Student-produced fashion show, workshop shows at-risk teens future life in college
Janel Shoun |
Charades, personality surveys, personal stories, a formal dinner and a “Dress for Success” fashion show are just a few of the innovative ways a group of 53 Lipscomb University students are teaching at-risk youth in Nashville how to someday apply for college, interview for a job and interact in the working world.
Around 30 teens at Youth Life Learning Centers are attending a series of five workshops this week titled “A Better Tomorrow, Today!” held by the Lipscomb students. On Tuesday, Nov. 11, the youth will travel to the Lipscomb campus for a “Dining Savvy” formal dinner and the “Dress for Success” fashion show, where Lipscomb fashion merchandising students will display appropriate outfits for job interviews, the college campus and formal events.
While interview skills and resume-writing can be taught by lots of people, the students are particularly excited to get a chance to talk to real college students, said Brigette Dunn, the community outreach director at Youth Life Learning Centers.
“It is so important for them to be able to see and listen to people who are not that much older than them and hear how they decided what they want to do or how they are going through the process of deciding,” said Dunn. “Talking to current college students gives them a perspective that older volunteers wouldn’t be able to give them.”
Between playing “career charades,” taking a condensed version of the Myers-Briggs personality inventory and envisioning where they want to be in 10 years, the students were eager to quiz their college-age instructors about simple things like how to schedule classes (They were excited to learn they can sleep late if they schedule their classes right.), said Dunn.
“The kids were so happy that we were there and participated really well. They all seemed very ambitious and knew exactly what they wanted to do when they got older,” said Sarah Catherine Thetford, a junior from Brentwood, who made a presentation at the Youth Life center in the Easley Community Center.
The college students said many of the youth had careers in mind which lined right up with their strengths revealed by the personality test, which lends evidence to Dunn’s observation that kids as young as 13 are already starting to think about their future place in the world. “They have been thinking about what they want to do, and now they are starting to see how college fits into that plan,” she said.
A different team of four Lipscomb students at each workshop (10/28, 10/30 and 11/11) makes a presentation on a variety of life skills such as self-promotion, presentation skills, how to apply for financial aid, how to use their resources such as coaches, teachers and mentors, dining etiquette and the job outlook in various career fields.
While the youth are learning how to make the grade in the real world, the Lipscomb students are learning too. They are all members of Leanne Smith’s management communication course, where they learn written communication, oral presentation and career preparation skills for the world of big business.
So while Smith was teaching her students resume-writing, office communication and team management last semester, it occurred to her that there were lots of people outside her classroom who could use this information: battered women or parolees reentering the workforce, at-risk youth, the working homeless.
Smith took that observation, combined it with Lipscomb University’s new service learning program, SALT, and revamped the class to require a semester-long service-learning project to plan and carry-out the workshops for at-risk youth.
“I think my students have the potential to learn more by teaching someone else they would have ever learned on their own,” said Smith. “Teaching these skills to this audience will make them really appreciate it.”
So far, it’s worked. Not only were the Lipscomb students enthused by the excitement of the Youth Life center teens, but the entire planning process has been valuable for the future, said Kelsey Woodrow, a junior from McLeansboro, IL, on the marketing team.
“We have to have minutes from meetings and agendas and prepare for the meetings ahead of time,” Woodrow said. “I think it’s really preparing us for the workplace, and we’ll have all these documents as examples to refer to later.”
The “A Better Tomorrow, Today” workshop is just one example of numerous service learning projects ongoing this semester. This fall’s freshmen are the first class entering Lipscomb with a requirement to complete certain service learning criteria in order to graduate. Projects must be tied closely to specific learning outcomes for an academic course, so projects like Smith’s will become increasingly common in Lipscomb’s curriculum over the next four years.
The “A Better Tomorrow, Today” workshops will conclude on Nov. 11 when the teens come to the Lipscomb campus to learn dining etiquette during a formal dinner and learn about proper job interview, workplace and college campus dress in a fashion show, all coordinated by the college students. Teens who attended all the workshops will get a perfect attendance certificate and a T-shirt.
About Youth Life Learning Centers
Youth Life Learning Centers address the most critical need in urban communities: at-risk children growing up in our inner city neighborhoods. Currently, Youth Life Foundation of Tennessee operates five faith-based after-school programs in inner-city Nashville and one in Memphis, serving hundreds of students in Tennessee public schools.