My wife sometimes accuses me of being too friendly.  You see, I’m okay in a crowded coffee shop or elsewhere, asking if I could share the table with already seated customers. . . .while Angie would simply leave the shop because it was too busy.

I try not to be intrusive on other people because I have times I don’t want to be bothered as well.  However, I’m met some great friends and had great discussions with strangers who were willing to share their table with me.

John Adams

One of those times was at the Baltimore Convention Center during the 2022 National Funeral Directors Convention.  I randomly sat down with two Brits attending the convention, one of whom I learned was Great Britain’s President of their National Association of Funeral Directors (NAFD), John Adams.

I learned that Adams works in a family-owned funeral home, Perry & Phillips, which you can read about here.  The business was founded in 1835.  In sitting down with Adams I learned a little of his background, including that his mother died when he was 12 years old.

That experience for him, as you can read about here, was a rallying cry for his term as President of NAFD.  Adams believed that a missing element for young people was the lack of learning about how death, dying, and bereavement can affect a child as he or she grows up.

During his preseidency and beyond, Adams pressed forward in his quest to have all children in Great Britain be taught about death,dying, grief, and bereavement.  He began a petition asking Parliament to look at that question as it continued to refine its public school requirements.  In addition, he met with King Charles to bring attention to the issue as you can read here.

There are now results —  Adams’ quest for children to learn that “Death is part of Life” has culminated with Adams being informed and Parliament now requiring that before a student finishes Primary School they must understand “That change and loss, including bereavement, can provoke a range of feelings, that grief is a natural response to bereavement, and that everyone grieves differently”.

Here are the new “General Requirements” for Primary School students in Great Britain to know in the “General Wellbeing category” effective September 1, 2026 (#8 is the new requirement that has been added):

Curriculum content:
1. The benefits of physical activity, time outdoors, and helping others for health,
wellbeing and happiness. Simple self-care techniques, including the importance of
rest, time spent with friends and family, as well as hobbies, interests and
community participation.
2. The importance of promoting general wellbeing and physical health.
3. The range and scale of emotions (e.g. happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise,
nervousness) that they might experience in different situations. Pupils should
understand that worrying and feeling down are normal, affect everyone at different
times, and are not in themselves a sign of a mental health condition.
4. How to recognise feelings and use varied vocabulary to talk about their own and
others’ feelings.
5. How to judge whether what they are feeling and how they are behaving is
appropriate and proportionate.
6. That isolation and loneliness can affect children, and the benefits of seeking
support.
7. That bullying (including cyberbullying) has a negative and often lasting impact on
mental wellbeing and how to seek help for themselves or others.
8. That change and loss, including bereavement, can provoke a range of feelings,
that grief is a natural response to bereavement, and that everyone grieves
differently.
9. Where and how to seek support (including recognising the triggers for seeking
support), including who in school they should speak to if they are worried about
their own or someone else’s mental wellbeing or ability to control their emotions
(including issues arising online).
10.That it is common to experience mental health problems, and early support can help.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take:  From my perspective, making children aware of the consequences of grief and bereavement is extremely important in society.  According to this article and video report from ABC News 1 in 12 children (8.3%) in America will experience the death of a parent before they turn 18 years of age.

According to Micki Burns, the co-author of the report cited in the ABC feature, “Children who have lost a parent can feel isolated because it’s difficult for other kids to understand grief and loss. Recognizing that [losing a parent or sibling] is prevalent is important.  It’s something that we need to start to talk about more openly and more easily so that the children don’t feel so isolated.”

As she intimates, knowing about grief, loss, and bereavement is not only a good thing for those that lose loved ones, it is important for those who are friends of the bereaved so that they know about the emotions and feelings of one who has lost a parent.

The ABC article mentions that in America, the state of West Virginia has the highest percentage of “childhood grief” at 13.3% of all children in the state while the state of Minnesota has the lowest percentage of childhood grief.  The article postulates that poverty and resources availability may be one of the factors in the difference.

Finally, again from my point of view,  I think the more that we can teach the “soft sciences” such as grief and bereavement to our children the better society we will live in.  From my experience on the Board of Regents at the University of Minnesota I found no shortage of scholars among our youth — We are in good hands in that regard.  However, many of those same students would ask about classes that would help them navigate life as to finances, mental health, and good living practices.  I was always disappointed that I could not get the powers that be to offer more classes in those disciplines . . . . .so, I’m extremely appreciative that John Adams has!!!

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“A servant’s attitude guided by Christ leads to a significant life”

In the past month part of my thoughts have been at the intersection of “Education and Grief”.  And, it has brought me to a way of thinking that maybe the two thoughts need to go together.

You see, during my time as a Board Member of the University of Minnesota I worked to try to get a student-led initiative about having a class on “Financial Literacy” become part of the base, required core of curriculum courses that every student needed to graduate.  It came from a foundation in which students told me, and I’m paraphrasing here, “The University does a great job preparing us to go out in the world and make a great living, but nobody tells us how to manage the income that we earn”.

I came to the conclusion that if we taught students about taxes, interest, mortgages, automobile payments, savings plans, and more we would have a society not only where citizens were more apt to make wise financial decisions but people would be much more aware of how the votes they cast in elections affect their purchasing power and financial future.

I recently made a call to the Provost (the position in charge of the academic side of the college) who was in her last week on the job.  I had helped hire her and got to know her when I was the Chair of the (Academic) Mission Committee for two years.  I had asked her how Financial Literacy had fared in the new curriculum proposals and she let me know that the entire proposal had been voted down by faculty. . . . So, my Financial Literacy ideas for students were back to square zero.

On to grief. . . . As many of you might know, in roughly the last month the past Speaker of the House in Minnesota, Rep. Melissa Hortman, was assasinated.  I can’t say I was a friend of the Speaker or that I even knew her well.  However, University of Minnesota Board Members are selected by the legislature and getting known by them helps one’s chances for success.

I remember encountering Rep. Hortman in a stairwell at the State Office Building.  I wanted to get an appointment with her to push my candidacy and she said something like the following to me, “No need, I’ve read your bio and heard from others. . . I’ll be voting for you”. . . and, she ended up doing so.

So, while we probably didn’t have the same political ideals I can say she was honest, forthright, and ethical in her short discussion with me.  When I heard of the assasination news that moment in the stairwell immediately came back to me and shook me to the soul.

Recently a letter to the editor on the grief of the Hortman assasination was printed in the Minnesota Star and Tribune.  The writer said, “I am grieving a country that has become numb to cruelty.  A nation where the capacity to care is treated as a partisan liability.  Where empathy is mocked, where decency is dismissed as weakness and where powerful. . .are met not with respect but with violence.”

So, here I am — at the intersection of education and grief.  It’s not a position unique to me and former President of the National Association of Funeral Directors (NAFD) in Great Britain, John Adams, finds himself at the same spot.  I had the opportunity to sit down with Mr. Adams at the United States NFDA convention in Baltimore in 2022 and learn more about his goals.

One of those goals is to unite education and grief by making a course on Death, Dying, and Bereavement a required course in the British National Curriculum.  To that end he has already had an audience with King Charles and last December addressed the Members of Parliament on the subject where he received very positive responses.  Here’s the latest update on what is happening with his initiative.

Back to Financial Literacy — I won’t give up on my quest to get more people to understand the value of knowing finances and the ramifications in one’s life on how they manage their finances.  Matter of fact, I think in the world we live in there should be a lot more room to learn the “soft sciences” like bereavement and/or financial literacy.

Maybe if we can help with that eduaction our communities can understand the value of empathy and grieve with compassion when we lose our friends and neighbors. . . . And, maybe like John Adams in Great Britain funeral directors, who exhibit that “capacity to care” can lead the way.

Related –– “Death-A Changing Industry” podcast hosted by John Adams.  This episode is titled “What my children taught me about Grieving”

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“A servant’s attitude guided by Christ leads to a significant life”