So today I met Destiny. Destiny lives with her mom, brother and sister at a homeless shelter in the grittier part of South Los Angeles. The shelter itself is actually surprisingly nice; private sleeping rooms for families, a well-equipped kid's playroom, PCs for open use (mostly by the adolescents). All in all very clean and up to date. But still, I imagine, as a matter of pride, not a place that people really want to spend the rest of their lives.
Anyways. Destiny is about to enter the 10th grade. She didn't spend a whole lot of time in 9th grade because her mom simply could not get her and her siblings to school, so she ended up failing English, Earth Sciences and Algebra (at least, maybe more). She's retaking English and Earth Sciences this summer without lecture, just home study, packets and tests. But after talking to her and seeing her work through the "elementary school" packets, I can tell that's she's reasonably smart. She can read accurately and reasonably fast, she's fine at basic math and the bare bones of algebra, from what I could see, and she's got a good idea of where she is, too. I think it really frustrated her that she doesn't have a good handle on fractions (a skill deficit thats really out of tune with the rest of her general competency), but that easily points out something that we can focus on.
I asked her what her career goals were. She said she wanted to be a therapist. What kind? For kids. Yes, but what kind? I dunno, for kids? Yes, I said, but kids can go to therapy for all sorts of reasons, maybe their parents are getting divorced, or they moved schools, or they're coming to terms with being gay. Under this pressure, she revealed that she wanted to put her emphasis on addiction. So I spent a few minutes explaining to her the process of becoming a therapist, and that becoming a youth addiction counselor potentially takes much less schooling. I asked her if she was interested in spending more time talking about this stuff, about future-planning, in our future meetings. She said yes.
I felt very useful in that moment. This girl has a pretty solid idea of what kind of work she wants to do in her future, but seemed to have no clue about how to get there, what requirements or obstacles she might have to overcome. It really seemed that she hadn't even though about it, assuming as most young people do that they'll get there eventually and everything will be laid out for them step by step the same way elementary, middle and high school curriculum has been. To get individuals to be the leading force, the primary driver, of their own education, is to undo a decade of training in complacency and followership.
I asked her what she does for fun. Watch TV? Play video games? Nope, she just texts with her friends. Doesn't look up stuff on the internet, or read for fun, just... texts. I have to wonder what happens when her friends aren't also glued to their phones, but then its a big assumption to say that that ever happens. I want to get her into reading. It seems like a good place to start would be beginner's guides to addiction and behavioral therapy methods, so that she at least has an idea of what she'll be doing when she finally gets this dream job of hers. Of course, the benefit of learning more about a profession before you devote all your resources to getting into it, is finding out that maybe this isn't the thing for you. She might find that there's a lot more science involved in this than she is willing to handle; certainly there's going to be a lot a lot a LOT of reading, not that she's incapable of it, but is she ready for it? Would it be a deal-breaker for her to know that part of being in that profession means being on top of all the latest research, and that means... a lot of reading? For someone who doesn't read at all for fun, it would seem to me like a big life-style change. Taking AP classes and college classes were less of a struggle for me I think, in part, because I read a lot. I was extremely comfortable with written language and staring at black words on a white page for hours on end and that allowed me to focus on the things I wasn't comfortable with, like the brand new concepts.
I thought for a moment about getting some copies of Addiction Magazine or the like for her to browse, but then I have to realize, this is a girl who has zero academic exposure to psychology or addiction, and those articles are written for professionals. Much better to get her started with an introductory book, hopefully a copy of the actual texts used in those 8 month addiction counseling programs, something aimed at the person who knows nothing but is trying to break into the profession.
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