John Place online

I received an email last week from a public school teacher named Karen, asking if I’d be willing to pilot my meaningful career program with her summer school students. I jumped at the opportunity, and I think you’ll be interested to hear the results of the first day’s lesson.

At the beginning of class, Karen walked to the front of the room and wrote the following sentence on the blackboard:

Imagine that the economy of the world changed so that you were no longer paid based on your ability to do a job, but instead were paid based on the amount of good you could do in the world. If you were paid to make the world a better place, how would you earn your living?

This admittedly silly question is meant to get people thinking (if only for a moment) about work’s contributions instead of its personal gains. It’s a thought starter – nothing more.

The first round of answers ranged from silly to shocking to depressingly sad. One student said he’d make his money dealing crack because the people in his neighborhood needed crack. “It’s like their medicine,” he said.  This was a serious answer — No, I’m not kidding.

Karen teaches in one of the poorest, most gang-ridden districts in the state. For her students, this curriculum is about more than picking the right job – it’s about finding a career attraction stronger than the street.

One student with a positive message said she’d like to make the world a better place by working with AIDS patients. She went on to tell the story of her friend, who had contracted the disease at age 16 and had subsequently lost her friends to fear and prejudice. Another student said he wanted to help rid his community of gang violence, and another said he wanted to provide housing for the poor.

Although the answers would have been different if we’d posed the question to students from a different walk of life (and we’ll find out how different when I talk to affluent suburban students later this year), the goal remains the same: to help students decide what kind of connection they want to make with their work.  

Practical considerations, such as salary, standard of living, skills assessment, and specific career ambitions are facilitated in subsequent modules.    

Karen’s students were so agitated by the idea that money might not be the only reason to work that they actually came up with their own homework assignment for the first time ever: They decided to poll their community to discover all the reasons people work.

While Karen was excited (ecstatic – you should have heard her relating this story to me on the phone) that her students came up with their own assignment, she understands they will probably return to class on Monday confused as ever about the nature of work, their biases reinforced by all the people working in uninspiring careers.  

But that’s okay — sometimes a road gets harder before it gets easier. The important thing is that these young people are actually excited for the first time ever about career exploration.

For those of you awaiting version 2.0 of my meaningful career book (sorry, version 1.0 is unavailable due to pending revision), there’s a very good chance that the story of this particular classroom (and several others) will be included in the text, and that my career program itself will undergo a metamorphosis in the hands of students around the world (from all walks of life) before the first page is ever printed.

To me, there is an inspiring point behind this first day of classroom activity: If a classroom full of disaffected high school students can get excited about the idea of meaningful work, so can we all.

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