The current economic slowdown is teaching us some tough lessons. Students at Kalihi Elementary are getting a head start on those lessons thanks to Junior Achievement.

The program is called "how a community works" and these second graders are learning there are lots of components to a functioning community. The worksheets, stickers, poster are all courtesy of Junior Achievement.

"We've actually been very fortunate. We've been doing it for several years. We're very lucky that there's a lot of people in the community who like to come out and volunteer their time to do this," said Lori Tochiki, a Kalihi Elementary teacher.

“So you didn't really lose your money. You just paid it to the people paying you. What kind of people were there? Police.. Who else?,” said Volunteer Gina Mangieri, of KHON2.

Volunteers like our own Gina give the children the good - and not so good news about a community. Such as, if you want public services, you have to pay taxes. First, the kids start a make-believe company.

This will come in handy at the end of the school year.

"We let out the secret that at the end of the year, they're going to be having a mini-carnival. So they're going to be the business owners of the games for the mini-carnival," said another teacher, Rosemarie Lau.

The teachers have expanded on the idea of earning money.

"They have also started earning money in the classroom for behavior, as well as doing homework. And they, too, have to pay when behavior is not up to par at the end of the day," said Lau.

As always, when the learning process goes on, the teacher often learns as much as the students.

"Definitely. A lot of times the children will come up with a lot of interesting questions. We'll have to look into it together and explore the ideas together," said Tochiki.

Perhaps the toughest lesson of the day came when Cameron the tax man collected his payments from the hard-working young entrepreneurs.

"I think a lot of them thought it was kind of strange that the government wanted to take money from them," said Tochiki.