Kelly Mitchell

Introduction

My generation is labeled “latch key kids” and “MTV generation.” Most of us had to fend for ourselves after school and became astute at tossing pizza rolls in the microwave and plopping down on the sofa watching MTV (when it still had music videos). We took shop, home ec, economics, and found our friends on weekends by the number of bikes tossed across the front lawn of someone’s house. We wouldn’t come home until the street lights came on.

Our computers were equipped with Oregon Trail and beastly dot matrix printers whose painful groans would rumble through the house. Atari and Nintendo were technological wonders. Game cartridges were ‘fixed’ by vigorously shaking them and blowing a hard puff of air into the cartridge’s bottom and the console to ‘stabilize connection.’ GenX marked the last generation of teenagers and the transition into screenagers.

Screenagers excel in technological advancements and grew up with mobile phones, better gaming systems, and the worldwide web--which blew our minds. The same blocks that we kicked around all of our lives transformed on a global level. With a little foreplay in the form of agonizing high-pitched screeching followed by the seductive “You Have Mail,” our entire world changed--then technology became ‘smart.’ No one could have foreseen the cost of smart technology on ‘the old ways.’

Technology became sophisticated in solving problems for us, even talking to us (looking at you, Alexa). The world shifted into overdrive, racing each other for a competitive edge. The US entered the race by shifting funds from ‘standard’ education to enhance technology and all of its conveniences. Our appliances can talk to each other without human intervention, and there is an app for nearly everything.

The tragic irony is the same internet providing us access to education, communication, and stunning pictures of food on social media, has left us unable to communicate effectively and critically think our way out of a digital box. Adulting skills have been sidelined because apps will bring you food, clothing, house cleaners, handyman services, or automatically balance your checkbook.

Navigating in-person relationships has dwindled to a disconnect of on-screen interaction and Tinder hookups. We know more people in more places but know less about them. What we know is a staged existence portrayed in perfect pictures on FaceBook. COVID pushed technology to new heights of experiencing on-screen relationships, meetings, education, dating, and some of the funniest Memes (pronunciation pending) I have ever seen.

We are unaware of the costs COVID will charge society, just as we were unaware adulting skills would suffer as technology advanced. Isn’t there room for both? Like most people, technology and I have a love/hate relationship. I love the convenience but feel it has robbed today’s screenagers from graduating high school prepared for life.

Generational wealth has primarily become an unattainable goal as students graduate from high school and begin the perpetual cycle of living paycheck to paycheck because their education did not include life skills. Life skills that include paying for college and saving for retirement.

Colleges have sustained ancient practices of overcharging with government support. Despite technology advancing and society capitalizing on those advancements--some affordable, credible online degrees do not receive the same prestige as on-campus degrees. The flawed system in place sets both high school and college graduates up for failure.

How a student is educated is of profound importance in preparing them for what greets them on the other side of the diploma. Not only are we failing to prepare these students for life, we are not providing the skills necessary to successfully excel in the business world or accumulate wealth.

Starting life after graduation and finding you are ill-prepared is a rude awakening. The discouragement is suffocating and often not recovered from. Students lack the knowledge to:

Pay their taxes

Create a budget

Cook meals & meal planning

Car maintenance

Homeownership

Starting a business

Understanding financials, including student loans

Negotiating their salary

Effectively communicating & handling conflict

Credit profiles

And so much more. This lack of knowledge cripples students’ ability and motivation to launch because they are buried in financial ruin before they start. A side-effect of inept education is a crippled economy.

Parents are crucial in relaying life skills to children, but many parents are victims of the same inept education their children received, or hesitant to talk to their children about their finances--a just concern.

The world has changed at an unprecedented pace in the last decade. I have peppered this book with things I learned along the way in hopes that experts, parents, teachers, employers, and communities use it to instigate change and thoughtful conversations in PTAs, teacher meetings, and educational forums.

I have attempted to provide insight and helpful hints to parents to help guide their children through many obstacles that come with paying for education. Anything less than delivering affordable, quality education for our children is doing them a great disservice. They will be running the world faster than we would like to think.

How comfortable are you with that?

Chapter 1: Family Role In Education

Family units have changed appearance in the last several decades and can be composed of any number of family members, whether actual blood or not. Some kids have far more challenges to deal with than others. One of those challenges is struggling with the absence of family members.

For example, 2.3 million people are incarcerated across the country. It must be considered that those millions behind bars have children affected by their absence. That averages out to 1 child in every classroom. Sesame Street recognized the correlation of these statistics immediately and created Alex. Alex is a muppet whose father is incarcerated.

Alex was not the only resource for children with absent parents Sesame Street introduced. They also addressed deployed military parents. In 2005, Sesame Street created resources to help children with parents deployed overseas. They also introduced coping mechanisms for caregivers and children when the parent came back injured, physically or mentally--or sadly, not at all.

It is widely known that 50% of marriages end in divorce. This leaves about 1 million children dealing with the emotional struggles and brutal antics that often accompany divorce. To help kids cope with these challenges, Sesame Street provided resources in 2012 for kids whose families were going through a divorce. Sesame Street’s consistent practice of correctly identifying their audience’s struggles has benefited millions of children by giving them the tools they need to cope with family dynamics.

Other families have made appearances on the show as well, such as interracial, single, and those struggling with addiction. The one type of family that hasn’t been depicted is LGBTQ+. Although 61% of Americans approve of gay marriage, it is a crime punishable by death in some countries. A majority of Americans are advocating for the introduction of an LGBTQ+ human family rather than a muppet on the American version of the show, as muppets on the show do not display sexuality.

Sesame Street has worked hard to navigate and respect all countries’ cultural differences in their quest to enhance education with roles that children can identify with. In some countries, the ending credits are eliminated because producers and employees have been threatened for things like focusing on the importance of girls attending school. Sesame Street’s creators work with local governments to ensure their program stays on the air in these countries. Hence, children learn necessary academic skills, healthy habits, and develop understanding and tolerance of different world views.

Sesame Street is an influential powerhouse of education. Over 10 million children in over 150 countries under 8-years of age watch the show. It has been around since 1969 because the powers that be recognize the need to have relevant content addressing current events and dynamics in the world today. More recent muppet additions have been an autistic muppet and one living in foster care.

Sesame Street has championed access to education through television for diverse populations for over 50 years through its constant adaptation to relevant education. The inclusion of all family units is ideal for enhancing educational wealth. What about parents who are forced to leave education up to the school system because they are immersed in the daily struggle to provide for their family? What role should family members play in education to break this vicious cycle and start on a road of generational wealth and educational fitness?

The Stuff They Don’t Tell You

You may think your role as a parent in your child’s education is adhering to a homework schedule. In reality, most of us are not prepared for the seemingly innocent math question that children ask for help on. You know the one--we end up having to read the entire chapter (and the previous one) trying unsuccessfully to decipher the impossible code and end up yelling in frustration at Alexa for the answer.

The truth of the matter is, a small portion of your child’s future relies on your ability, or lack thereof, to help them with homework (Praise Be!). The internet has instruction on everything imaginable with witty videos more adept at assisting students than an old-school, Trapper Keeper parent. Amazingly, children are masters of YouTube instructional video tools by age 5. It is the prerequisite to screenager culture.

Where your support is needed is in their education, not their schooling. The two are distinctly separate. Schooling is institutional learning. Education is life skills applied to situations creating a learned lesson. The result is a culmination of experiences to navigate successfully through life. Schooling + Education = Wisdom. Parental support is vital when it comes to life skills. Life skills are things like:

Virtues

Accountability

Analytical (critical) thinking

Creativity

Service Learning

This is the stuff they don’t tell you. Learning these skills will enhance a child’s schooling and give them an edge when entering the professional world. Children will need these life skills to fully understand and operate with emotional intelligence and situational awareness. These two elements are key factors in a thriving career and better quality of life, no matter what profession your child selects.

The Power Of Virtues

Life goes something like this: You come home from work and, after settling in from the chaos of the day, look across the dinner table at your child, who is preoccupied with their phone. You ask, ‘So, what did you learn in school today?’ The child glances up to study your eager gaze with stoic poise and recites ‘Nothing.’ Or, they toss you a list of things they need for a project--due tomorrow.

When it comes to school, a parent’s voice becomes less of an authority and more of a nuisance. Knowing what your child is learning will be filed under school reporting accountability. There is a significant role you can play in your child’s life to prepare them for a better education, even if they learn nothing every day.

We all want better for our children, and teaching virtues at a young age will provide the skills needed to navigate the school system’s complex relationships and any other life obstacle. Virtues are known as the moral ‘excellence’ of a person. I know a flash of Bill & Ted’s ‘Be excellent to each other’ ran through your mind, and to be honest, the message isn’t far off.

Virtues instill strength of character and are heavily influenced by the caregivers of children. Aristotle identified 11 virtues for a strong character that exude moral excellence. He believed achieving this virtuous behavior would lead to a happy, prosperous life with the comfort and confidence of knowing your value. He was big on not asking ‘What Should I Do?’ and instead asking ‘What Kind of Person Should I Be?’.

Aristotle believed virtues played a significant part in successfully sustaining relationships and navigating complex social and societal dynamics. Virtues were the essence of living your best self. Aristotle believed virtue was the medium between absence and excess of a trait and defined these virtues as:

Courage: Between rashness and cowardice. You observe moral strength in the face of danger. The virtue of courage is combined with knowledge, wisdom, and opinion. You are aware of the risk, but commit to action anyway.

Temperance: Between overindulgence and insensitivity. Temperance is voluntary self-restraint. For Aristotle, never drinking and drinking too much were both viewed harshly. Temperance is balanced--‘everything is good in moderation.’

Liberality: Between charity and miserliness (giving more than you have). Liberality is the measured habit of doing good with your wealth without putting yourself in a bad position. Today, we would see this as charitable contributions, volunteering, and paying it forward.

Magnificence: Between stinginess and vulgarity. Living too extravagantly or too flashy as opposed to living in squalor. The type of expenditure made should be appropriate to the circumstance. Such as spending money to bring grand things to the world versus spending money for a 16th car that you don’t need or enjoy. This virtue is hardly a problem for the majority of people. Well, unless you are a casual gamer and therefore suffer constant buyer remorse.

Magnanimity: Between pride and delusions of grandeur (narcissism). This is a big word with significant meaning. It encompasses more than the words to define it; words don’t do it justice. Magnanimity is about self-worth (knowing your value) and the ambition to move forward in life doing marvelous things. Simply put, it is to be excellent in mind and heart. Concentrating on noble, purposeful actions and not spending time and energy on pettiness. Your self-confidence makes actions calm, speech unhurried, and walk authoritative (think catwalk strut without the indignation, like Superman)—a champion for causes and humanity.

Patience: Between anger and fury. Exercising temperance in not getting too angry or not getting angry at all when it is justified. Patience controls your temper and to endure something tedious or monotonous. For example, standing in line at the DMV or explaining the same set of instructions 30,000 times. Even when anger erupts, it is controlled and expressed constructively.

Truthfulness: Between habitual lying and being boastful or acting without tact. The definition extends beyond telling someone the truth. It also means knowing the truth about yourself and the world around you. Interpretation of the world without bias and seeing what is really there. This interpretation should correspond with what you think and say.

Wittiness: Between buffoonery (joker) and boorishness (boring). Having a good sense of humor that shows tact and is not at the expense of others causing pain. Wittiness means you understand the balance between the time to jest and the time to be serious. Like most of Aristotle’s definitions, it extends to what you put out (say) as well as what you take in (who & what you listen to).

Friendliness: Between unfriendly or being overly-friendly with too many people. Aristotle believed friends were a vital component of a good life and explained different kinds of friendships. The most meaningful kind of friendship to him was virtuous friendship as opposed to friends of pleasure or usefulness. Two people that are virtuous and bear nothing but goodwill to each other was the ideal friendship. Bringing out the good in themselves and their friend were the friendships that would endure and add value.

Shame: Between shy and shameless. Shame is essential to understand when a moral or social foul has been committed so you can adjust course. Aristotle defined shame as ‘a certain pain or agitation over bad deeds, present, past, or future that appear to bring one into disrepute’. Shame helps balance your moral compass.

Justice: Between selfishness and selflessness. Aristotle had several forms of justice but focused on lawful and fair equitable distributions. Justice refers to the proportional application according to people’s equalities and inequalities. The punishment fitting the crime and the person that committed it--tailored justice. Justice is a term that applies to transactions, communications, treatment of others, endowments, and facilities.

Aristotle created these virtues on a sliding scale because developing virtues is full of trial and error--no one is perfect. Sliding scales leave room for improvement and are not applied in finalities or absolutes--this is important later. It is a personal journey requiring thoughtful reflection on what type of person you want to be. No one can force virtue on you; it can only be introduced. Developing it is something that you decide to do.

Virtues are essential because they assist a person in finding happiness by achieving a fulfilling life. Virtues elevate society--politicians, leaders, and citizens alike. We cheer the heroes in movies and root for them as they defeat evil-doers and show villains the error of their ways. Disney makes bank on it. What would a society of heroes look like?

Aristotle’s virtues are too big for most children to comprehend, much less apply. We start with age-appropriate virtues. There was a song on a kid’s show called Yo Gabba Gabba that my kids loved.

The catchy tune was named, “Don’t bite your friends”--solid advice in theory and practice, which is why I kept it on-hand for my vicious daughter. On a side note, I didn’t realize how old I was until Green Day appeared as a guest band in bug costumes on Yo Gabba Gabba. If you understand what you just read---I’m sorry.

Introducing virtues in the home before school-age and reinforcing them throughout school years will give your child the tools they need to excel in their schooling’s structured activities and social elements. If we don’t introduce virtue, the consequences may bite us (sorry, had to).

Origin Story of Virtue Education: The Why

Virtue Education has been instilled in some public and private elementary schools and higher education institutions rebranded as ‘Character Development’ Education. There was a firmly established myth that virtue glowed with the tint of religious connotation-it doesn't. Aristotle virtues do not speak of higher powers or the many gods the Greeks worshipped. Virtue speaks to the moral fiber of a person and their relationship with society.