Meeting our learners for the first time always lead us to asking them “What do you want to achieve in life” and “What are your dreams”. It is truly significant to know the goals in life of our leaders, so we may be able to lead them into more purposeful life. However, are we really leading them into beautiful and meaningful life? What are we doing to make their dreams come true? Is it enough to just teach them competencies and lessons in the classroom? What if they don’t show up for a long time? What are we doing as teachers?
I am a teacher in Alternative Learning System (ALS); our students are in search of purpose in life. They believe that it is not too late to start again and achieve their unfinished educational goals. Purpose hols us into going, it is a map that directs us not to go further and deeper in existence.
However, no matter how much we want to have purpose in life there is an adversity in it. Many researchers suggest that negative experiences early in life can hinder our development of purpose, even decades later. Psychologist Patrick Hill and his colleagues studied over 3,800 primarily white adults ages 20 to 75. They reported on any early childhood adversity they had experienced—including experiences of emotional abuse, physical abuse, socioeconomic disadvantage, family structure disadvantage (for example, parents divorcing or dying), and health disadvantage as well as their sense of purpose as adults. According to Maryam Abdullah, “Individuals who experience early adversity are not ‘doomed’ to a lower sense of purpose later in life,” the researchers write. “Instead, early adversity may be better viewed as a potential risk factor.”
Surely all these adversities in life have big negative effects in the lives of our leaners leading them to stopped studying and commit even more wrong doings, thinking that what happened to them should also happen to other people, or there is an instinct of committing the same.
As educators, we serve as second parents by law and reality, so what can we do to lead our leaners into a more purposeful life? Positive experiences may set up learners for purpose later in life and this includes cheerful vicinity, sincere school atmosphere, and even nature’s exquisiteness. When we allow learners to have this good environment, we are creating good memories in them and this leads them to find more meaning in life. It is therefore in our plans and implementations to help learners have purpose and meaning in life. Always remember that if there’s a will, there’s a way. We have to see and use all the possibilities to make a positive change in the lives of our students.
By: Mrs. Lorna S. Macaday|Teacher III|Alternative Learning System, Olongapo City
