The Three P's of Success - What makes a full life?

From 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ex_magician/4587972292/ 

When I taught high school seniors in a class about life goals they would often talk about wanting to "live life to the full".  The phrase turned up on mission statements and final presentations but it was rarely defined.  


What does it mean to live a full life?  


Certainly a full life would be defined differently in specifics by each of us, but I didn't like that being an excuse to get away with a throwaway line.  


Wasn't there something we could agree on as a basis for discussion or written reflection?


I knew from their conversations that their vision of a full life looked like crazy vacations with friends over spring break and having a nice house and car.  I hoped to get them beyond superficial dreams that would cost more than they realized (almost all of them lived with parents).  I wanted to get them thinking about responsibility too.

After weeks of reading and hearing their thoughts, I put together a few activities and presentations that I called the 3 P's of Success.  I could tell from engagement and comments that it connected with many of them.  I'm not teaching that class any longer, but the themes still are apparent in my work.

Here are three P's with a little elaboration.
Passion - A student can spend a lot of time in school without experiencing much passion.  It's a shame that I was discovering this while working with seniors, kids that had been in the system for almost 13 years.  For this "P", it was an exploration of figuring out what good things they liked to do.  I developed a few questions to let them write about that.

________

Purpose - If passion is what they liked to do, purpose is what they should do.  While our passions almost certainly come into play, purpose is what we're meant to do even if we don't really feel like it in moment.  It's the piece I think students were forgetting when they envisioned lives of fun and material possessions.  


It's also a realm that can touch on matters of faith.  A lot of teachers won't go there, but I refused to back away from this vital concept that I know is an important component in the lives of many successful adults.

This was my approach.  Using thought provoking questions I encouraged the students to consider their purpose in writing.  I told the classes that for some questions, this topic will bring up matters of faith, religion or spirituality for some people.  I made it clear that they were in no way required to include those elements in answers.  At the same time, however, they should feel completely comfortable expressing those thoughts on the assignment.

For writings like this, I never cared if my students expressed very different religious beliefs or if they had no beliefs at all.  I just wanted them to consider the basis of their worldviews and how they affected their purpose.  Many of the comments I read from students as they expressed this important part of their lives surprised me in a good way.  I concluded that they needed to consider their lives in this way.  I decided I would never rob students of the chance to express their personal beliefs, but that I would encourage it in non-threatening ways.

________

Potential - Passion fuels us and purpose sets the direction, but potential is the final measure.  Did we achieve as much as we should?  Of course, potential is impossible to define in detail because our skills will always improve and often we'll be surprised by what we can do.  I just encouraged students to dream about what they could accomplish.  I hoped it would be the exciting start to a never ending process of discovery.

Here are two resources related to these ideas.  I discovered them long after teaching the class, but they provided some thoughts as I continue to develop my work:

• This is a great blog post about finding one's passion in three steps.  It combines the three elements together in different ways than I do, but it's well worth the read if this sounds useful to your work in teaching.  I particularly like the Three Movie Exercise for use with teens.
• And check out Seth Godin's book Poke the Box.  It is a quick read.  He has a few paragraphs on p. 64 about why he believes it is our moral obligation to seize an opportunity.  It's a great thought for discussion and it fits well with the three P's.

I'll be glad to hear other thoughts you might have on this or activities you use with students.

Real Life Problem Solving in School

When it comes to creative problem solving in school, nothing beats a project that goes beyond the school walls and actually helps other people.  Here's an inspiring story of a couple high school seniors who did just that.  Their senior project helped a teacher and students on the other side of the world to achieve their dream of getting connected to the internet.

Check out the introduction video below and these links:

• More videos on their YouTube channel
• The official website

This is a great example of how much learning can come out of a project rooted in a passion with a purpose to meet a genuine need.  One other takeaway:  In a world filled with need, the learning never stops.  See how they are continuing a second phase of their project long after the two students graduated.

What similar projects could we inspire student to pursue in the upcoming school year?  Beyond that, please consider supporting this project and spreading the word about the work as it continues.

No Wonder the Students Are Bored

I heard a podcast one time that cited a survey of high school students.  The one word they used most to describe school was "boring".  I did a similar survey in my own district and the results were the same.  I wasn't surprised, of course, but I haven't been able to forget that over the past year and a half.  I'm always on the lookout for causes to the problem and things we can do to solve it.

For a contrasting picture, I was extremely impressed with the student engagement I saw during the animation project I did with the high school Mythology class.  I was thinking about this a lot, how creative projects can result in so much life and passion in the classroom.  The young minds are charged with possibilities and excitement.

I made the graphic below to put the two visions side by side.  It was kind of funny (in a sense) when I first thought of the goal when taking a standardized test--get all the dots in the same place as the one answer key.  And when completed it doesn't even have information on it that is meaningful to a human being.  Just dots!  Of course, we have writing portions on the tests, but we were informed recently that in Michigan that portion will also be scored by a computer, just like the dots.  A lot remains be seen on that and more could be said, but for now...

I'm not against standardized tests.  We need the data.  When they get too much of the focus in schools, though, it's no wonder to me the classrooms have the life sucked out of them.  On the other hand, a classroom full of excitement and possibilities also fosters learning.  Those students get an enjoyable experience and they still can figure out where to put the dots.

Epic Mythology Videos - GoAnimate with high school students

Melinda Newcombe teaches Mythology at the high school in the district where I work.  She asked me a couple weeks ago if we could pilot GoAnimate4schools with her class.  It ended up being a great project, definitely one of the best of the school year.  I was extremely happy with the engagement that I saw from the students at this point in the school year.

Here's a video that sums it up.  I also have the resulting videos embedded below.  The folks at GoAnimate have asked me to write an article for their blog and you can find the post here.


The Myths...
Persephone


Odysseus and Polyphemus


Ceyx and Alycone


Pyramus and Thisbe


Achilles and Hector