Cory Miller is a high school senior and performs at the top of his academic class. With a 4.0 grade point average, he spends his time involved in after school activities while working a part-time job. In a few months, Miller will have completed what only 52 percent of Black males nationwide achieve – a high school diploma. As Miller crosses the stage full of knowledge related to math formulas, vocabulary words and American history, he will continue on without the knowledge of money management, cooking, negotiation, and urban survival skills.
While learning to read, write and solve math problems are essential to academia, if parents aren’t available to teach children life skills they may fall behind and miss out on a significant amount of opportunities. The question then asked is, who is responsible for teaching children life skills vital to adult development, educators or parents?
“I think it’s part of the job of teaching if you’re doing it well,” said Patricia Payne, former Indianapolis Public Schools educator, who refers to the need as “survival skills.” What it pertains to are those who are disenfranchised and I’m particularly talking about Black children. In my long experience, I see all other groups have backups and support systems but not our children.”
However, Payne believes too many students are not being taught life skills in the classroom and one reason is due to the makeup of the teaching force.
“Part of the issue is our teaching force is probably over 90 percent white and it doesn’t look like it’s going to get any better. That means the responsibility of education has to first understand that poverty and literacy are not synonymous. You can’t teach what you don’t know.”
Daniel Massey, a 17-year-old student from Ben Davis High School said learning life skills are important to development as an adult.
“If we aren’t taught how to do it now, it will be too late later on,” said Massey who mentioned that most of his friends do not know the basics about credit cards and money management.
He thinks parents should be responsible for teaching these skills but it should also be incorporated in the classroom curriculum.
“If you don’t have that parent to teach you, it is up to the school,” he said.
Payne, who taught second grade for several years, said this is the reason she retired but could not stay away from the school system.
“Somebody has got to be on site to help these children. I don’t think I’m the only one who can do this but as old as I am and through my experience, I know that I can continue to help others coming up,” she noted.
Marissa Wynn, a graduate student at the University of South Carolina, said ultimately, the responsibility falls on educators.
“There are plenty of parents out there who do not have good money management skills, and who have never purchased a home,” she commented. “By learning these skills from the parents, these young adults would be set up for failure in these areas.”
Jasmine Gates, an educator in Delaware County, said the responsibility should be shared but belongs to parents. She stated that if the responsibility was assigned to educators, she believes it would give parents an excuse to “slack off.”
While some high schools in the Indianapolis area, such as Arsenal Technical High School have incorporated life skills classes into their curriculum, the majority of students are offered the extended education opportunity as a voluntary elective.
Payne believes these classes should be required, not electives. She adds that there are ways to infuse a child’s learning experience into instructional activities. “You are still teaching them skills but they are less inclined to withdraw from the process. To me that is a form of survival. There are many things teachers have to do to go beyond the call of duty.”
