1 in 4 Gen Zers can't change a lightbulb
Should high school children learn the Classics, or would they be better off learning how to run businesses? Public school, with its one-size-fits-all template, is unlikely to be able to provide the right answer for everyone, but most people would probably agree that high school graduates should, at the very least, be able to change a light bulb.
A recent survey out of the United Kingdom has shown that 1 in 4 Gen Zers can’t.
'Me, climb a ladder?'
The study was conducted by the U.K. motoring and cycling retailer Halfords and surveyed 2,000 adults across generational groups, including millennials (Gen Z) aged 28–44, Gen X aged 45–60, and baby boomers aged over 60.
25 percent of respondents in Gen Z said changing a ceiling light bulb was too risky, as it would necessitate climbing a ladder. 20 percent said they couldn’t change the bulb as they were scared it might be “too hot.” Most of those who deemed the task too dangerous said they paid a professional to do it instead.
Another task that those in Gen Z opt out of is replacing a windshield wiper blade (which usually needs nothing more than to be slotted into place). 65 percent said they had no idea how to do it; 44 percent said they would pay a professional to get the job done.
Even tasks requiring less “expertise,” such as cleaning a car, stumped many young people. Over 25 percent of the 28-44 age group said they had “no idea where to begin” and admitted they called in a professional instead of trying to figure it out. 11 percent of people in this age group said they would “beg a parent” to clean their car. Apparently they see no issue with cajoling a middle-aged parent into doing what is essentially a menial and certainly a strenuous and time-consuming job.
'A wrench? What's that?'
Many Gen Z respondents also said they didn’t know how to inflate a car tire. A full 30 percent couldn’t identify a flathead screwdriver in a bag of tools; 21 percent couldn’t pick out a wrench. And, while most knew what a hammer and nail look like, 11 percent of Gen Zers said they would call in a professional to hang a picture on a wall.
Reflecting on the survey’s results, Andy Turbefield of Halfords said,
It’s clear that the ability to do basic, practical tasks is being lost amongst younger generations.
Not only that, younger people are paying a huge amount of money for others to complete tasks taking mere minutes. Those between the ages of 18 and 27 spend an average of $1,500 per year on professional help for basic household chores. In comparison, Gen Xers between the ages of 44 and 59 spend around $470, while boomers between the ages of 60 and 78 spend just $300.
Can you learn grammar without reading a book?
The survey results raise important questions regarding the nature of the education provided to our children. Should the focus be on acquiring skills that will prove practically useful in life, and away from abstract knowledge?
This debate has recently been held in Scotland, following the introduction of a new curriculum named (inaccurately, as it turned out), the Curriculum for Excellence. The new program was reviewed after ten years of implementation and the official conclusion was that it had failed.
The Scottish curriculum was based on reducing the teaching of content and focusing on teaching skills instead. One of the curriculum’s developers concluded that,
The problem is we did not make sufficiently clear that skills are the accumulation of knowledge. Without knowledge there can be no skills.
Developments in understanding the psychology of learning confirm the Scottish findings. Dan Willingham, a professor of Cognitive Psychology at the University of Virginia, describes the interaction between facts and critical thinking, and why one cannot effectively teach children how to think without a context:
Data from the last 40 years lead to a conclusion that is not scientifically challengeable: thinking well requires knowing facts, and that's true not simply because you need something to think about. The very processes that teachers care about most – critical thinking processes such as reasoning and problem solving – are intimately intertwined with factual knowledge that is stored in long-term memory (not just found in the environment).
Daisy Christodoulou’s book, Seven Myths About Education, put her in the center of the debate on education in the United Kingdom. She argues that progressive ideas on how to educate children have failed dismally.
Asking what the right balance is between knowledge and skills is like asking what the right balance is between ingredients and cake.
The ingredients make the cake, just as the knowledge makes the skill.
All education is based on values — but which ones?
Returning to the Gen Zers who are too scared to change a lightbulb, they are missing not only the skills needed but also the value system underpinning acquiring the skill. Perhaps it really is a bit dangerous to change a lightbulb. But perhaps it’s also worth overcoming fear in order to feel capable of dealing with very minor household emergencies.
As for the Gen Zers who “don’t know how” to clean their car and nag their parents to do it instead, perhaps the problem is not that they “don’t know” and are afraid of making a mess of it, but rather (or also) that they lack the respect their own parents had for the older generation — they wouldn’t have dreamed of asking their parents to exert themselves on their behalf.
In a generation of not only “Me Too” but “Me First,” skills can be learned but will never be applied if someone else can do the job instead. Perhaps the problem is not that so many young people don’t know what a wrench looks like — it’s more that they aren’t ashamed to admit it.
