I have been thinking a lot about literacy lately. Not in the sense of reading literacy, the way the word is traditionally used, but in a broader sense of competency. It all came about when I discovered a website titled: www.360financialliteracy.org It caused me to stop and think: this is a really well titled website. If you think about it, most people can read, but they are financially illiterate. We are not taught in school about finanial management and many of us were not taught by our parents either. OR, what our parents taught us verbally did not match their actions, so the words lost relevance. My parents taught me the basics about savings and credit cards, but I never received any training on the post college life financial management skills. That knowledge has come from frustration, messing up, more frustration, then seeking the knowledge for myself so that I could stay afloat on my own apart from my parents. Why isn't this a college course? They made us take all sorts of other mandatory crap that I haven't used whatsoever, but finances, not even mentioned.
As I think more and more about literacy, I realize that we are illiterate about a lot of necessary things. We were never really taught about our bodies for example. Yes, they covered the basics in sex ed in middle school, but as I have been married, I have realized that there are a ton of things that I don't know or understand about my body that would be useful to know. We aren't really taught well how our male and female bodies function and what they need from us. Nutrition is another category that comes to mind. Again, we are taught the basics, but not really what we need to know. All I can do now is learn it for myself and pass that knowledge on to my kids so that they don't end up in the same boat. It leaves me wondering - what did I learn in school and what was the point? It is a little disconcerting to have spent ages 5 to 23 in school and to be on the other side of it all wondering why I wasn't taught some of the most basic and yet useful life survival things like finances, nutrition, and the deal with the female body. It leaves me feeling like school was a lot of wasted time. After all those years of study, I don't feel more capable to function in the adult world, but less. Does anyone else have this sense?
3 comments:
Allie, I just recently jumped on the blog bandwagon myself (www.ryanhewitt.wordpress.com) and I really am loving it. Anyways, I definitely know how you feel with this one. This last year I've been convinced that there's a conspiracy against me. That everyone has this big secret about how life works and no one told me. I don't know if that makes sense, but I feel like I'm learning every lesson the hard way: money, marriage, etc. Good to know I'm not alone.
Wow, what a great website that 360 one is. I agree about school totally. My first 4 years out were totally sink or swim.
Many asked why I didn't ask for help or clarification or anything like that. How can you have a question if you don't know you have one? It's like not knowing your drowning, and being yelled at for not asking for a life preserver.
I agree that your junior or senior year of high school there should be a debt management class or something - many of the kids now say "I don't know how i'll pay for college, but i'll deal with that later." And then, before you leave college, another class about the real world.
Well said, my wife. I know that the learning curve has been steep for the both of us.
I know that the biggest area in which I'm illiterate is the "myself" category, like we've talked about. Not just eh physical "me" but also how I think, what I need, what makes me tick.
If only we could have all this down before life begins. But I suppose that is what this life is for – it prepares us for real life, eternal life. So maybe it's ok that we are still learning the basics. Thinking along those lines helps me be more patient, anyway. :)
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