What Does Success Look Like?

This question stopped me in my tracks.  I have not been able to answer the question.
I love my life but there has always been that little nudging voice saying there was something missing. Well, I wouldn't say missing.  And, I wouldn't say there isn't a load of things I could be doing with my time that would be helpful.  But, I think of those people who needed to find the answer to something or needed to get the painting correct or the note right or the line with just the right amount of feeling.  And, it really didn't have anything to do with someone else.  Yes, it is gratifying to have an audience or promoter or peanut gallery; someone to tell you that you are doing it right.  And, there are days when all I can find is someone to tell me that, "no, you are not doing it correctly!"
But, ultimately, I am the one who makes the determination.

So, what DOES success look like?  I am sitting at a table filled with games, notes, books and cutout magazine articles looking on a room carpeted with very old carpeting.  There are piles of new wood that will be replacing the carpeting very soon.  Out the window is a lake.  The lake is perfect.
  I did not create the lake, and it is so big there is no chance I can control it.  All I can do is look on in awe, and listen to the lapping of the waves, the cries of the loons and the shadows from the passing clouds.  No matter what I do I will never even approach that kind of success.  I can have the floor laid.  Soon, I will be able to use a really awesome shower.

  I walked up and down a driveway that was laid by someone who really cares about dirt and rocks.

  I am deeply touched by all of those things, but they have nothing to do with what my success looks like.

I am designing games.  Boy, I have been doing that for a while.  And, I am making a lot of progress.  One does not announce that she is having a child and then present it.  It takes time and development.  I forgot about that as I leaped into this game designing thing.  But, even though it is taking longer than I thought I am doing it.

I now have two pro types and a good start on two manuals.  I have returned to one of the first chapters in my old game design textbook to once again trip on the question:  What is the objective of the game?  I opened up the Lawsuit game to read about its objective.  I really want to call all of the students I know and ask them what they think.  But, I have to take a stab, and maybe make a mistake.

Objective of the game:  Succeed at Going to College 101?  Increase the Effectiveness of Navigation Skills?  Get the Most Tokens?  Make it to the Top of the Hill?

Breathtaking

The last week and a half has been breathtakingly full for me.

First, I have been to Florida, then back to NYC, now in Connecticut on my way to Lake Champlain.  Travel is one of my pleasures, because it is an opportunity to see different places and talk with people.  I love the water, even if I do not swim very well.  I love to watch thunderstorms gather, erupt and dissipate. I do not mind getting a little wet.  Hot, humid weather in the grind of a big city is no fun until I can come indoors and have a chai in front of the fan.  But, going outside into the park with a coolish breeze is awesome.

Second, I spoke with someone at a boarding school who asked me to write a draft plan for including ENTER THE CAVE and RISK IT in a program for high school seniors.  Then, I went to a forum for after school programs where I heard (once again) that experiential work makes a difference to students who are planning to attend college.  Finally, I went to a college preparatory program directed by an Olympic athlete.  She is helping students from underperforming high schools use their athletic experience to stay focused on academics, get into good colleges and excel.  She and some of her staff had valuable observations, like matching high school students with college students in the later part of ENTER THE CAVE.  Perhaps, I could use my games in a program they use with their students in December!

The best aspect of the forum and presentation for me was inviting my son, who just completed his first year of college, to attend and assist.  Yes, I design, organize and administrate.  But, it is so powerful to have a person qualified to USE.

Let me take you back to my last post:  LEARNING = PARTICIPATING + MASTERING

It makes me ask if traditional education would be more effective if it were more experiential?  I think I have proven this is correct through the years I home schooled.  It makes me ask if college would be a more successful experience if students had a clearer idea of what was required, before they arrived, and had a chance to practice.   It makes me ask if we marginalize students who do not fit the idea of what is a "good student" because the definition is accepted as is, instead of being enlarged.

Let's look at what may improve executive skills

Today has been one of those breathtakingly complicated yet constructive days.  We were on the road looking at a four hour drive to a beautiful spot when the temperature gauge spiked and one of those red lights came on.  A quick look under the hood revealed issues with the radiator.  Several miles later brought us to Jim's Garage in Canaan where I have been hanging out for the last several hours.  The folks at Jim's have been fabulous:  welcoming us and our dogs, chatting about local wildlife, pointing out mini golf and lunch items, providing coffee and smiles.  Rats on the rats who caused the damage underneath our minivan.  But, I posted!!

Next stop, how do I make a board game?

Learning = Participating + Mastering

This morning I went to a "forum" put together by the after school folks (PASE).  It was a two-part affair on a Monday in rainy, rainy New York city.  And, it was sold out.

The presentations were given by a small group of administrators.  Half were from colleges and half from after school or community based organizations.  Those presentations were given with a great deal of conviction and humor,  and were a valuable reason for me to attend.

I took several pages of notes but came away with some hugely significant ideas, some of which I already know and employ, and some reframed.

People, be they teenagers or older adults, look for a place to fit.  Some may jump in and try to make a college or job (in this case) work but ULTIMATELY a good fit leads to SUCCESS.

Asking for help is an important reason for succeeding but that entire question is fraught with downsides which prevent students (in this case) from taking advantage.

These two observations can be linked by the description of a scenario:

A student applies and is admitted to a college.  The students goes to the college, after attending orientation.  The student THRIVES/CRASHES AND BURNS/MAKES IT?

Learning how to take the many small steps which make up life is an experience that continues all of our lives.

Participating in the struggle which leads to the learning is a normal and necessary aspect.

Mastering each step of the multi-faceted road map is why we participate and how we learn.

Plunking down in the midst of a totally foreign context rarely feels like a good fit.
I think the phrase "asking for help" is different from looking at the road map and seeking the pieces that will lead to successfully mastering it.  Plunking down in the midst of a totally foreign context, and realizing it is not as foreign as it first seemed, may be the difference between choosing to participate and mastering it.

Once a student gets into college, he or she WILL GO TO COLLEGE

My life has been filled with so many wonderful moments in the last few weeks!  All three of our children have had moments that make my husband and I glow with gratitude and pride.  My mother came for a visit, and to take in some the festivities.  Projects in our life are finally beginning to finalize.  And, I figured out how to send my scholarship video successfully to my former high school!
Also, I have found a student there who will hopefully collect data about the significance of core high school programs in graduates' college experiences.

I have been speaking with so many interesting, valuable people who are working with high school students.  I am still looking for that group who will play ENTER THE CAVE and RISK IT, but in looking I have learned about a growing number of school programs and individuals who are helping students make good choices.  And, good choices incorporate a good fit.  And, a good fit means knowing clients.  In my case

CLIENTS = PLAYERS

I have learned that Public Schools are varied and so the guidance offered to students is varied.  Even at the best public school there are lots of students who require the services and support of often one counselor.  Private Schools often have fewer students and better connections.  Home schoolers focus mightily on finding a great fit, but have to work twice as hard to come up with proof of grades and scores. No matter which type of school a students goes to it is very, very important that students and their families are PROACTIVE in this process.  Being proactive is like being a parent -- there is no time unless you make the time.

And, having spoken with students, teachers and counselors in Public School, Private School, and Home School, I see there is so much focus on grades, test scores and cost.   These are all very important parts of the college application process.  However, my games focus on that part of the journey that is not academic.  Yes, it is great that a student has a 4.0 average or can write an amazing term paper on a very relevant topic.  But, can they do their own laundry or speak up if they are no longer the Big Fish?  

Remember my posting of 8/5/11 (Here Comes the Sun)

"When I was young, and watching a lot of TV, I remember seeing an advertisement for BASF.  Their line was "we don't make things, we make them BETTER."  That struck me then, and it still strikes me.  I am a recycler and a re-user.  I want to help people do what they do MORE EFFICIENTLY or MORE EFFECTIVELY.  Or, I want them to realize the answers are right there among their people, if they could just tilt the focus a little."

Once a student gets into a college he or she WILL GO TO COLLEGE.

Knowing how to create a place to live and study, and communicating with a roommate (ENTER THE CAVE) will become valuable.  And, taking apart possible scenarios to figure out how to deal successfully with them (RISK IT) will help students feel confident.  And, when a student

• can read themselves
• develops problem-solving and communication skills
• and feels confident

this will help their college experience be a good investment, both personally and financially.

Along with looking for players, I have been calling residential life and new student program offices asking for answers to my four important questions.  So far, these are the results:

1) What do Freshmen forget to bring, the most, when moving into their dorm rooms?

SHOWER FLIP FLOPS

CLOTHING APPROPRIATE FOR THE CLIMATE WHERE THE SCHOOL IS LOCATED

2) What percentage of first year students bring TOO MUCH STUFF to their dorm rooms?

ANSWERS RANGING FROM 60-95%   THE REAL QUESTION HAS BEEN WHAT HAPPENS IF THERE IS TOO MUCH STUFF IN THAT SMALL LIVING SPACE.

3) #1 Roommate conflict?

COMMUNICATION, WHICH TAKES THE FORM OF CONFLICTS ABOUT PERSONAL SPACE, FRIENDS' USE OF THE ROOM, DIFFERENT HABITS AND INACCURATE EXPECTATIONS.

4) During ORIENTATION is there an activity which concretely focuses on finding important places on campus?

THIS HAS BEEN 50/50.  WHEN LOOKING AT THE GORGEOUS TOURS ONLINE MAKE SURE YOUR STUDENT KNOWS WHERE TO GO WITH A SPRAINED ANKLE.

Oh yes, here is your bonus Naked Roommate Video!!

Please come play games and have a better transition to college!

This has been a good week for learning for me.  


I began on Sunday working one on one with a student who I have known for years.  She is lovely, intelligent, engaged and has used her high school experience perhaps to the fullest.  She has great college choices, and is taking into consideration perspectives that she feels strongly about.  And, even with all of this I feel she got some positives from playing ENTER THE CAVE and looking at RISK IT.  I want to play my games with more high school students.

On Monday I tried once again to reach guidance counselors at two schools I am personally familiar with, to no avail.  Guidance counselors wear many hats and are rising, in my estimation, to the level of teachers.  If a teacher or guidance counselor is effective, engaging and involved they are not being paid enough and there is not enough of them for all the students they are being asked to serve.  My Sunday game player told me at least once story about her guidance counselor that gave me such pause!  And, it had nothing to do with the guidance counselor's effectiveness, just with the fact there is not enough support for students.

I also went to a college fair with my daughter.  I had some wonderful, engaging moments myself.  My daughter had some wonderful engaging moments.  And, we also each found ourselves in the middle of a large, cattle call that became increasingly hot, loud and chaotic.

Yesterday, I traded emails with another guidance counselor who cannot send his students to my focus group next Monday because the room I am renting is not religiously ok for his students.  I totally get it, but it only increases the frustration of my not being able to rent a "community" room in my local library to offer free access to games for high school students focusing on transitional issues and college.

I realize I have a good product that needs more feedback to increase its relevancy.



Where do I find the warm bodies to give me the feedback?

Today, I had a wonderful, warm conversation with a young woman who works in an innovative high school program (in fact, that is part of their name).  She emailed a colleague and asked for more information.  Perhaps these games could become useful tools in an after school program which helps high school students become better prepared to go to college?

What have I learned?  High schools are institutions which have a preplanned curriculum and little opportunity to adjust as they go to new options.  Businesses that have a central mission or theme, and stick to it, but have the ability to adjust and grow as problems and opportunities present themselves, may succeed more often than businesses that stick to the program, no matter what.

Going to college is complicated.  Going to school is complicated.  Life is complicated.  Could someone just please tell their high school students to come spend two hours playing ENTER THE

CAVE and RISK IT, to help their transition to college?? 

It is SCARY to SHARE

It occurred to me this morning how scary it is to create something and then share it.  When one is a child most of the time there is no litany of negative responses, jeering or uncomfortably probing questions.  So then, it is easier to say "look at the picture I drew!" with an enthusiastic voice.

Unfortunately, becoming an adult means acquiring some of those negative responses and uncomfortably probing questions, and perhaps even a little jeering.  If you are lucky or talented enough to surround yourself with people who tell you how great you are no matter what, you can move through those moments with a little tougher skin.  If not, another layer to work through has been established.

So, that brings me to what SCARY means, and if it is really an important thing to pay attention to.  I know about this because I have spent so much of my life letting SCARY keep me from trying things. Finally something became so compelling I just followed that still, small voice.  First, it was traveling.  Then, it was finding myself in new communities or job situations.  Then, it was home schooling.  Now, it is designing games.  And, in each of these situations there times when I had to take the risk of someone else reacting negatively, or uncomfortably probing, or even being laughed at when I did not intend this.

However, this designing thing encompasses more than my sharing something and getting varied reactions.  What is the point of designing if the outcome doesn't fit someone's need or if the outcome doesn't improve how something works?  THIS IS A BIG HOWEVER.

When we are children, if we have a supportive and loving upbringing, we can take chances and share and feel validated.  We learn to put our zany ideas out there, and maybe as we grow those ideas become viewed less as zany and more as a new approach.  Or, there is a celebration of zany and we learn to appreciate those who look at the world differently than we do.  If, as children, we encounter too much rigidity and love of rules, we learn to keep that zaniness under wraps, or become known as rebels, or some other neat label.

Here I am trying to develop a tool for teenagers who are embarking on a new step in their lives.  I was thinking this morning, about myself, and how often I can articulate exactly what I feel I need but find it falls on deaf ears.  And, I do the same with the young people in my life.  BAD MOVE.

Sometimes the "customers" or "clients" or "users" we are trying so diligently to serve are telling us exactly what they need, and we ignore the message and then wonder why our answer did not fit.

My meditations the past few days have been about how I have everything I need inside, and that I need to tune in to the still, small voice to get in touch.  I can tone down the noise I am making to tune in, and I wonder if that will be most of the noise?

Now, back to games.  In ENTER THE CAVE, I ask players to answer several questions about the "decoration" of their cave/space/dorm room.  One question is what will be the color of your comforter?  Let's take that to the next step.  When you see a COMFORTER on a bed, what is it or what does it symbolize?

My dorm bed did not look like this.  And, it was a haven, a social place, a study place, a resting place and perhaps could have been a personal statement if I had had the forethought to make it such.

What does a comforter mean to you, or your student?  A simple question?  Please send a comment.  I am trying to come up with another venue for SMALL STEPS GO PLACES followers to comment in some way, but for right now this is it.  You can also go to the bottom of the post and tell me if the post was useful!

Going to College is Complicated

I was reading today how many US students are not ready to succeed in college, because they have not taken and excelled at the core subjects and because they have not scored high enough on tests like the ACT.  Then I read an article entitled Are American Students Grossly Unprepared for College? "where Award-winning Prinicipal Carol Burris of South Side High School in New York  looks at this issue" and dissects some statements made by Education Secretary Arne Duncan.  I also read Kid, I'm Sorry You are Just Not College Material (by Michael Petrilli, in Slate).

It is kind of like the alcohol use and sex perspectives I used to talk with teenaged clients about at The Door, where I designed and ran MY VOICE (an HIV prevention program for young women).  "Everyone my age has tried it," was what many kids would say.  But, the statistics and real life did not back them up.

Yesterday I went to a training at Partnership for After School Education (PASE) entitled Transitioning to College:  Supporting Social and Emotional Readiness.  I was sitting with administrators and counselors that served kids from homes with lower incomes, who may be from families who came to the United States from other countries, kids who had to make a conscience choice to attend a college because they would need grants and loans to pay for the experience.  The message was that the college application process was daunting, but actually going to college could be like visiting a foreign country necessitating learning about how a college works and even learning vocabulary (definition of bursar anyone?)  The training participants were full of recollections of when they went to college, and the instructor encouraged us to draw on those memories as a bridge to working with clients.  The goal was to take back tools that could be used to help clients better negotiate the process.

MY TAKE AWAY was two-fold:  although daunting, going to college IS a smart idea for so many reasons, if it is a good fit  AND  if everyone keeps reading and hearing that students are not going to succeed in college then maybe they will believe it and make it come true.

Finding a good fit is not easy.  It requires a teenager or anyone else who is considering going to college to examine themselves and be honest.  My husband says he always wanted to be a professional basketball player, but unfortunately he isn't tall enough.  I say that there are lots of ways to fulfill that passion that do not require playing professional basketball.  The hard question is whether any of those ways is a good enough fit to provide the other things he desires.  So, if someone wants to go to college the first question is WHY?  If that question has a solid answer the HOW? is not as intimidating.  CAN WE AGREE THAT SOME STUDENTS ARE NOT PREPARED WELL ENOUGH TO GO TO COLLEGE, BUT IF THEY REALLY WANT TO GO THEY HAVE TO FIND OUT HOW TO MAKE IT HAPPEN?

Hanging out with people who continually want to say how bad things are gets to be tedious.  Pointing out that a system doesn't work and needs to be fixed is very powerful.  When the people who continually want to say how bad things are also point out that the education system needs to be fixed it becomes complicated for everyone!  CAN WE AGREE THAT THE AMERICAN EDUCATION SYSTEM DOES NOT WORK AS WELL, ESPECIALLY FOR SOME STUDENTS, AS IT COULD?   But, if a student really wants to go to college for good reasons, then the preparation system is one piece of information but not the entire pie.

I would like to tell you that in the past year I have met students, who are now in college, who will have lots of debt, or no debt, who were straight A students or not, some were bullied in high school, some left high school confused, others were relieved, and the list goes on.  One student entered college thinking there were only two types of lawyers, and now works with a state legislature.  She has to have a job to pay for costs, but she got promoted.  Another student applied to Harvard on a whim, and is now there.  Another student is deaf and an excellent student who wanted to major in Math and Missionary.  Another began in the summer and has made friends, gone to concerts, taken a variety of classes, does crew and has made the college his experience.  Finally, I met a young woman who despite being a great student who is going to a great college, found a passion that may lead her on a journey that is unexpected.  I also know students who left that role and are succeeding in the world of work, where college is not part of the fit.

I'm just saying, going to college is complicated.

It really helps to be prepared, just like being prepared to visit a new country.  And, some of us are coming from systems that do not prepare us as well as they should.

I am glad I went to the training yesterday.  I am going to apply to do a training with my games.  I think it would have been more amusing to play games to emphasize skills that are needed to go to college.  You remember the last time you lost playing Monopoly, right?


BONUS HARLAN COHEN VIDEO!!