Getting from Here to There

When I was thirteen, I wanted to be an architect. I remember it quite well. My school offered a drafting class for seventh graders. It was held in this big open room with high rafters, co-located with what was “shop class” – now we fancily call it “industrial arts” – where you get to work with sheet metal and shellac pretty much anything you want.

I remember that shop class was taught by this rather tall and somewhat portly man, with a slick comb-over and big glasses. The drafting course was taught by a quirky, mustachioed, diminutive man with dark curly hair and big, puffy eyebrows. They were a curious duo for sure. But, they had the distinct advantage of teaching classes where students could get dirty and draw, which made them rather popular. 

I also remember it as a time when my dad became my mentor. The culminating assignment was to create blueprints for a house of our own design. I remember getting early feedback from my teacher – the small one – saying my concept didn’t make the best use of space. When I brought it home and showed it to my dad, he pointed out the long, twisty-turny hallway I created smack in the middle of the house. I remember him taking me around our house and showing me how most of the space was taken up by rooms, and the hallway was short and tight. We sat together at the dining room table redrawing my design until we got it right.

Needless to say, I never became an architect. In high school, I wanted to be a writer, a journalist. I edited the school newspaper and wrote short stories for fun. I carried that quest into college, majoring in communication. But, as a sophomore I decided that in order to be a good writer, I needed to have something to write about. So, I switched to something more content heavy. I loved history and politics, so I changed my major. Over time, I got a degree in history and another in international relations. I eventually wanted to be a diplomat. At some point I took a detour into education – sixteen years long now and counting.

I was telling this story to Isiah when he joined me for our second apprenticeship session. Week two is all about goal-setting. One of the exercises we do as mentors is talk about our own journey to the job we have now. Isiah was floored when I told him I switched career interests a few times. He somehow thought you had to decide really early and you could only major in one thing at college. I told him he shouldn’t put too much pressure on himself and take his time.

We talked about big-picture goal setting. He knows he wants to be a leader one day. So, we talked about all the skills and experiences he would need to become a leader. Being persuasive. Motivating others. Making decisions. We talked about how it mattered less at this point what he was leading, only that he should work hard to put himself in the best position to be a leader of whatever the opportunity may be. We talked about transferable skills, ones you can take with you from job to job, industry to industry even.

Meanwhile, this was the week we had to map out our apprenticeship, which dovetails nicely with the theme of goal setting. Isiah and I talked last week about an idea for creating a new web page on the Spark website that was geared toward students. It would offer information and resources that would get young people interested in Spark. We talked about developing a survey that Isiah could have his peers fill out. We would analyze the data from the survey to determine what to put on the web page. We would also develop a poster we could put up at Isiah’s school and a flyer we can pass out to his schoolmates who aren’t in Spark to get them excited to learn more about it.

To map out the project, we huddled in the conference room in front of the white board. We wrote down all the weeks we had left in the apprenticeship – seven – noted the date when the project was “due” at Discovery Night – December 11 – and then listed all the tasks we’d need to do between now and the end – develop survey questions, build the survey, analyze the results, design the web page, create the content, publish the web page, design the poster and flyer, develop the content, create the poster and flyer. Perhaps most importantly, we have to reserve time to practice the presentation – what Isiah is going to showcase at Discovery Night for all the attendees, which will doubtless include his family, his peers, and members of the school community.

Once we had our list of tasks, we began matching them up with the weeks - next week we'll design and build the survey, the following week we'll analyze the results. And there you have it! We set a goal, we determined the things that will get us there, and we made a week-by-week agenda for getting it all done. Isiah actually got a good kick out of the exercise. He even said he was going to use the same method for his school science project.