Hey, this is Wayne Stender. Before we jump into today's podcast, I want to let you know that we're brought to you today by our friends over at Creating a Masterpiece. Creating a Masterpiece does incredible work. They teach and train kids, and sometimes even parents like me, to do art in sequence steps. It's really helpful. especially as we're working to awaken the
different smarts that we have. And today on the podcast, we're going to talk about that a little bit, building a fully rounded, well-rounded person that understands and has their smarts awakened, whether they're naturally picture smart or whether it's something that needs to be developed and we need to have an understanding a
little bit more. Creating a masterpiece really does that well. And it's done by some friends of ours that are Christians who love the Lord and love kids and want to help kids develop and waken their smarts and their love for art. I encourage you to go over to their website, creatingamasterpiece.com and check it out. You'll find some great tutorials there, one free
download to try it out. And then you'll get a chance to really jump in and explore and experience what it really looks like to have the smarts awakened. Again, that's creatingamasterpiece.com. Now What if I boldly stated that a good life is more important than a good job? Because doesn't a good job lead to a good life? And what is that a good life, a life of fulfillment, a life of connection, a life of joy and commitment and growth and service and
learning. And what does a kid mean by a good job? One to provide for the family, one that gives them flexibility, one that will mature them up. Those are really important So, Dr. Cathy, today on the Celebrate Kids podcast, in this daily segment, Facing the Dark, I wanna talk a little bit about post-secondary education, partly because teens' post-secondary plans are really shifting, with only 45% of students in grades seven to 12 now seeking a two- to four-year college degree from
a report that we've seen in 2024. According to this new survey from the national nonprofit American Student Assistance, that's down from 73% in 2018. Over the same period, interest in non-degree education pathways, things like vocational schools, apprenticeships, technical boot camp programs, have more than really tripled from
12% in 2018 to now 38% in 2024. That's coming from the same organization, the ASA. Regardless of these goals after high school, the results are showing that students mainly view post-secondary education as the path to a good job. Dr. Cathy, I know that you were a university professor. I want to hear from you a little bit. Having been in that system, are there benefits of going to a university setting where you're going for a two-year or four-year degree?
Yes, if you're supposed to be there. Um, let me, let me continue first by saying that the university is very different from when I was there. So I was a professor for seven years at the university of Wisconsin, green Bay. I loved it. I thought it would actually be there forever. And God called me to this. And I'm so grateful, of course, that he did. I enjoyed it. The times are different now. And now the university is a much more challenging place
to navigate. It is, as most people listening know, a very liberal place. Even our Christian colleges have, in some cases, lost their footing. There are still some excellent Christian colleges that are Christian, not just in an adjective, but in true culture and beliefs, which is great. I like to say to young people that if God calls you to a career, that requires a four-year degree, you
must go. If you want to be a teacher, you have to go because there's, you know, certification and licensing, you know, nurses and doctors, lawyers, architects, there's social workers, there's certain, you know, if you want to be a social worker, you need a four-year degree and then a master's. So let's help our kids know that the call upon their life may require traditional education. And yet we don't have to start at
a four-year place. You know, Wayne, I just spoke to a bunch of young adults, as you know, and I said, look, if you, You want to go to the university or need to go to the university. You can start in a junior college, you know, English 101 for a hundred dollars of credit is very similar
to English 101 for a thousand dollars of credit. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with staying local and living at home and beginning your education, making sure that you're at a place where the credits will transfer to the university, where you think you might one day end up to finish. you know, a four-year degree. So there are benefits if your career requires it. What I would say, too, Wayne, let me back up even further and say, everybody should do something and go somewhere, right?
Like, I don't want some kid to finish high school and then, you know, surf on the couch and twiddle their thumbs and continue gaming, which is what they did with their spare time when they were in high school. You know, we've got to help our kids launch and realize that they were created for more than this. You know, schooling leads to life. And so what are you going to do with the rest of your life? And, uh, yes, the university's university system, you know, it is where
some kids thrive, right. Where they're, you know, they're going to be on a, on a student council in college, like they were in high school, or maybe they didn't get to do that in high school, but they're going to get to do it in college. You know, I was the athletic director for my dorm though. We had an eight story women's dorm and an eight story guy's dorm and the cafeteria connected us. And I was so privileged. to
be elected to be the athletic director of my dorm. So I had a great college experience, loved my classes, knew that I wanted to teach little kids, knew I needed to go to the university to do so. Not only did I have the wonderful experience of the marching band and an honorary sorority from the very beginning, but the athletic director, it, it, it, boy, it gave me leadership skills and, you know, authority in a kind of unique way. And I'm the one who would knock on doors and say, please sign up.
We need more volleyball players, you know, and I look back on all that and it was a rich, rich, rich time. So it can be great for some, but it's not for everyone. And you don't need to force your kids down that You know, Dr. Cathy, I really appreciate that. And I think it's important for us to think through it a little bit, especially when we think through the things
that we expect kind of school to do for us, right? I think that there's this attitude, especially when we look at the rise in two-year schools or trade schools, where it really gives us this opportunity to build specialization. And in that specialization, then we can go out and make money. So we ended up kind of being cogs in a wheel for a factory or for a production line
or for something to build really to make us a living. But I know that you have some thoughts about the value also of generalization, not just like studying. the general subjects, right, like English and how to do, you know, algebra two or college algebra. But there's also some benefits of thinking about kind of the world in maybe a little bit of a generalized approach versus a specialized kind of approach.
Are there values or what do you think? about that idea? Are there important things that we need to push with a generalized approach to education over kind of this idea that we're seeing right now in Yeah, that's a good question. I like to talk to young people about just in general, Wayne, the benefit of being generalized. So before we address the education component, I have met with young adults. As you know, I speak at Summit Ministries, so I get to speak to about 216 to
23-year-olds at a time. About 10 sessions this summer, it's just so much fun. And we go through the eight smarts, and some of them can identify, oh, these are my top two, or these are my top four. And then there are some young people who say to me, I don't think I have any super strengths. Like, I kind of see them all, but I don't think I have one that's this, like, mountaintop peak. And I'm like, that's okay. And so in that context, being generalized is actually really beneficial. Why? Because
we can pivot more easily to something new. So what sometimes happens is you specialize, you know, and this could be trade or tech or a four year degree where I'm going to be a mechanical engineer. Well, what happens if you don't like it? Or what happens if the industry changes and you're no longer needed or what, you know, and this is why I say to young people, choose a career, choose a ministry that cannot be outsourced over the ocean. Choose
something that cannot be replaced by a robot. And this is no joke. Our young people today have to be very cautious about this. Now that we have AI and we've got robots, like there are going to be people in like, distribution centers right now where people have been going to the shelf and pulling off a product and taking it to the mail room and putting an envelope. Robots are doing
that now a lot. And so we got to be really cautious of that. And my concern would be that if somebody does a specialized education and then that career evaporates or What if they become physically challenged and they can't do it is there anything else they can do so especially throughout high school let's make sure they have a generalized approach to how the world works and many different ways to solve problems and many different ways to serve in this cultural moment i'm
so that if the specialization they choose evaporates they don't panic. And again, if somebody doesn't know what they want to do, that is okay. They're multi-talented, multi-able, multi-passionate, multi-concerned, and they can't land because they want to stay happy. And they don't know if that thing they're choosing will keep them happy. It is okay to be generalized and start off your education at a place that celebrates many things. And then I just said to a young person, pray that a person
or a topic will inspire you. And I watched this as a professor for seven years where there would be a person in front of the class or a topic they studied in a class that would then take a young person down a whole different path than they expected. And once they're motivated for that, then they're, they're not stoppable. So those are some thoughts probably comes across a bit randomly. Don't panic if your kids are more generalists and be careful of a very specialized education for fear that
You know, Dr. Kathy, I love that. It reminds me a little bit of what you talk about in the great smarts, especially awakening the smarts, the dynamic of having like kind of a fully formed personality that engages the different smarts, especially in high school, where I can be body smart and I can also be nature smart and see patterns. And I can also be, you know, picture smart
and I can also be, you know, logic smart. Once we kind of fully form that, you do have an opportunity because you know, as you said, people are picking different careers as they go forward. And, you know, these kids today, I've already myself have had probably 3 to 4, maybe 5 different careers if I walk back and
looked at it. My kids are going to have more. So having that ability to you know, be multi-able, multi-talented, but also to know that they're multi-abled or multi-talented, to have that called out, that you have an ability to do these things in this different platform can be, I think, really powerful. And, you know, the study really notes that kids do see post-secondary education really as a pathway to having a good job and to having a good kind of career. I
want to ask you, though, what do you think of that? Should our direction from the university or from our kids' schooling be really that they would develop a good job, or should we talk differently about what education actually does for kids and how it Oh, that's so interesting. What if I boldly stated that a good life is more important than a good job?
Because doesn't a good job lead to a good life? And what is that? A good life, a life of fulfillment, a life of connection, a life of joy and commitment and growth and service and learning. So, and what does a kid mean by a good job? One to provide for the family, one that gives them flexibility, one that will mature them up. Those are really important discussions to have. And I think for the parents and grandparents listening, know your children. I'm so encouraged, Wayne, by
how you and Nancy, you have eight kids. In my opinion, it would be very easy to parent the herd. And I say all the time, parent the individual. And introduce the individuals to me if I meet you, don't say here are my children. Like ideally we, we celebrate their, you know, individual perspective about the way the world works. And so do you know your kids and what turns them on and ticks them off and what toys do they play with the
most? And what conversations do they have the most? and what kinds of questions do they ask? Questions about people or questions about nature or questions about science, questions about illogical things that drive them nuts. Those encounters that you have with them teach you a lot about how they've been created and what their interests and delights are, and that can help you then help them make a choice. I think it's critically important.
You know, as Dr. Kathy was talking today, it reminds me of a passage that comes out of Deuteronomy chapter 34, and I'll begin reading at verse 5. And Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in Moab, as the Lord had said. And he buried him in Moab, in the valley opposite of Beth Peor. But to this day, no one knows where his grave is. Moses was 120 years old when he died, yet his eyes were not weak, nor his strength gone. The Israelites grieved for Moses in the plains of Moab 30 days until the
time of weeping and mourning was over. You know, I love this passage partly because it says that Moses really wasn't weak when he passed away. Moses had an incredible life. And as we study his life, we study it through really three distinct 40-year seasons. He was raised really with sophistication in Pharaoh's court, and he receives the best Egyptian education. After defending an Israelite slave, he then flees to
Midian and spends 40 quieter years as a shepherd. It's really an unexpected seminary and practice as he's spending time in wilderness survival. At 80, God meets him at the burning bush and sends him back to Egypt to confront Pharaoh and then to be a leader of people, really a politician in some ways, to lead Israel out of Egypt. Moses' journey shows that divine service is not static. God often repurposes us and our passions in different stages of our life for his purpose and his people's
good. Sometimes it's easy to read a segment of scripture with our kids and just kind of say, that's what happened. The person was raised for that specific time. But there's other realities here and I think it's important for us to help our kids understand that life is going to bring different things and there's going to be definitely different seasons.
I think to doing what Dr. Cathy talked about today, awakening the smarts and helping kids see that life is going to change can really establish and prepare them for some different realities that they're going to face and maybe even help them understand a little bit more what college is for. It's a fantastic training ground. It's a training ground where they're going to study and can build the diversity of thought and perspective. But it doesn't have to be the place where they
just become specialized. And I think giving our kids some of that freedom can be helpful. I hope this podcast has been an encouragement to you today, and I hope the whole podcast in general is just an encouragement, all that we're doing here at Celebrate Kids. I want to thank you for listening to the Celebrate Kids podcast, this daily segment facing the dark. Again, we're brought to you by our friends over at Creating a Masterpiece. Go check them out, creatingamasterpiece.com. Now,
on behalf of Dr. Kathy Cook, my name is Wayne Stender. Thanks for listening, and