Scrapbooking has once again become popular.  The process of choosing special photos and other memorabilia gives testimony to “what matters most” for many people. This is evidenced in the powerful work that Caroline Miller is doing with many of her clients – a process that opens up emotional pathways of the past, present and anticipation of the future http://www.carolinemiller.com/.

        With emergence of the digital age, electronic “scrapbooks” are finding a place in education – for both performance and relational ends.   At The Culver Academies www.culver.org, our seniors construct individual digital portfolios of their high school experience.  The portfolio is a multimedia tool that allows adolescents to capture and reflect on their goals, aspirations and accomplishments throughout their secondary school career. The document becomes an explicit medium for students to demonstrate and express “what matters most” to them as they track their academic, leadership, athletic and wellness development. 

         By capturing experiences in a variety of sensory modalities, students may 1) foster self-awareness, self-reflection, and self-analysis; 2)  gain a more explicit and overt awareness of the realization of their goals; and 3) more meaningfully and purposefully  “connect the dots” of their school experience through tracking their life satisfaction.

            This process provides students with permission to explore and examine their remembered pleasures in their journey. We provide seniors with their “Culver admissions essay” that was completed with their application.  Without fail, the seniors are astounded at what they wrote and how they have grown over the past four years.  This chronological reflection of where they have come from, what their Culver experience has been like, and their aspirations for college, can be instructive and informative. This becomes a wonderful medium for identifying strengths and the constellation of emotions experienced during their secondary school career.          

            The portfolio invites students to access their “anticipated” memory.  By placing representative documents in the portfolio (i.e. written journaling, audio tape, and/or videotape) students may be more readily available to access a proper goal setting mindset.  By attending to their anticipated memory, students catalog thoughts to the future that help to frame and “make real” their hopes and dreams.  For example, one of our seniors in the Class of “06” had aspirations to become a Naval fighter pilot.  He placed a vivid video of a jet pilot “taking off” from an aircraft carrier.  He claims that watching the video reinforced his goal to attend the United States Naval Academy, a prerequisite to becoming a Naval pilot.   He is now a recognized plebe leader at Annapolis.

            Although, Suh, Diener, & Fujita (1996) claim that subjective well-being is influenced by life events within the last three months, it would be interesting to investigate the relationship between subjective well-being and the construction and reconstruction of goal oriented events in one’s portfolio over a greater period of time. During the high school years, students participate in many events and experiences which help them to establish their autobiographical map.    Stories, pictures and animations of their “best selves”, collected over this time, have the potential to assist young people in developing more meaningful lives.  As students attend to their own stories, they look for cues that uncover their beliefs and sense of purpose.  By doing so, they are more able to identify with their own joys, elations, frustrations and troubles.  The portfolio presents stories of tough calls, illusions, allusions, and residues that form the fodder for the development of healthy life goals.    

            Through examining (and taking license with) Waymack’s (1996) conception of narrative, one may glean a greater perspective of the power of the portfolio:   “If, however, we can ‘learn’ the (student’s) story, we learn what drives the biography.  The things of greatest in importance to the (students), his or her hopes, fears, and ambitions, are within the story.  And as we hear the preceding chapters, it begins to discern how the next chapter should be written.” (p.125)

            The portfolio becomes a vehicle in which the student can paint a multi-faceted picture of aspiring to become a “whole person”.  It allows people to bask and marvel in who they are, what they have done and what they hope to become.
 

References:
Suh, E., Diener, E., & Fujita, F. (1996) Events and subjective well-being: only recent    events matter.  Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 71(5), 842. 
Waymack,  M.H. (1996). Narrative ethics in the clinical setting.  In Making the Rounds in Health, Faith and Ethics.  M. Marty (Ed.). Chicago: The Free Press. 125-128.

John M. Yeager, Ed.D, MAPP is Director of the Center for Character Excellence at The Culver Academies in Culver, Indiana. John consults with Dave Shearon, and Sherri Fisher at www.FlourishingSchools.com, an organization that integrates best practices in education with cutting edge Positive Psychology research. John’s bio.     John writes on the 10th of each month and his past articles appear here.