I've been cleaning off my desk today. At the bottom of a stack of papers, was an article I saved from USA Today on February 26 entitled, "Teens losing touch with historical references."  The gist of it is, today's teenagers have lost touch with American History, and can't identify most major events or the impact on our life today. It boils down to the sad fact that History is not taught in most schools as a primary subject.

The article was accompanied by a quiz, Are you smarter than a 17-year-old?  Sadly, my kids failed it, too.

We take some pride in reconnecting our kids with historical facts through hands-on or living history events. We do a little traveling, taking in historical sites and learning a little about our past. I force them to watch historical movies and documentaries, at times.  Heck, we're even descendants of several noted patriots and a signer of the Declaration of Independence--facts they've been forced to learn.

Yet, we don't spend a lot of time of dates and events, really. Until I read this article I hadn't given much thought to the lack of History classes in school.  Perhaps I should have. We have a responsibility to make sure our children learn and understand both our Nation's history and their personal connection to it. 

Poet George Santayana said, "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." But, I think this quote from Kurt Vonnegut, "History is merely a list of surprises. It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again," perhaps puts this issue in the best context. 

Without those list of surprises, we'll have produced a generation of leaders who will continually be surprised as the world unfolds about them.

Do "we" want to be responsible for that?

A few weeks ago, I was an adult leader on a trip with a bunch of teenagers. When we stopped for dinner, I found myself setting across from a young man I didn't know well. We started talking about school, his pending graduation and the fact that he didn't think he wanted to go to college. He said he didn't really know what he wanted to do with his life.

In hopes of lightening the moment, I said, "That's alright. I don't yet know that I want to be when I grow up."

There was a bit of silence, and then he look up from his dinner and said, "I don't really know how to respond to that."

I laughed and told him that teachers, parents and others spend too much time trying to get us to decide what kind of career to have, but most of don't have a clue at 18 what the world is like. Many of us, even in middle age, struggle with what we really want to do, or worse, find that what we were pushed into at 18 or 19, was really a waste of 25 years. At middle age, many of us wake up and say, "I don't want to do this. I never really did."

I hope he got something out of that. I had a friend tell me recently that my dad told him in a 1979 conversation to "...go to school to do what YOU want to do, not what your parents want you to do." He offered thanks to my dad some 25 years later for that piece of advice. I hope I made the same impact.

All reminds me of that www.monster.com commercial from the 90's entitled, "When I grow up.." Remember it? Watch below.