Week 16 · Lesson 1
The Work
Eight questions. What you write is read by your facilitator and nobody else. Not your officer, not your school, not your family, and not in any report. Two of these you do not write down at all.
Week 16 of 23 · Education and Certification Pathways
Three things you can already do that took real skill to learn. Do not filter it. Then write what the legal version of each would be called.
What is a certification actually for?
- A Teaching you something you do not know.
- B Giving a stranger a way to trust you before he has met you.
- C Making you look better than other people.
- D Nothing, employers do not check.
Four doors: diploma, GED, a short card, an apprenticeship. Which is realistic in the next ninety days, and what is the first call it requires?
Nobody reads this one. If you have been avoiding the GED for years, is it the tests you are avoiding or a feeling about school?
What is the move on the box on an application?
- A Leave it blank and hope.
- B Lie, and deal with it later.
- C Answer it plainly in one sentence with what has changed, and have somebody who will pick up a phone for you.
- D Do not apply anywhere that asks.
Who would pick up a phone and say something true and good about you right now? If nobody, write what it would take to have one person by the end of this program.
Joseph ran a household as a slave and ran things in prison before he ever stood in front of Pharaoh. What is the point?
- A He got lucky at the end.
- B Everything he learned in the worst rooms is what made him ready for the biggest one, and none of it was wasted.
- C Prison was good for him.
- D He should have kept his dreams to himself.
Nobody reads this one. What did you learn in a place you never should have been that you could actually use now?
Nothing you write here goes to your officer, your school or your family.
Defining Narratives · Week 16 Written work