What's your life plan?

Wednesday I attended the graduation of 28 8’th graders from the Lifeplan Institute Training at Mount Tam High School in Mill Valley, CA.  One young teen after another got up in front of the assembled parents and teachers and proudly proclaimed: This is my dream; these are my values; these are my short and long-term goals; these people are my Board of Directors – my guides and confidantes...  It was inspiring.  More than the 3 r’s, more than standardized testing, more important even than the classes so dear to my heart like music, art, PE, and theater, these are the paramount lessons every child in America needs to learn.  Connecting adolescents to their deepest passion, their deepest values, their greatest vision, their truly limitless capacities…  This is the way - the only way that I know - that no child will truly be left behind.

Nothing is more important to me than rites of passage and mentorship of young people.  I see the two as equal halves of one unified whole.  I tend to think of mentoring relationships as something akin to alchemy.  We already know the rudiments of success: more listening than talking on the part of mentors, more blessing and acknowledgment than criticism, asking questions more than giving answers, modeling rather than teaching, showing rather than telling, regularity and consistency more than thrills and chills, being authentic…  But short of shepherding a young person through their own rite of passage, ritually launching them forth into adulthood, there are no mechanisms, no roadmaps for doing this.  Til now.    

Andy Mecca and his team, leaders in California and nationally in the campaign to institutionalize mentorship, have created a mentorship curriculum.   The only one I know of.  Their audacious, commendable and achievable goal is to reach 10 million children in ten years with LifePlan. 

What is your Life Plan?  If you’re lucky, like me, you’ve cobbled one together through years of careful observation of others and an exhaustive process of elimination.  And if you’re really lucky you’ve had a rite of passage that taught you what your mission in life is.  But what of the young people you know?  Who’s helping them find their Life Plan?  Are you?

Update on Saturday, May 28, 2011 at 11:34AM by Frederick Marx

p.s. If you can be in San Francisco June 23 you may want to attend this marvelous event.  Community Matters is perhaps the premiere organization in the U.S. to stop high school bullying and affirm and empower teens.