The January ICCFA Magazine was devoted in not a small way to the subject of education.  I finished reading most of the issue, and while I thought it best to keep my pen shut, I thought better of that cowardly approach and decided to dive into the education pool, so to speak.

I was also inspired to write my thoughts concerning this very interesting subject because of an email I received from another educator, of whom I hold in great respect, and deference, and he was NOT pleased with the tenor and content of some of the writing.  No surprise on that one, for any suggestion, let alone a criticism or worse, a call for mortuary education reformation, is most generally headed for hurt feelings, defensiveness, and outright rejection.  This seems a touchy subject.

In my years working in mortuary education I knew full well that the vast majority of educators work with diligence and devotion, and truthfully the inner educational system has in many ways improved itself from what it was when I was a mortuary science student.  Yes, progress has been made, and as with ALL academic change it is usually done at a snail’s pace and is much like pushing a wet noodle up a hill.  The reality of education's “slows” is customarily something that business-oriented personalities, people who want rapid change, don’t understand. They usually add insult to injury and do something worse: They don’t respect this reality concerning the world of education and hence most often totally underestimate the brick walls that they encounter when they suggest change.

What does one say which hasn’t been said over, and over, and over, and hashed, rehashed, and then rerehashed again and again over the years?  

In reading the different articles in the ICCFA magazine, I was not in the least inspired or excited, nor did my creative imagination spark.  No, not at all; in fact, I read nothing new.  It was mostly all predictable stuff.  Let’s see.  There of course was the politically correct approach article, then the call for dumping this and that and replacing this or that article with changes which seemed ominously attractive to the author of the article.  Then of course was the war cry article crying out for more practical hands on stuff--you know, how to turn on a crematory, how to raise a vessel, how to cater a funeral reception, how to, how to, how to.

For a hundred years or more, most everybody has agreed that the mortuary science curriculum is lopsided.  You know the drill – too much science, not enough business courses, too much bleeding heart grief psychology, too much embalming, in fact with this “too much” logic the end result is that every mortuary science curriculum in every mortuary college is lopsided, which is NOT true.  The glaring truth, which I did not read in any articles, is this:  mortuary education, in order to expand, needs more time.  Time is the essential 21^st century ingredient which mortuary education needs desperately and which the appointed critics of the system seem to ignore on a consistent basis.

Over the years, I have gotten into trouble on many fronts.  First I have never been the brightest or most insightful person, so I have made some personal and professional bonehead decisions.  There have been times I ought to have spoken, and remained silent, and to be sure there have been many, many times where I ought to have been silent, and then just opened my BIG mouth.  However, with all my foibles and inadequacies as a human being, two ideas concerning my beloved profession have held my interest for years  First is the idea of a universal requirement for a minimum of a bachelor's degree to enter any aspect of funeral service, and second is the idea of a universal license which is accepted in every state to function at any level in funeral service.  I can hear the laughter as I write this, and you who are laughing are absolutely right to do so. My idea, my dream, my hope, concerning these two ideas will go with me to my grave, unaccomplished.  I accept that sad reality, but for my own integrity (what I have left), I need to always get my commercial in somewhere.

I have mentioned that educational reform is slow, and that is not a criticism, it is just true.  Even Harvard University spends years in planning any change to any part of their curriculum, and for good reason.  The curriculum is the basic contract between the student and the academic institution, and once that is set in stone, for say a year, four-year, or a ten-year program, if the administration fiddles with the curriculum, presto, it is a breach of contract.  Because of this fact, I don’t see any quick reformation of mortuary education.  Also, I don’t see state boards reforming requirements for licensing any time soon.  I don’t see the curriculum changing quickly in order to fit any special interest demand from this group or that group.  I just don’t see this happening, but what I do see happening is the ability for our profession to embrace the idea of continuous improvement of the human being through education, not just for licensure or a set of job skills, but for living life.

I believe many people, including myself, have been and are just too hard in the criticisms of mortuary education.  I did not learn funeral service in mortuary college, and I did not learn ministry in seminary.  What I received upon both graduations was not a level of expertise (although you could not have told me that at the time) but instead I was awarded my learner’s permit.  I was given the right to enter a professional activity with the minimal knowledge of knowing “WHAT NOT TO DO.”  That was it, nothing more, nothing less.

If any profession looks to just education or quick education reform as a catch-all to solve problems, then surely that profession and those who hold such expectations are in for a fall.  Education has limits.  Education cannot do everything, and education is limited in preparing most people for the stark and inevitable realities of working and living life.

I might suggest (not seriously of course) that people who really and truly want to change the educational system, step right up to the plate get their graduate degrees and become instructors and professors themselves.  That they prepare their own lesson plans, compose examinations, monitor student honesty, look at the students and have the fleeting thought “my oh my, are we in trouble.”  Even education in adult training, seminars, in-house workshops and the like, most times is fragile, simply because adults can easily nod affirmation after affirmation to the boss, and then when they leave revert back to old habits.  It is just the way of adult education.

The University of Funeral Service is NOT in any mortuary college or found in a sales seminar; it is found on the floor of the mortuary, it is found on the grounds of the cemetery or the homes of a prospective client.  To be sure, education seminars, videos, tapes, can help, support and affirm, but there is something larger in scope that needs our attention.

What then can we say about education, not simple robotic practical education (which seems so much in vogue today), but instead a deeper, more lasting and permanent philosophy of education?  This idea of education for living life, of education for the simple sake of education.  This then is the idea of continuous education for the individual as compared to the standard continuing education for a profession.

There is a sentence from Samuel Johnson that points to a persistently important subject in all professional education and one I have found of particular interest in my personal work in education. The good Dr. Johnson said:  “Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.”

Over my years in this lovely profession, I have heard many sweeping comments, and read many sweeping words concerning education.  Many students' war cry is, “Why do we have to know this stuff?”  I always suspected they learned this from jaded and cynical funeral directors they might have encountered.  Many funeral directors' and cemeterians' war cry is, “What are you teaching those kids these days?” or “When I was a student we didn’t put up with that stuff.”  I suspect every generation of every student and mentor bemoans the state of their experience in any educational endeavor.  It seems that the discontent of students and mentors, whether it is mortuary college, cemetery university, medical school, law school or welding technical college, is much the same.  Students can’t wait to get out, and professors can’t wait to see them leave.

I believe in the worth of education simply for the sake of education.  I truly believe that most mortuary educators work diligently in a system which just paralyzes them because of lack of time.  I believe that the curriculum reflects a history of change, but a slow history of change, which annoys the speed demons addicted to rapid fire change to no end.

However, with all this said, does the ideal of “education simply for the sake of education” have worth?  Is this not truly a worthy ideal?  I believe it is.

For decades, much time, energy and money has been spent on debating the question as to whether funeral service (and today, cemetery work) ranks as a profession or a trade.  Opinions abound. Many agree this work is indeed a profession, but many take the converse attitude that this work is in reality a trade, a business.  I believe both sides of the debate are missing the core issue concerning education.

I used to think that education was an end in and of itself.  I used to think that if the colleges did not teach me everything I was confronted with in life, then it was the college’s fault.  I used to think that while I felt I was entering a profession, I also felt keenly that there were practical skills that I needed to possess, and when I was confronted after graduation with the glaring reality that I did not possess ALL the technical, business, professional and practical skills which clearly were essential, I once again blamed the college.  Blaming colleges for any deficiency is a terribly easy thing to do, particularly for people who do not teach.

Over time, for me at least, I learned that I could not expect any seminar, any curriculum, any outline, any manual, any script, any textbook, any lecture, any discussion group to fill in ALL the career blanks I encountered.  I had to fill in the blanks myself.  I had to adopt a lifelong attitude of continuous education, continuous curiosity, and continuous improvement.  I could not expect mandatory continuing education to do it, nor could I expect a magic bullet fired at me in a seminar to do it all the time.  I had to do it, and let me give you an example.

When I was in mortuary college, we had a professor named Maurice Lurensky who taught chemistry, and he was tough.  He scared me to death just by his presence.  He was intimidating, he was a bully, he used threats, he berated us daily, and he basically in my mind was a non-human.  However, and here is the point, I LEARNED CHEMISTRY.  I LEARNED ORGANIC, INORGANIC, BIO, AND EMBALMING CHEMISTRY, AND I GOT A 96% IN CHEMISTRY ON THE NATIONAL BOARD WHEN EXAMINED.

However, even with this success, I still did not get it, and I still fought the basic concept of education for the sake of education.   I thought “nobody uses chemistry when they embalm.”  I had watched hundreds of embalmers appear to me to just pour chemicals in the machine, and off they went.  I had truly missed the point about life education.

I learned chemistry, and the truth is I don’t think a day has gone by that I don’t link up some experience in living life to chemistry (even in embalming), and I am able to do this because I learned chemistry, regardless of the immediate application to the practical embalming issue.

The idea of the simple power of lifelong education for the sake of education can be as simple as this.  Several months ago I was visiting my parents in Iowa, and one evening we were watching the The Learning Channel, and the program was on the biology of life.  DNA stuff, the building blocks of what makes each of us tick.  The narrator was pumping out basic chemistry information in almost every sentence he spoke, and I could follow everything he was talking about, but my 90-year-old father could not.  My father was lost throughout the entire program, and readily admitted that he didn’t have “an idea in hell” (a direct quote) what the narrator was talking about.  However I knew precisely what was being discussed.

Now my father is not slow, not stupid. In fact, he is very sharp and very intelligent, but he never learned chemistry in his life and would not know a symbol from the atomic chart from a pipe organ.  This is an example of the power of learning and education just for the sake of learning and education.  

In the end, the power of this idea has little to do with curriculum reformation, practical robotic skill development, or getting a license, it has everything to do with the expansion of our brains, and that in the end is a terribly individual motivation. Some people get it, some people don’t.

Should we stop the debates, and protectionism of territories, and get together and expand and improve our formal professional and practical education?  Sure.  Will that happen?  Sure, someday, sometime.  But not tomorrow, not in a month – but possibly just possibly, if we stick to it and cooperate and find our unity in our diversity, maybe it will happen in a significant permanent way within a decade, maybe.  That is the way of educational reform – it is never as fast as the self-appointed reformers wish for, never – but overtime it does happen.

Based then on this simple ideal of the value of education for the sake of education, the answers to some of our pressing, seemingly insurmountable challenges can possibly be found.  Here are a few issues that come to mind:

• Too many mortuary schools?  Yes – however select the best, not the closest.
• Too much science in mortuary schools?  Possibly – but then any science is good; learn it for your enhancement of living life.
• License and certify cemeterians?  Why not?  The rest of the professional world seems to get licensed and certified.
• A minimum of a bachelor’s degree for entry?  It is a good idea, has merit. (It will never happen, but then, I can dream.)
• Apprenticeships?  Choose the mentor very carefully.

Finally, let me close with this thought.  The simple fact of life today is that if we ignore the ideal of education for the sake of education, and simply focus on the illusion of immediate gratification from a script, training seminar, or workshop (as valuable as these can be), if we ignore the philosophy of education for the sake of education, then this and any other profession or job will stagnate in the stale pool of the paralysis of creativity, and when that happens, then the world, our clients, the consumers and our communities who right now are deeply involved in lifelong learning quickly and unfortunately will permanently pass us by.  I would suggest that as a group of people interested in working in the arena of death, we abandon territories, egos, personal biases, and personal agendas and educate simply for the sake of improving minds.

I learned this idea concerning education from a chap named Socrates.--TVB

Last week I made a trip to Northampton Community College to give a couple of presentations to the area funeral directors.  The day was sponsored by the Mortuary Science Department at Northampton which is led and administered by the very able and capable headmaster John Lunsford.  I was very impressed by the events of the day, but for this particular writing I want to share extremely redeeming experience that I had during my sojourn to the great Keystone State.

Having spent a considerable amount of my career teaching I have formed changing opinions of students.  My opinions, over the years, have almost always been predicated on the maturity level, or lack thereof, of classes.  When I started out teaching in the early 1980s I found most of the classes were composed of students who had a level of maturity, and also who had a mission as to precisely what they were getting involved with in a career in funeral service.

As I have written in past articles devoted to mortuary education over the years it was my hard lot to discover that students were changing, and I concluded that they were not changing for the better, in fact I concluded that the future of our great profession based on my conclusions concerning students looked dim indeed.  This opinion was formed before I made my trip to Northampton.

The old saying goes that you “can’t teach an old dog new tricks”, and I have often said that you “can’t teach an old undertaker new tricks,” but Lord knows I was wrong.  I was taught some new lessons.

Here is what I learned.  I had the good fortune of interacting with a score of mortuary science students from both Northampton, and Mercer County students from New Jersey who generously made the trip across the state line to hear my seminars.  I thank Rob Smith (headmaster of Mercer County) for his interest and organizational skills – Smith has always been one of my personal favorites.

My interaction with the Northampton student’s actually was predicated on the students own idea for a fund raiser for their fraternity.  Of all things these good students decided to sell, now get this friends, TVB’s CD which has all my management and outreach programs on it.  I said yes to the idea and freely sent John Lunsford a copy and he and the student’s made impressive cases for the CD, they set up a booth, they promoted the CD, and were very effective salespeople, because at the end of the day they sold $1,000 worth of the CDs and are planning to use the money raised for a charitable purpose. (What charity it was I have forgotten – but I am sure it is worthy.)

What I discovered in dealing with these fine students in the seminar and the CD project was several characteristics which made this old grumpy undertaker’s heart soar.  First of all they were all dressed impeccably.  Their dress was clearly consistent with the extremely conservative nature of funeral service, and not one of them, that I could see, was using the opportunity to make “a fashion statement.”  There also were no snooty “attitudes.”  The students were polite, all behaving as professional gentlemen and ladies, and they smiled, yes they actually were smiling, none of them looked like they had been sucking on lemons all day, and they conversed, they talked, they carried on conversations, they extended their hands in cordiality and hospitality, and they actually seemed to behave as if they truly enjoyed being mortuary science students.  I did not meet one cranky, grumpy, complaining, or ridiculous student – not one.

The students also seemed interested in my seminars.  They asked insightful questions, and actually some of them came up later and requested additional information.

Here is the lesson I learned.  I have been way too hard and critical of mortuary science students, and for that I publically apologize.  What I personally encountered at Northampton Community College renewed my faith in the future of our great and beloved profession, because no matter what we veteran funeral directors have to say about the future, the future of this great profession to a large extent rests on every breath of air that is taken by mortuary science students right this very moment across this county.

I am the past in funeral service; they are the future.  As I flew back to my world I felt the need to write this, to get my error in thinking off my chest, and to publically admit that I was wrong. Mortuary science students are mighty fine people – anyway the ones I encountered at Northampton fit the bill.

Anyway that is one old undertaker’s opinion. TVB

I just finished reading an article in Ron Hast’s “Mortuary Management” concerning the state of the state of mortuary education.  Over these many years I have had high admiration for Ron Hast, albeit it at a distance, simply because I think he has guts and anybody who writes or investigates the state of the state of mortuary education and the licensing structures in this county has to have guts. 

The article basically interviewed people who are in teachers mortuary education and who are students – no one seemed to want their names published in the article and with good reason – to criticize state boards or mortuary education can be professional suicide.  The article basically painted a profile that all is not well in our ancient system of licensing and education – and an ancient out-dated system is it not?

Words like disconnect, frustration, anonymity were used in the article.  I have never read or written an article where these words show up and the result is an article with good news.

For years, I mean years, the issues of uniform national licensing, and requiring a minimum of an accredited Bachelor’s degree has been bantered around, debated around, argued around, fiddled around and just gone around and around in an endless circle of defenses, endless explanations, endless damaged feelings, endless reasons, endless “proof” of why our profession seems utterly incapable of creating a uniform license which every state recognizes and accepts, and a system that requires that if you want to be a professional then the minimum academic entry level attainment must be a Bachelor’s degree – or beyond.  I can see the beads of perspiration forming on many a brow as I write these sentiments

I wrote a chapter in a dual textbook entitled “Handbook of Death & Dying, by Clifton D. Bryant, Editor in Chief.”  My assignment was to write a history of and explain the education and licensing system for our profession from the beginning to the present.

My chapter was titled “The Legal Regulation of Mortuary Science Education.”  It is in volume two starting on page 934 to 940.  I was depressed when I finished the project.

The history is clear.  Acrimony seems to be the watchword in the history of education and licensing of funeral directors.  In other words, this group does not like that group and so on.  But what captured my attention was the undeniable fact that the basic core academic funeral/embalming curriculum, the overall time spent in actual funeral/embalming study for the up and coming funeral directors in this country has not changed in its essence since 1927!  Basically the core curriculum was taught in a 12 month period in 1927 and can be taught in 12 months today.  To be sure the Associate's degree adds another year of credit hours in general education and possibly some electives, but the core work, the required work, comes out to an average of one calendar year.

The Cincinnati College of Embalming adopted the 12-month program in 1927.

I am well prepared to be taken to task on these introductory remarks, but they are true.  The uniform licensing system has failed at every attempt, and only a smattering of Bachelor’s level funeral service education programs exist.  I guess it is best to let sleeping dogs lie – right?

However it is NOT that simple is it?  Licensing and education in our profession is important – or it is not?  And if it is important, then improvements, reformations, and contemporary changes need to be made now.  It is my opinion that if the licensing structures and systems and the formal academic mortuary science systems had simply kept up with the changing times in the real world, as has the medical profession, the law profession, the teaching profession, then articles such as the one Ron Hast published would not be necessary – BUT THEY ARE NECESSARY AS A WAKE UP CALL, and again I applaud Hast for his guts.

My associates and friends in Great Britain look aghast and have a good laugh at our system of training and licensing.  In a nutshell, there are voluntary training programs in the United Kingdom, but nothing required – no license.  It seems clearly to work very well because there are thousands of outstanding funeral establishments in the United Kingdom.  In many conversations with my buddies across the Atlantic I am hard-pressed to defend the American system – I mean, do people really die that much differently in the United Kingdom than in the United States?  I think not.

Now add to this situation that under the bushel basket lurks the unspeakable subject of unlicensed work in our country, or in the State of Colorado, or in the State of California where in both places many really nice people are funeral directors and do their work extremely well without a license, and some sensitive, probing questions immediately come to the forefront.

The issue of unlicensed work basically makes a mockery of the entire licensing process and frankly who in funeral service can pretend that unlicensed work does not happen?  I have seen this first hand, and it used to make me mad as hell.

When I was a young boy growing up in Iowa the local funeral home was right across the street from our home.  There were basically two men who worked at the funeral home, the owner and his unlicensed assistant.  Everybody knew the assistant did not have a license, had never gone to mortuary college, had never taken let alone passed the National Board or any state law examination.  However this man had worked for many funeral homes, over many years, in Iowa.

One summer the owner of the funeral home went up to Minnesota to go hunting.  Usually this firm had one funeral, possibly two at a time, never more than two services.  However over the week end while the licensed owner was out of town five people died in our little town on the same day.  The owner did not return from his hunting trip, and amazingly all the bodies were embalmed, all the funeral arrangements were completed by Sunday evening.  All five bodies were lying in state, and we went over to the funeral home and they all looked wonderful.  The owner returned to town on Monday to help work the services.  No out of town licensed embalmer came in to do the work, no out of town licensed funeral director made the arrangements no not at all.  Everything was done by the unlicensed associate, and here is the kicker – the unlicensed man was a better embalmer than his licensed boss was.  

I remember as a young man dreaming and wanting to be a funeral director/embalmer. I resented like hell that this “clown” could embalm without a license, and no one in town reported him, and it seemed to me that no one in town cared, and in truth they didn’t – the dead bodies looked great!

I have mellowed over the years, and have taken a deep breath and accepted that yes, unlicensed work continues, and even these days I get fuzzy as to when licensed work ends and unlicensed work begins. I observe the State Boards and inspectors do the absolute best job they can concerning investigating and getting these unlicensed people, but it still goes on.  What does this perpetual unlicensed work which we all know goes on however say about the power and authority of a valid license?

Uniform, universal licensing – it is the impossible dream, isn’t it?  I am just dreaming an old man’s dream to visualize a uniform universal license, a traveling card which will be accepted everyplace in the United States.  Here are some sarcastic questions which are designed to magnify this state-by-state myriad of regulations into a humorous perspective:  Do people die so much differently in Iowa than they do in Ohio?  Are the causes and modes of death in Utah differ so much from those in New Jersey? And people in Oregon just don’t die the way other folks do.  Can there be so many differences as to warrant in 2009 such an outdated and antiquated licensing system?  I think not.  

As a result our profession is stalemated in a myriad of ancient, out-dated, and provincial laws which make uniform and universal licensing basically impossible.  Even endorsements and reciprocity seem needlessly complicated.  Of course Colorado said to hell with it this stuff and I have not personally witnessed the crumbling of the infrastructure of funeral service in that great state.

To be sure state laws will vary, and people in our profession need to know the individual laws of the states which employment and licensing is sought – however taking a state law exam is much different than jumping through unnecessary hoops to get the license.  Here is a case in point.

Several years ago I decided to make a career change and moved to another state.  This should not have been anything big or earth shattering just my private decision in my attempts to improve my stock in life.  The man who hired me was a great human being and I was excited about the prospects – I have always looked for improvement in my life, and that is nobody's business but my own.  

I made the move, moved in, started the position and applied to the state for a funeral director's and embalmer's license.  I had been licensed in other states, and totally had been licensed for over 30-plus years and not once had any charges been brought against any license which I had been issued.  I have made hundreds of funeral arrangements, conducted even more funerals, and embalmed even more bodies.  On top of that I taught embalming to students for 20 years, and taught funeral home management at a major University campus for just as many years.  No brag, just the facts.

I did not want any special consideration, however what I got was totally unexpected and yes, looking back, utterly humiliating.  I was required to serve an 18-month apprenticeship.  My past apprenticeship periods, which totaled 24 months in two states and  which were served respectively 30 and 25 years before, were rejected out of hand, and I was instructed that no apprenticeship now meant no license.  Even my employer, who was highly respected in funeral service, wrote a personal letter on my behalf, and sadly and hurtfully the state board did not even respond to his overture.  I believe it unnecessarily damaged his feelings – which left a sour taste in many peoples' mouths. He was 85 years old, just a simple letter in return – was that too much to expect?  It appeared clearly from the snub that it was too much to expect, but in the end who does the state board work for?

The state board just ruled and shrugged their shoulders, and I never once was given an opportunity to present my situation.  In the end I did get the license, but what an experience.  In fact right in the middle of my “apprenticeship” I was asked to present an embalming seminar to a prestigious organization of licensed graduate embalmers.  I had to maintain a sense of humor to battle my humiliation; I mean folks, I had served as a mentor over the years to over a dozen apprentices.

I started this seminar with this line:  “I suspect that this will be the first time that this august body of embalmers will be given a seminar by a really old apprentice.”  Most of the group did not even understand the joke, but when they did many were embarrassed and offered understanding and support.  

Here is the vintage Van Beck luck.  Three weeks after I got my licenses after serving my apprenticeship, they changed the state law.  I told my friends about the timing and honestly we all got a real chuckle out of this roller coaster.  However, my mother, when I told her that I was having to serve an apprenticeship, said without hesitation, “This is good for you Todd, you have been acting a little full of yourself lately!”  Good ole Mom, I love her dearly.

Can we lobby for a uniform, universal license, can we lobby for increased mortuary science academic degrees, can we reform the curriculum, and can we change things?  I want to suggest that work begin on a universal license which makes it possible that individuals who are licensed for a period of time in any state and want to move to another state and pass that state’s law exam ought to simply be able to do it, without any entanglements or hoops to jump through.  The labor situation in funeral service simply requires a reforming of the current state of affairs so funeral directors can with ease hire and get licensed the people they want to hire – even if that person is from out of state.

We need a minimum of a Bachelor’s degree for initial licensure, and as a minimum credential for funeral service professionals.  I well remember during the FTC hearings Howard Raether proclaimed in the way only Howard could proclaim anything that funeral directors were “professionals” and did not need federal regulation.  In a New York second one of the FTC commissioners jumped on Howard and asked him point blank “What are the average educational requirements to become a funeral director?”  Howard’s response was honestly all over the map, because the requirements state by state were and are all over the map.  In the end, however, the FTC commissioner had made his point which was: how can you claim professional status when someone in the United States can graduate from high school, attend one year of mortuary college and get licensed?  The point was a sobering experience and this happened in 1977.  We need a minimum of a Bachelor’s degree universally in this country to become a funeral service professional.

My hope for all of this dreaming is optimistic, my experience and knowledge however concerning these subject is pessimistic.  It will certainly take someone much more skilled and insightful than I to accomplish such a monumental task – but it can be done.  However, in the meantime, please read Ron Hast’s article – it is disturbing, and does not bode well for our future, but as always the future of funeral service is going to be precisely what you and I make of it.

Anyway that is one old undertaker’s opinion.  TVB