what if you could see into the future?

If you had sixty hours to help a couple high school students decide about your career, what would you do?

• What would you explain to help them avoid problems?
• What view of your work–of your way of looking at the world–would you make sure they understood? What mixture of conversation and self-analysis and activity would illustrate
• What values of you, your profession, your organization would you highlight? How would you make them clear? What about the hidden values?
• What projects would you give them–the busywork things that you hate to do or something that will give them a sense of success, of having done something that mattered?
• What tools would you train them to use? How much time would you spend on training?
• How often would you stop working on “real work” to explain why and how?
• How would you protect them from cynicism while helping them understand realism?
• How would you help them find a sense of calling, whether in your field–or some other field?
• What would you teach them about how to work?

And then, as you think through those questions,

• How much of your own work habits would you need to change?
• How much patience would you be willing to find?
• How far into the future are you willing to look?
• How vulnerable are you willing to be about why–and why not–to work the way you do?
• How humble are you willing to be about handing off credit to them for the work they do?

Why do I ask? Because I get to spend sixty hours with two high school students as a work mentor. One wants to be a photographer, the other a pastor. Both of them are on twitter and facebook. Both of them get the basics of technology. Twelve weeks, an hour a day, five days a week. I could give them busy work, pencil sharpening, paper shuffling, mind-numbing internship stuff. Or I can help them actually change lives with a peculiar mix of communication, technology, aesthetics, and social media.

What would you do, if you had the chance? (And what would it take to make the chance (local high school, business teacher, unpaid internship)?)

I’m going for the changed lives.

You can come, too.

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