What makes a meaningful life?

I've NEVER (I repeat, NEVER) been excited about teaching Family Life. Why we still use the textbook series we use is beyond my comprehension - the themes are there (if you look REALLY hard), but the substance is completely surface level. How are we supposed to get the kids serious and interested about the topics if we don't give them anything worth being serious about in the first place?

It has taken five years of teaching middle school religion to finally take this into my own hands and do something different. (It's not that I haven't changed things up before in Family Life - I must say, "Tuesdays with Morrie" has been the catalyst of some of the most meaningful discussions I've ever had with students - but they need something even more.) In sixth grade, the topics span all stages of life, from natural conception to natural death, and focus on the decisions we face in each stage. 

So, if you think about it, the question I should be posing to my sixth graders is this: What makes a meaningful life?

This question has been posed throughout history and, notably, across many great works of fiction (and nonfiction)/entertainment. Take A Christmas Carol, where Scrooge learns that a life of building up one's own riches and not spreading love and joy to others is no life worth living at all. Or, consider my personal favorite, "It's a Wonderful Life," where George Bailey gets a chance to see what the world would be like without him, and through that experience he understands how much one life has the power to positively affect so many others.

Think about Mitch who took a lesson from his old professor in Tuesdays with Morrie:
“So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.”

I'm still fleshing out the exact activities and discussions of this unit... What makes this unit/theme difficult is that many students have lost grandparents and one of my sixth graders recently lost his father to a rare disease, so I do need to tread carefully, allowing students opportunities to speak with the guidance counselor or do whatever they need should a particular discussion or activity bring certain emotions or memories to the surface. (While it has been a long time since my grandparents died, I admit I still cry at the end of the movie "Tuesdays with Morrie" every year when we watch it in class. And that's okay...and I want the students to know that and be able to safely experience that too.)

Some people may think middle school students should not have to grapple with this question or may not understand it or cannot handle it...but I respectfully disagree with anyone who feels this way. Our children can and should think about these things. If not now, then when? If not under guidance and in the safe space of a classroom, then where?

So, right now the plan is to keep "Tuesdays with Morrie," but I'm going to open our unit with a look at a work of fiction, Tuck Everlasting, to set the scene and to act as a comparative piece of literature. (If you have not yet experienced this beautiful book, then I suggest you make your way to the closest public library or to Amazon because, in my humble opinion, you are missing out.) It's the story of Winnie Foster and how her path crosses that of the Tuck family on one fateful summer day. To not give away too much while still providing the context of using this in class, the Tucks drank from a spring that allows them to live forever. At first this seems like a marvelous idea, but as Mr. Tuck explains later on, it's more complicated than the glamour and thrill such a life suggests. It's not natural. "You can't have living without dying," Tuck states to Winnie at one point. (Morrie says it another way: "Once you learn how to die you learn how to live.") But when faced with the decision to drink from the same stream or to let her life keep its natural course, what will Winnie do? And, as the reader, you ask yourself, what would you do? What if you could live forever?

I'm hoping the students can use this opportunity to engage seriously in considering all aspects of life, from conception to death, as the gift God has given each of us. And I hope this book (as well as "Tuesdays with Morrie") will help provide the structure the class needs to do just that and to consider how their decisions and actions will shape their lives into meaningful ones.

As the years come and go - can we believe it's 2018 so soon?! - it's a thought worth pondering for all of us: "What makes a meaningful life?" And, perhaps more importantly, we should be asking ourselves, "What am I doing to make my life meaningful - something beautiful for others and for God?"

On that note, Happy New Year! I wish you all the best in 2018!