I would like to teach Goal Setting to High School Kids?

Question

I am interested in teaching Goal-setting to high school kids, following the outline of:
1) Write down your top 100 goals
2) Pick the ten most important ones and re-write them daily
3) Break each of those goals down into tasks with deadlines
4) Track your progress and take a step towards each goal every day

What do you all think? I believe if we could get kids to do this before they complete high school, we could see some amazing results.
They have done studies with college kids, and discovered that of 17% who had goals, only 3% had them written down. Of the 17%, the ones who had not written them down earned 3 times what everyone else did, and the ones who had written them down earned 10 times the average.

What are your thoughts on this?

I'm not a teacher, but would like to do this as an extra curriculum activity open to adults as well.

Answer 1

Hmmm. I don't know...I'm a high school kid and I know for a fact that people would not like this assignment. Sure, it will pay off later. So does everything else in high school. But right now, 100 goals may seem like a LOT. Many may not even know that they have 100 goals, let alone pick out their 100 TOP goals (I'm sure they do, but it would be very hard to do an assignment this way.) If they feel negatively toward the assignment, a large percentage of them would be rushing to do it on the day it is due, which means that you wouldn't get half the effort. If you seriously want people to sign up for ur extracurricular thing (which will be competitive since high school schedules are SOOO busy), then you may want to bring down the workload. Trust me, the school already gives them quite enough.

Answer 2

First, 100 is way too many. Start with 5-10.
Second, this is the kind of activity that would fit best in a classroom setting, maybe once a week.
Third and most important: it's a lovely idea but largely a waste of time for the younger kids. I'd save it for seniors. The frontal lobes, especially executive function, are still developing from ages 11-18 and really aren't cooked till the early 20s. From a neuropsych standpoint, teens aren't able to preview, make predictions, visualize outcomes and process decisions very well. Consequently this activity would have a lot more value when presented to juniors or seniors, when the frontal lobes are more fully developed. That's not to say that younger kids couldn't learn to set simple goals like getting homework in on time or managing their spending money.

Answer 3

Do you actually THINK that High School Students would do this? They will LAUGH YOU OUT of the AUDITORIUM (at Best), and at worst -- you will be hassled, harassed, have things thrown at you, be assaulted in the parking lot, and just stomped on. Then for a VERY VERY FEW -- Goals are already something they think about and have acted on. But for the most part, they have the personal traits and responsibility to set goals for themselves and WANT to work for them

Answer 4

I watched the same Primetime episode you did (or whatever it was on, lol).

While I think it's important to make highschoolers actually think about their goals and be given the opportunity to write them down, I seriously don't see them doing this on a daily basis (especially rewriting them). They've got enough to do with homework, sports, other extra curricular activites, part-time jobs, and boyfriends/girlfriends to write down their goals every day. I'd be interesting to see students come into highschool and write down a smaller list (10-20) their freshman year and revise that list each year. It could be a homeroom workshop of sorts.

Answer 5

You have to provide some interactive projects, too. Otherwise, these are just writing assignments. They need tangible involvement now. HS students are rarely forward thinking enough to find meaning in this kind of stuff. It's a very nice goal.

Answer 6

It sounds like a good idea, but most students would hate doing this. I had to do this once and hated it.
Maybe you can shorten it, just tell them to write their top 10 goals. Suggest they write more and give out extra credit if they do.

Answer 7

As long as you set a good example by writing down your own goals and taking steps to achieve them, I think it's a great idea. If you make them do it without doing it yourself, though, I don't think it'll work.

Answer 8

You should model it to the students but setting goals in your class every day.

Answer 9

Thought + Word = Deed

Answer 10

there is a great book life strategies for teens in the book store ,it should be mandatory as high school curiculum and it is pretty much the same thing you are talking about