Any ideas about getting teenagers to think about their strengths – other than sleeping, inventing new invective and occasionally surprising their mothers so much that they forgive them everything?
I mean this in a caring and coaching way, possums, as I own three teenagers myself and will have another one along in a minute (or 17 months to be precise).
I’m doing some voluntary work with my local Education and Business Partnership, to fill in time between massively highly paid executive assignments as a jet-setting international coach, you understand.
There’s a political context here that you may not be aware of, if you don’t have teenagers. The government has axed its “Connexions” service so two million young people will have no access to careers advice until September next year, when something or other takes its place.
My agenda is to introduce young people to thinking about what they love and already know they are good at, at the stage when they are considering their future career paths. It might mean fewer coaching clients looking for mid-life meaning in 20 years time, but hey that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.
Somewhat surprisingly this has evolved into the offer of a paid workshop (although in Meyler Campbell terms there might be a zero missing from the figure). The challenge is to devise something for:
- 14 and 15 year olds as they go into Year 11, the main GCSE year
- delivery in 20 minutes to a group of around 30 students
- repetition eight times over the morning
Oh, and it’s to be inter-active if possible. For delivery on the 20th of July. Does anyone have a template I might adopt and adapt? Please. Pretty please, with sugar and cream and raspberries on top.
Hi Mary,
I’ve no nifty template to hand I’m afraid, before you get too excited that someone has responded … but I have done a little looking into this previously with a view to getting something off the ground with some teens around my church, and also because I am despairing about the quality of careers advice out there generally which doesn’t seem to have moved on any from when I was at school, viz:
“You’re clever – do medicine.”
“…”
“What? You miss writing sentences? Okay, do law.”
My very limited thinking and research threw up just a couple of things that might help.
First, the only person I came across who is doing this stuff in earnest is a woman based in South Africa who goes by the name of The Fairy Godmother and wears wings on her back throughout her workshops. Seriously. AND a basque in the South African flag colours. She has a website – http://www.fairygodmotherinc.com, which I think has a link to a youtube video about her teen workshops. (She uses The Killers’ track “Are we human (or are we dancer)” as a soundtrack – a nice idea which I pinched and used … though that was over a year ago, so The Killers are probably, like, soooo uncool now.)
I like her idea of a ‘dream map’.
She works in partnership with an organisation called Equal Zeal, who may also be worth googling.
For my own part, I had a little longer than you do, so did a kind of pared-down strengths questionnaire, and also drew on some of the Seligman stuff in “The Optimistic Child”. Mostly, they just welcomed the chance to talk and be heard (don’t we all …)
Not sure if any of that helps. Good luck good luck! I’d love to hear what you come up with and how it goes. I don’t own any teenagers yet – just three toddlers. Hopefully we’ll have it all figured out by the time they grow up…
Posted by Jennifer Emery (BC10) on June 29th, 2011.