Put Some Positivity In Your News Stream With These 10 Quotes From Middle Schoolers
Over the last week, I have spent considerable time on two things: 1) reading the news about the horrific Capitol attack and 2) reviewing student progress data from Couragion’s Fall semester. The two things could not be in more contrast - the former is filled with fear, anger, and violence while the latter is filled with hope, peace, and generosity.
Part of my review of student progress data includes reading all the career goals students enter in the ‘My Journey’ portion of the Couragion app. ‘My Journey’ empowers students to prepare for their future by providing personalized recommendations of Activities they can complete to build job skills and career knowledge. Activities are customized to each student based on their career interests, school, etc. and cover recommended courses, post-secondary pathways, internships, scholarships, job tools and software, skill requirements, and more. As students complete Activities they develop a collection of Accomplishments which may be used for developing their resume, writing school applications, or preparing for an interview. In addition, ‘My Journey’ includes an important step whereby students create their career goal(s).
In reviewing these student-written career goals, I was filled with hope for the future. During a semester that was extremely difficult for students, their career goals demonstrated how resilient and optimistic youth can be. I decided to share a sampling of these goals in order to help spread some positivity and to counter all of the negative news we have in our streams. Here are 10 student quotes I selected from the fall semester…
“My goal is to become a child social worker, I love helping people especially kids. I just want to be a good person and help other people someway, somehow.”
“Be nice to animals and be nice to the people.”
“My goal is to have a good job that includes helping people and doing something with my community.”
“My career goals are to help people in need. I want to do something that will benefit not [just] me but others as well. I feel it is important to want to be kind and helpful to everyone else.”
“Something that would help me make an impact on the world/other people.”
“I'd like to have a job that that helps people/the world and have a stable income.”
“I would like to work with animals and humans, but I would also like to work in a lab, so I don't really know what I want to be quite yet. But I want to have an OK paying job, so I can help my family when I am older.”
“To be able to make the world a better place in terms of restoring wildlife and climate.”
“I'd like to become a surgeon and save people’s lives.”
“1) Make a positive change in the world. 2) Work hard and love your job, but also get good payment. 3) Keep your brain healthy and your mind open and free. 4) Discover!”
These are just a small sample of goals selected from one semester of work – but our database is full of such positive goals. In fact, 96% of our students state that it is important they have a job with greater purpose – one that helps people, animals, and/or the environment. So, while the majority of our news streams is filled with negativity, these student goals help to remind us that there is more positivity and hope in the world. Let’s all learn from these middle schoolers and take a moment to think about how their goals can inspire our own actions for 2021.
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1660021. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.