Chapter 17: Two Fails — Two Silver Linings
On my way to see Stone Mountain, I got lost in Stone Mountain.
There are two Stone Mountains. I was headed to the touristy one — the controversial Georgia park and memorial to three Confederate icons (Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson). A teacher friend suggested I see it. “Experience the controversy,” she suggested.
But my GPS guided me into a different Stone Mountain — a small city of 6,000 near the park, 15 miles east of Atlanta. Before I figured it out and headed toward the park, something caught my eye.
In front of a nondescript building that looked like it used to be somebody’s house was a sign.
HANDYMAN SCHOOL
I had to check it out.
When I wrote Missing Pieces, 52 Vital Lessons Kids Should Be Learning at School (But Aren’t), I focused on big picture, “life” lessons. I didn’t include the obvious ones (for adults) that aren’t interesting or relevant for kids — how to change a flat tire, cook a meal, or manage finances…
Kids might need to know such things. Financial literacy, eventually. Changing a flat tire? Just call for roadside assistance. And although I regret never learning to cook, it’s only because I can’t cook for my wife. If you can’t cook in the 21st century, you won’t starve.
Some of what we think is vital for kids (or anyone else) to learn is fluid. Ten years ago, I thought everyone should learn at least a little computer programming. With AI, I’m not sure programming is a vital skill anymore. If you’re not into it, I think you can get away with not pursuing it.
And because I can use myself as an example, I know that most of us don’t have to be “handy” to survive in the 21st century. When I need a faucet fixed or my refrigerator repaired, I call someone.
I’m not proud of it. I wish I was more handy. But not enough to do anything about it.
I can’t remember many opportunities to learn to be handy. No disrespect to my dad — it wasn’t his thing either — but he never taught me how to swing a hammer. Whenever I meet any kind of trade worker —plumber, electrician, roofer — I ask, “How did you learn how to do this?”
Often, it was from their father. Or some other relative. Sometimes they went to a trade school. Rarely did they learn their trade in school-school. Shop classes, ubiquitous when I was in high school, are now nearly nonexistent. The obsession with “You’ve got to go to college,” has reduced demand for auto or metal shop.
Not the demand for the services that trades people provide, though. AI can provide stats like these:
Labor shortages in the trades are real and growing — industries like plumbing, electrical work, welding, and HVAC report difficulty finding young workers.
The average age of skilled trades workers in the U.S. is around 50 years old, meaning many are nearing retirement with fewer trained replacements coming up.
Without early exposure to hands-on work, students miss out on discovering talents and career paths in the trades.
The U.S. is projected to face millions of unfilled trade jobs in the next decade — in plumbing, electrical, carpentry, HVAC, and more.
This shortage affects housing, infrastructure, and green energy development.
But AI can’t fix a busted air conditioner. Not yet, anyway.
Which is why I got so excited when I spotted the Stone Mountain Handyman School. I needed to know the story! What is the most vital lesson you teach a handyman student?
I knocked, introduced myself, and explained the My Vital Lesson project. I asked for help.
“Will you participate?”
“No.”
The school’s owner was respectful. He answered some of my questions. But he was hesitant. Wary.
He didn’t want to be filmed. I tried my best to convince him that I wasn’t there to steal his ideas. That I just wanted to share his ideas. That he could trust me.
He didn’t. For a lot of my questions, his answer was, “Why do you want to know?” He wouldn’t let me film him. He wouldn’t even take a photo with me. “There’s a picture of me on the side of the truck outside,” he said.
Frustrated, I conceded, and I headed off to the next Stone Mountain.
Me at the peak
After thinking about it, I realized it wasn’t a total fail.
I’m glad I stopped and stepped through the Handyman School’s door. I feel good that there is such a thing as a school that, all in one place, teaches hands-on, useful skills. It’s a great idea that needs to spread.
I learned that most of the Handyman School students aren’t teenagers. Very few high school kids aspire to be “handymen.” But when guys (yes, most are men) start to hit 30 and understand that learning specific, in-demand skills is a gateway to a good living and better life, some will enroll.
And I got at least an indirect answer to the most vital lesson question from a handyman school teacher’s point of view.
I wondered about the order skilled trades are taught and if any specific handyman skill is more vital to learn.
The answer was carpentry.
“Once you learn how to measure accurately, you can learn all the other (handyman) skills. Carpentry is number one.”
So, despite my frustration, the visit was worth it.
One truth echoed throughout my trip (and life) is that every time I leave my comfort zone, it pays off. Yes, sometimes more than others, but always to some degree. Still, I wish I had the Handyman School founder’s thoughts, ideas, and lesson on video. I wanted to share it with the world.
Instead, I guess this will have to do.
__________
I thought Iowa would be flat and boring. But it’s hilly and green. Besides an unexpected number of trees, the landscape is dominated by corn and soybean fields. The air is clean and fresh, the sky brilliantly blue.
Nestled within the rolling hills is the New Melleray Abbey. I’d never heard of it, but passed it on my way to the mythical baseball diamond made famous in the 1989 movie, Field of Dreams. (I write about it in Chapter 18.) Like with the Handyman School, I was intrigued. Don’t monks study how to live? What would their vital lesson be?
I did some research and learned that the New Melleray Abbey trains Trappist monks on how to live lives of “structured prayer, communal and interior formation, intentional manual labor, spiritual silence, and the theological guidance of the Rule of St. Benedict.”
The Rule of St. Benedict involves:
Balance: Emphasizes a life of prayer, work, and study (ora et labora — “pray and work”).
Stability: Monks commit to remain in one monastery for life.
Obedience: To the abbot, to the Rule, and to one another in humility.
Moderation: Avoids extremes; Benedict rejected harsh asceticism.
Community: Focus on shared meals, worship, labor, and learning.
A VISITORS WELCOME sign greeted me as I pulled into the bucolic Abbey.
New Melleray Abbey.
I approached a receptionist and explained who I was, and what I was doing. Then it got awkward. I wasn’t sure how to ask for what I wanted — for her to introduce me to a cool monk who’d share the secrets of life. Or at least a vital lesson.
I’m sure whatever I said came out clumsily.
“There’s nobody available right now. They’re in prayer.”
“Maybe when they’re done? I can wait… Is there anyone specific I might talk to. Maybe a teacher or leader?”
She thought of someone. “But it might be a couple hours.”
“Can I leave a note?”
I hand wrote the yet-to-be-met monk a message explaining that I was a teacher from California. That I was driving around the country asking talented teachers what they believe is the most vital lesson we should be teaching kids today and how they teach it. I wrote that I wanted him to answer this so I could share it with the world.
“I’m on my way to visit a former student who lives in Newton (2½ hours away). But if he agrees to see me, I’ll come back.”
“I’ll call you either way.”
I was 20 minutes from Stephanie’s house (Irvington High School, class of 2001, senior humanities) when the receptionist called me back.
“I talked to him and he said, ‘We don’t do that.’ ”
“Don’t do what?” I asked her.
“He said they don’t share lessons like you’re asking.”
“Oh.”
I thanked her for keeping her promise to call me and continued on to Stephanie’s where we had a lovely visit. She’s now a married occupational therapist with three cute kids. She works in the Iowa schools. She showed me the dents golfball-sized hail had caused to the the outside walls of her home.
Not the life that I could have envisioned for her when she was in my class 22 years earlier. But a good life.
I told her about the Abbey, and we laughed.
“Yeah,” I said. “Why would someone who spends his life contemplating the reason we exist want to share it with a curious teacher? How crazy would that be?”
I was joking but perplexed and disappointed. What had I done wrong? What might I do in the future to get reluctant people to talk?
Yet the Abbey, too, had a silver lining.
Confirmation.
Confirmation of what the magnificent thinker, writer, and blogger, Maria Popova, wrote at the start of her “18 Life-Learnings from 18 Years of The Marginalian” post.
“Somewhere along the way, you realize that no one will teach you how to live your own life — not your parents or your idols, not the philosophers or the poets, not your liberal arts education or your twelve-step program, not church or therapy or Tolstoy. No matter how valuable any of that guidance, how pertinent any of that wisdom, in the end you discover that you make the path of life only by walking it with your own two feet under the overstory of your own consciousness — that singular miracle never repeated in all the history and future of the universe, never fully articulable to another.”
I get it. No one is us. Ultimately, we have to figure out life on our own. Still, I know my thinking — maybe all of our thinking — is an amalgamation of others’ thinking. So I do my best to immerse in the best thinking.
I tried to accept and understand why monks or anyone else wouldn’t want to share what they think is most vital lesson kids need to learn.
But I just couldn’t.
