“We really try to give the bankers a chance to show their creative side,” Emily Walters says as she gazes toward the group playing on the floor with Popsicle sticks and glue. Ms. Walters runs a not-for-profit education program for central bankers. “It’s a great opportunity for them to showcase their problem-solving and critical thinking skills.” At first her efforts were met with skepticism, even sharp derision. For her part, Ms. Walters, 29, admits that correcting the students’ deeply entrenched and profoundly incorrect beliefs was a challenge. “More glue…Ms. Walters, we need MORE GLUE,” one of the bankers barks. She keeps tight control of the supply following one now-expelled student’s abuse issues. “Of course you get some bad eggs” she says, knowingly. “But these students mean well, they really do.” Some take issue with the black-box sources of funding for her program. Others simply object on pragmatic grounds that no improvements have been forthcoming in the students’ test scores. “You can’t please everyone,” she states plainly. “If we don’t step in and care for these high-paid officials, who will?”
Source of Featured Photo: DAVID PAUL MORRIS/BLOOMBERG NEWS
