live the questions now

I was never one of those kids who knew what they wanted to be when they grew up (in fact, I’m still not entirely sure…). But it’s a privilege to me that I had friends who knew exactly what they wanted to be, and blazed paths in pursuit of those goals, so I knew what it can look like to get from point A to point B, and onwards to C, D, and F. To be sure, I was also graced with examples from adult role models, but it was especially meaningful to see my peers make their way and to learn from them, and now, have the chance to be proud of them.

One of my best friends from high school is now an actor in one of Chicago’s most successful and fresh young theatre companies, and she refused to settle for anything less than her dreams, no matter who told her that she would have to wait tables, or that she better major in something practical, just in case. The pictures of my sister sitting at a typewriter at age two seem now to be the perfect symbol of her life path to becoming a newspaper reporter, covering the politics beat. Neither are easy goals to attain, but I’m lucky to know firsthand what it takes to get there.

The person who is perhaps my oldest friend in life – we started school together at age seven and graduated from high school together ten years later – is now a scientist, completing her PhD and contributing to research that is deepening our understanding of ocean sustainability and climate change. My memories of her as far back as middle school include her dreams of being a marine biologist, and I’ve had the opportunity to see that dream grow into a reality, through many years of formal education, fieldwork, muddy boots, and the most admirable tenacity, even in circumstances under which most of us might give up. Knowing her all these years did little to improve my own scientific abilities, but it taught me what it looks like to do hard work, to be a researcher, and now, to care more about the application of scientific knowledge to the social issues about which I already care very deeply.

For all the talk about preparing students for the world of work, as important as it is to define skill sets and ready them for the global economy, it often seems that we leave out from the conversation what those pathways really look like. There is outstanding work being done to define specific pathways to global citizenship and to digital citizenship, but are we also showing students what it looks like to identify their passions and pursue their own goals? It seems like we’re afraid to let students see, “this is what it looks like to be a scientist” and how you can get there, because we’re caught up in a belief (or fear?) that jobs will change too fast, as if the economy of the future does not allow for goals or dreams. Knowing that those pathways exist is important, even for the ones who haven’t figured out what their dreams might be, and regardless of what they ultimately pursue. Young people should have a realistic (and media literate) understanding of the pathway to the least attainable goals – like being an NBA superstar or the next American Idol, and they should have the same awareness of more common professional journeys, and of those pathways that change at every turn. We should be situating the necessary skills, knowledge, and capacities in these real world pathways – we’ll never engage students in those frameworks in the abstract. And, they should know that each of these involves failure, and most of them involve failing multiple times. We’re definitely too scared to let students in on that secret, even though learning from failure is likely the most important piece we can model for them.