Senior Project

Trevor Plans to Ride the Trans America Trail

Recently, Karla pointed out an error of mine. Correction is a skill I never appreciated in my wife while dating. She voiced her concern and said, “Jason, can I talk to you about something? There is something that has been bothering me lately.” As a husband, I braced for what was to come and replied, “Sure, Love, what is troubling you?”

Then she explained to me that an idea I was taking credit for did not originate with me! The “Senior Project” was not my idea. Rather Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise came up with it and wrote about it in their book, The Well-Trained Mind. It is discussed in Chapter 33: The Specialist. Smart ladies! I liked their idea so much I thought it was my own, whoops!

This blog will be about the Senior Project. For a rational version, please read, The Well-Trained Mind. Like many ideas, we as people take perceived good ideas and make them our own. That is what we have done. Trevor, our son, who just graduated from high school, is doing his Senior Project now. We have morphed what the authors discussed as a means for an in-depth paper into a proof-of-concept field training exercise for their life. Why?

 

First, an essential part of biblical parenting is to understand the greatest commandment in the Bible. It is first stated in Deuteronomy 6:4-9 (ESV). 

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

What popped out to me as a parent is this mandate to teach one’s children to walk faithfully, but even more was the intensity with which the parent is to teach their children to walk. We found this to be a convicting thought. Maybe the “Senior Project” could serve as a forcing function. We train more diligently when we think we will need the training.

The purpose of a Senior Project then became a forcing function for the parent and the child. It is designed to prove to parent and child that the child is indeed an adult and ready for the world. In cooperation with the parent, the child comes up with a task that they want to do, has multiple parts, and places them in a situation of guarded autonomy with felt consequences for failure. Ideally, the task is 6-9 weeks long, demanding, complex, and associated with isolation and loneliness. It should take months to prepare and involve the right amount of excitement and concern for all. Task-related conflict between the parent and the child is the norm.

My eldest decided to learn Spanish by immersion for her Senior Project. She found a language school in Honduras, moved there for two months, took Spanish class four hours a day for five days a week, and lived with an indigenous family that only spoke Spanish. She came home after two months and the following summer did it again. She gained an intermediate/high level of fluency. She made many decisions for herself and was required to manage her own resources. She was forced to deal with isolation and loneliness, but not so long as to cause serious problems. After the event, we sat down over months and debriefed the experience. Seeing how she did with various aspects of the trip was informative for her and us. When she left for college in the Washington D.C. area, all were confident that she was ready.

Now our son is getting ready to do the second part of his Senior Project. The first part involved him going to fight school (1 hour of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and 1 hour of Muay Thai 3-5 days a week) and a 45-day survival instructor course. Now he is soon to embark on the final test. Over the next 2-3 months, he will ride the Trans America Trail on a motorcycle.  

The Senior Project also serves other functions, which we can discuss later.