What Are We Not Teaching?
By Penny Wiegert
A group of high school students were recently brought together for an interview on National Public Radio. One of the points of discussion was what they are not learning in school.
The students, male and female, talked about some of their fears in regard to the future. They expressed worry about finances, scholarships and being able to take care of themselves. Some of the students are afraid to purchase a car, not just because of the escalating cost of the car, but also because they know absolutely nothing about how a car runs. One of the students expressed that same worry about living on her own because she doesn’t really know about budgeting.
One of the students talked about wanting to go into a trade but doesn’t exactly know how to do it without college and hasn’t been able to get much support in school because his high school offers no vocational classes in preparing students for college, and there is only one trade school in his county.
As I listened on my way into the office, I began thinking about my own high school experience and that of my children. It was sad to think that most everything the students being interviewed were looking for was very much a part of my education.
Beginning in eighth grade, students in my high school were given a formal introduction to home economics and what we called “shop” classes where you learned about cars, simple electricity, and light construction. It was also called Industrial Arts. Now before getting too romanticized about this, we weren’t yet progressive enough to have girls in shop and boys in home ec when I was in school but that reckoning came later and subsequent change happened later.
However, the curriculum of my day offered formal lessons in the basics of things everyone — male and female — needs to know to navigate life — finances, simple home repairs, cooking, cleaning, laundry and basic vehicle maintenance.
Now in full disclosure, many of these things we already knew by the time the course offerings came around. Our moms and dads, grandmas and grandpas taught us how to sew on a button, darn a sock (yes, some people still did that in the ’70s), make a meal without a recipe, check the oil and the tread on the tires and how to properly spend and save a paycheck.
The kids on the radio were pining for some of the skills most schools have dispensed from their curriculums to avoid the redundancy with skills taught at home.
So what these young high school students had to say in this interview made me think … if we aren’t teaching our kids basic life skills, what are we not teaching them about faith?
Study after study shows that people age 30 and younger have little knowledge and interest in religion. Perhaps our young people hunger for knowledge on how to care for their souls?
Could it be that us older folks haven’t done a good enough job of teaching and sharing the basics? Are we teaching our kids things at home that they need to survive and thrive physically and spiritually? I mean if we aren’t taking the time to teach them simple things like how to wash, dry, fold and care for their own clothes or how to save money, what are we not teaching about God?
Maybe back-to-school time is time to reflect on what we all need to work on and towards. As we fill the book bags and get the right supplies to assure a successful year of learning, perhaps we, as parents and grandparents, can also work on providing the right tools for building a good foundation of faith and a healthy lifelong relationship with Christ? Faith and values can’t be just put in the hands of a school, parish or religious education program. It should be an inheritance. It seems our young people might just be asking for it.