Foundations for Flourishing: A Grown Up Vision
By: Scott Schimmel
Tags: Wisdom, Vision, Students, Identity, Purpose

Kids get asked all the time what they want to do when they grow up. High schoolers get asked what their plans are after graduation. College students get asked the same thing, with a big emphasis on work. But we never ask the most important question that foundationally will prepare a kid for success:

What kind of person do you want to become?

What a kid does professionally is important. We want them to be responsible for themselves and become self-sufficient. But it’s only one important part of the life equation- and it’s not the most important. A key phrase we’ve used over the years that resonates with parents is, “You can be successful in school and successful in career but still fail in life.” We’ve found that if we put most of our focus only on what kids do for work someday that we miss the opportunity to help them build a meaningful life. Because what we do for work ought to express who we are, what our sense of purpose is, and what kind of contribution we want to make in our lives. When we guide students to reflect on their identity, their purpose, their ambitions and the vision they have for the kinds of people they turn into — then the work part of their lives becomes a simpler problem to solve.

When students don’t know who they want to become, they lack the clarity and the confidence to make important decisions when they need to make them. Not to mention how many people discover later in life that the path they’re on and the people they’ve become doesn’t suit them (hello: midlife crisis). The choices students make affect them for the rest of their lives and will reinforce the trajectory they’re on. If students don’t have clarity about their character, they will lack the frame of reference to make wise choices, or the courage to take risks, or to build habits consistent with their ambitions.

But we CAN help them! We can help students find clarity about the vision they have for themselves in two distinct, surprisingly simple ways:

Provide many examples of adults who embody healthy qualities. That comes in the actual adults who work directly with kids, intentionally sharing who they are and what their personal lives are like. It involves them sharing vulnerable things about themselves and to express what motivates them and how their values drive their behavior. We can also offer them examples through the curriculum itself, especially characters in literature (English class) and historical figures (Social Studies/History). Students will figure out what resonates with them by seeing values and qualities lived out in real life. Guide students to reflect and define who they want to be in each area of their lives. We have plenty of opportunity and time to guide students to reflect in writing and verbal communication about who they are and who they want to turn into. We can do that in English class through journal prompts, we can do that through good Advisory or Homeroom curriculum, we can do that through assemblies and retreats, we can create mentoring programs, we can create Senior projects- we can do it. We just have to value it, prioritize it, and expect it.

Imagine if every student had that opportunity. Imagine if you had had that opportunity! There’s no way I would’ve gone to college to study Accounting if I had reflected on the person I wanted to be, especially if they challenged me to explain why. All the ingredients of my character were available during middle and high school- I just didn’t get the opportunity to think about it productively and put it all together. I mindlessly moved forward on a plan and life that belonged to someone else. But thankfully I had significant experiences and trained mentors who took me there in college.