to take on schools teaching money is that it's a good idea, because all knowledge is powerful. But issues of education become so fogged so quickly. Would teaching money be a priority in school? Not really, because it's useless knowing how money works if you can't read or write. To understand money, or indeed life, one needs basic math skills. To learn anything, one needs to know how to learn in the first place and, perhaps, to grow up in a land where education is universally placed at the top of the national list of priorities.

A more convincing argument can, at first sight, be made for teaching how money works to secondary students, who might listen more because they are that much closer to the time when they will need to know. Against that, however, stands the argument that if you don't know how money works by the time you reach secondary school, you won't have the necessary skills to get the bus home, and so will spend the rest of your life wandering around Dockyard with the goats.

I know, this is a serious subject, and I shouldn't make fun, but I just can't decide how I feel. Take another example: should schools teach children about love? Relationships with the opposite sex are much more complex, and arguably more important, than how money works. Plus, we know how money works.

Sex we already teach children, because a lack of knowledge can mean death. I don't know what we teach kids about sex in Bermuda, and I'd bet that most of them know more than the teacher by the time we get around to teaching them.

If I were in charge (and anyone stayed within 1,000 miles), I'd teach manners from kindergarten. You might not think that terribly important, and if you are by nature a rude person, you might think it's just an (expletive deleted) stupid idea.

So, here I am, lost in confusion. Ultimately, I suppose we should teach children how money works, on the basis that if they're not going to listen, it doesn't matter what they don't listen to and if they are going to listen, it might do them some good.

But not everyone feels the same way about money. Obviously, the people who never repaid me have no sense of honour, and they might take offence at their children being taught about fiscal responsibility. Who's to say?

What do you think? Send me an e-mail at crombie@northrock.bm and I'll print the best or all of the responses. Maybe between us, we can work out an answer to this thorny problem. Over to you.