Your skills, what are you doing with it? By: Oshaloto, Joseph Tade

It’s becoming a cliché to tell a young person to acquire a skill. This particular topic has been flogged over and over as long as I can remember. 
No thanks to the kind of education we have – where the hallmark of our learning centers around how much of Pythagoras, Aristotle and Mcluhan you can get your head stuck with, rather than how much you have been trained to be able to think outside the box. 
I speak regularly with young people, many of whom I know are really smart and creative and I shudder at how many of them have become detached from these abilities that really set them apart. You talk with them for several minutes and they’d never say a thing about these things – are they freaking trying to be modest? I don’t think so. I really think they’d sacrificed so much on the altar of academics. And this hurts. 
Arts and crafts are great ways to give expression to those abilities God has put into each of us. Young people particularly have to seek desperately for ways to give expression to this. 
Each time I see the beautiful handiworks of friends like Joy Kays, David, Abalaka Monday, OlaRotimi Visuals, Sabjoz Beauty WorldZuleihat, Andy Ryms, Ifeanyi Arena Candy etc I feel highly elated that we have folks who have chosen to make the labor market less tensed up. They are working things out with dignity and are emerging as reference points as far as excellence is concerned. Guys, I may not have personally done much in commending you, but believe me, you are the best. 
So how then can we get the fire of skills to burn more brightly? How can we bring expression to the loads and loads of abilities that have been stymied by the unhappy collaboration of our patently incompetent policy makers on one hand and the sort of parenting that is now in vogue? You know about the government, but I bet you may not know this thing about our parents, right? OK I’ll explain briefly. 
Don’t get me wrong, our parents are fantastic. 
Imagine John, 10 year old. JS 2, he goes to school by seven, returns by five. Mondays to Fridays. On Saturdays, Clement arrives the house for home lessons. At the home lesson, John is not being taught Music or instruments, he’s not being taught Italian, French or Spanish. No carpentry, machine tools, tailoring, baking or soap making. Not even event or interior decors. John’s parents, just like the Aisha’s believe the young man has to be taught and retaught the same things he’s learnt all week; Mathematics and English. Eku ìṣe sir, wehdon. 
John also plays his own football not on the pitch but on the TV screen, not with his legs but with his keypad in hand. 
This, sadly, has assumed a status symbol. 
I believe a new understanding of education is dawning on us as young people. Today we have a lot more opportunities and information available to us than as never before been seen. This makes it easy for me to easily suggest to you, young man and woman to look within, what are you good at? What do you most effortlessly do? What inspires you? What are you passionate about? Probe into yourself, get your friends to tell you what he or she believes you’re good at and then get a training. 
Such training may not have to be formal (though this helps), but ensure you pay for it. Giving a token for a skill learnt often increases your pride in, and respect for what you posses. 
Start today.
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Thank you