‘Lost’ by freck3  Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 

‘The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. ‘

Gandhi

I already felt lost.

“What do you want to be?”

“Help people…? Hmmm…well that would be nursing…or maybe social care. There’s a big book on that table over there; have a flick through …Go ahead.. that’s it…the big brown one…in fact there are two. Give me a shout if you find anything.”

And that was it; the sum total of my career guidance in school. No personal exploration, no discovery, no role models, no thought leaders, no work experience, no people sharing the diversity and discovery of their career journeys, no learning by doing, no suggestion of a way to discover the path, or even that self discovery was the path.

Nursing and social care weren’t ‘it’, and the only useful information she shared that day was that the book was big. In fact it was enormous, and as I flicked though the pages I felt untethered, unsupported, lost. How could I know if I didn’t know the destination? What could I do in the world? What would I be? I was just starting out and yet I felt I’d already failed. No path, no direction, just fear; and I couldn’t share it. What would people think?

“University is what you need; woodwork and technical drawing won’t cut it. Typing and commerce? You’re not creative. You’re academic. You need to get to university.” I was a thinker, a deep thinker, but I wasn’t academic I knew that, and I’d been told I wasn’t creative. I couldn’t draw or paint, but I could ‘make’ and I instinctively felt I was creative. But if I wasn’t, what was I? Plain old non-academic? Had I failed?

I left the Careers Department that day without hope or direction but even at that young age I remember thinking, “There must be a better way to do that job.”

I’m sure things have improved incrementally in the last thirty years. There are a great many passionate careers advisors out there, but nothing has changed a fundamental level. We still need a shift in how we do this discovery stuff with young people.

Had the Careers Advisor asked me that day ‘who’ I wanted to be, perhaps we could have looked that day at the people who inspired me and why, what had fascinated me at school and in the world and why, what I was good at and what I cared about. The answer to the career problem still wouldn’t have been in the big brown book, not immediately, but maybe it would have made me think.

What I realise now is that experience on that day and that reflection about that careers advice was the sowing of the seed of my ‘why’.

I went to university but not in the way you might imagine…and after nearly 10 years I’m still there. I’m still not academically successful, not in the way the education system judges it. I’m just me. I’m a creative problem solver and an educationalist. I bring what I have, I ask questions, I learn by doing, I reflect and and I share. I get to help people to at bringing their ideas to life; the perfect vehicle for learning.

I’m lucky today to work with some inspirational, creative and visionary people. My colleague Charlotte shared a powerful message by the Educationalist Sir Ken Robinson that I have watched over and over again. It really helped me to understand how our education system needs to change to nurture the talent of the future. My colleague Simon found this which tells the same story in a thoroughly entertaining and compelling way. It’s by Neste.com and its called the People vs The School System. It’s powerful…