I’m sure my parents remember the first hole I put in a wall after I made a hasty decision to kick it in a moment of “spirited disagreement.” My 7th grade brain made it seem that kicking the wall was a reasonable reaction to my parents telling me I wasn’t going to make it to the youth group meeting that night.
I remember sitting on the floor in front of the gaping hole until my mom told me to move. I remember trying to figure out if her mother’s intuition was just that good or if I was just that terrible at hiding something. I remember the painter, Orbin Blythe, coming to our house to look at the damage and my parents specifically asking him to tell me how much it was going to cost to fix it. I remember the amount was more than the change I had stored in my mechanical coin sorter. I remember how much work it was to fix and how much of a mess it made during the repair process – because part of the deal my parents made with Orbin was that I had to help him fix it. I remember being glad when it was all done.
After a recent meeting I had with the amazing guys at Common Thread, I had an epiphany. The purpose of our conversation was discussing how to start an OJT (On the Job Training)-style trade school in a specific area of town that has been neglected for years, Titusville. This area of Birmingham suffers from poor education, no job skills, very little mentoring, no leadership development, a lack of healthy food options/education, and broken families. Fortunately, there are organizations like Common Thread that go into these areas and love on people. But if you think it’s easy to bring folks out of poverty and into productivity, you would be sorely mistaken.
Whenever I hear about a problem, my first inclination is to immediately get off my ass and get something done. This is rarely the best way to approach entering into someone’s current reality and helping them transform that reality into something new. So, what is the best way help these kids and young adults go from becoming a victim of their environment to being an investor in it? I don’t think we need to look any further than the steps that comprise the basic process any trade job goes through, beginning with the hole in the wall and finishing with the clean-up.
I will be unpacking these steps in future writings during the coming weeks. Since I am writing this over time, I reserve the right to re-title or reclassify any of the steps. ? The steps are as follows:
Step #1: Definition & Acknowledgement
Step #2: Introduction & Validation
Step #3: Listening & Assessment
Step #4: Estimate Delivery & The Ask
Step #6: Get to Work & Keep Working
Step #7: Finish & Finish Strong
I believe you will be able to see how these principles will work in so many more areas than teaching the trades to young adults. On the other hand, this is not intended to be an all-inclusive, comprehensive list. You may have things you want to add. Regardless, everything starts with the first step and that is exactly where we’ll be starting in the next post...
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