Portals of Self-Discovery

A couple of years ago I worked with a student I’ll call Jade as a mentor throughout the personal project experience. Using conventional methods of judging achievement, Jade struggled in school. Her grades were poor, as was her attendance; it would be easy to assume the personal project would not be her thing. Still, she seemed intrigued about the idea of exploring something of personal interest. I think she was shocked to discover that learning about make-up, cosmetology and self-expression could make a fine personal project; perhaps it didn’t seem “schooly” enough.

A few weeks into the year she left our school to live with a parent in a different city. To my great surprise I received emails occasionally from Jade with a personal project question, which I always answered right away, glad to be in touch, and genuinely interested in learning more about a topic completely foreign to me.

Shortly after Winter Break, I was surprised to see Jade again in my office after re-enrolling in our school. She carried with her the finest process journal I have ever seen. It was bulging with authentic drawings of make-up treatments, including dozens of color schemes to match moods, occasions, and favorite outfits. She researched products and application techniques and added before/after pictures of her own efforts. She shared ideas for improvements, wondered about how she might fix her hair to reinforce the look she was going for, and on and on. If I had to choose a poster child for the project that year, it would have been Jade. My goodness she stayed focused and engaged beyond any expectations for completion, given the circumstances in her personal life.

Imagine then, the “mic drop” moment when I asked for her reflections about this learning experience. She thought for a moment, looked me in the eye and said, “I used to think that make-up defined my beauty, but I learned through this project that what makes me beautiful is believing in myself and expressing my truth in unique ways.”

So, here’s the thing with the personal project: we must first believe that giving students voice, choice, courage, and skills to pursue “personal projects” is education’s ultimate goal. We must believe deep down that devoting school time to empowering students to persevere on tough inquiries is at least as important as solving for x, writing a lab report, learning about the French Revolution, or any other subject-based content, and then commit to growing our skills as mentors in this process.

How can we use stories like Jade’s to grow our practices so more students experience this kind of self-discovery? For me, Jade’s story speaks to the importance of ownership as a key ingredient in learning. I have a hard time imagining Jade’s success without the freedom to choose, design, and complete this project on her own terms. What other experiences did Jade have throughout her years in our program to cultivate ownership of learning? How is student ownership modeled, coached, encouraged as a part of school culture?

Culminating projects serve as reflecting mirrors for our programs. We can deconstruct the evidence from these projects to better understand gaps in implementation and then design solutions that lead to persistent growth. Adding transparency to patterns in the evidence can lead to insights about not only student ownership, but also building trust-based relationships, mentoring for inquiry thinking, persistence on hard tasks, and partnering with families on learning support. This is the perfect year to use culminating projects as a portal to self-discoveries about the fine art of program implementation. Join me here in the weeks ahead for more stories and reflections about the role culminating projects play in program development. Or contact me for additional ways I might support your best work as program designers.

Carolyn