This week I had some contact with the Hamilton Civic League. I love the motto on their site: 'Transforming democracy inaction to democracy in action'. At some point I'd like to get into some of the 'feedback' I provided them (it was extensive and relevant to what I talk about here regarding civic engagement), but for now, I wanted to post something else.

I'd shared my thoughts with a dear, old friend of mine. She picked up on an element in the correspondence regarding teaching 'Civics' in our school more thoroughly in an effort to increase eventual voter participation and general resident involvement in local governance. Here's a paraphrasing of her thoughts:

"Although a early-inception course in civics would serve to create better informed youth -one already inclined to intelligently exercise their civic rights and responsibilities with more reliability than we adults- to me what would be even more useful would be an early-inception course in 'Being Human 101'.

No matter how many opportunities students have in which to learn, what ultimately determines their desire or ability to engage is the lens through which they see, the lens as determined by their individual soul journey. A course that helped kids grow in the way they needed would assist in polishing this lens, and thereby make their 'vision' all the crisper.

Whether to complement the good family environment they may enjoy, or to counteract and ameliorate a more inhibiting home life situation, such learning would serve to provide kids with an invaluable 'How it all works' understanding of the mysteries that continue to thwart those of us as adults who haven't been able to master sufficient basics on our own, thereby distorting our 'vision' of Life."

Even though I don't see any possibility of such a basic inculcation about living your life of being injected into mainstream education, I love the 'step back' she took from what to me was a very practical suggestion. Because she's right. We don't provide much in the way of this kind of learning. Maybe for most, it's a bit too 'touchy-feely'. Moreover, maybe this is something good parenting should address. Nevertheless, I think she's nailed it: we may well be falling down in giving our children the tools they'll need to compete in an ever-technological world (not that Canada does that badly in international surveys, by-and-large), but we seem to also be doing so in the broader 'Life-skills' area. (This isn't something that's happened overnight. Context about your-life-lived and the tools that inform it has probably been diminishing -or at least in a state of flux- for going on five decades now. Whatever you can say about the prowess of our current youth to navigate through and with the technology available, I don't believe that there's as strong a comprehension about Life fundamentals as there 'used to be'.)

Though it would be easy to go all 'dark cloud' about this stuff, I'll confess I'm filled with optimism: there's so much room for improvement, the potential for a better Life for us all is astounding.