Ways to Help High Schoolers Find Purpose

What adult influenced you the most in high school? If you’re like most people, you’ll remember one of your mentors, coaches, or teachers who took a real interest in your well-being. People rarely mention someone who helped them cram things into their brain the most or taught them things they were not interested in.

On the other side of the equation, if you talk to most high school teachers about what motivated them to become an educator, you will usually find it was about developing relationships. Choosing to teach or lead a school is not simply delivering content, but about helping young people find their way in the world.

However, high school now is dominated by content delivery, leaving little room for teachers to develop meaningful relationships with students inside the classroom. At a high school I went to the other day, one of the students said that he had no meaningful relationships with any adults at the school.

If you look at the research on those who have found their purpose, they often had at least three “Spark Coaches”—people who took an interest in their passions inside and outside of school. The Search Institute has documented the power of adult, non-parental mentors and role models in the lives of students. We need to create structures and cultures that allow students to develop these kinds of meaningful, mentoring relationships with teachers. And we need to make sure that teachers get trained as “spark coaches” to help their students find their passions and purposes.

Take students out into the world

According to Bronk, students often start to develop a sense of purpose during “purpose seeking” opportunities—opportunities to push their comfort zones and explore. These opportunities have at least one of three active ingredients: an important life event, serving others in a meaningful way, or changes in life circumstances.

This is why taking students outside the classroom can be hugely transformative for them, whether it’s a trip to a new place, a tough wilderness trip, or working on something important to them in their community—not doing it because they “have to” or simply for college admissions, but because they actually care about it.

However, nearly all of high school currently takes place in a classroom. We need to expand the classroom out to the real world and actively include more purpose-seeking opportunities. Then we can bring those experiences back into the classroom, synthesize them with peers and teachers, and connect these activities directly to classroom material, making it relevant and engaging.

Source: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/seven_ways_to_help_high_schoolers_find_purpose