Round Table #1 - How it went.

Christina Boyles March 29, 2017, 4 comments

On Monday March 20th, my library hosted our first round table event for our College and Career readiness programming.  Our goal was to find out what our community members feel that the youth in our community needs to be successful.  We personally invited community members (including teachers, school administers, school counselors, school board members, county commissioners and parents) to the meeting, we encouraged youth to attend and it was advertised on Facebook, at the school literacy night and word of mouth.  We had food – I ordered pizza and breadsticks and had water available.  We only had five adults and two middle school students attend.  It was definitely not the turnout I was looking for – I had a lot more people say they were coming than who actually came – but that is okay.  I know the people who attended care, I know they had opinions that they wanted to share and I was there to listen and more importantly, to talk.   

I started with a brief discussion on our cohort and what our goals are.  I passed around the pamphlet I had created when everyone walked in the door, along with the Forbes top 10 things employers are looking for in employees and the article on the seven skills students need to succeed.  Then I opened the floor for open discussion and what followed was a fantastic discussion for the next two hours.   

The people who were in attendance were all pretty adamant that the kids need "life skills".  Social and emotional skills as well as other basic skills.  Mostly they were saying we do not prepare them to be adults - they are so used to people holding their hands that when they get out into the real world - school or work - they can't make basic life decisions and they get overwhelmed and stressed.  Understanding budgeting, dept, loans, basic contracts - all those were mentioned, as well as time-management, prioritizing, etc.     Our closest city is 3 hrs away and that is where many of our students go to school after graduating - we need to prepare them for being out on their own where they don’t have someone reminding them to stay on track all the time. 

We talked to the two middle schoolers in attendance about how you only get one first impression, how you should always present your best self when applying for a job and we talked about bullying and how self-respect is the core to being happy and treating others well.  They also shared their opinions and their thoughts on our discussion.

The round table was definitely a step in the right direction for my community and after that meeting and talking with my director; we are trying to see if we cannot coordinate our Summer Reading program theme "Build A Better World" into our project with the cohort.  I definitely feel that making our youth more productive members of society is a way of building a better world.  So we are moving forward with that and I am planning on having a few one on one meetings with community members and organizations in April (after spring break) and I want to host another round table in April – but this one with the idea that we know we need life skills – how do we best achieve this goal. 

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