BURKET – Six Tippecanoe Valley students are participating in a national program that will help them develop employable skills to be successful after high school.
Thursday afternoon at the Burket Learning Center, three of the students took part in the Jobs for America’s Graduates initiation and installation ceremony to celebrate their participation in the JAG program. The ceremony is a way for students to signify a new beginning of their life.
According to WorkOne Northern Indiana Communications Manager Chuck Knebl, JAG is a national program through WorkOne. JAG specialists – like Jennifer Cook who works with the Valley students – are a combination of teachers, life counselors and mentors.
The specialists spend some of their time working with students on academic issues, but also work with students on soft skills. Soft skills, he said, are important to prepare students for the workforce and what employers tell WorkOne are important elements for students to learn.
JAG, said Team Leader Irwin LaPrier, is a drop-out prevention and recovery program. It equips students with soft skills because they are the skills needed for the 21st Century. Through the program, students will build self-confidence and competency to strengthen their ability to go out in the workforce.
Criteria for students chosen for the program include need, barriers that keep them from being successful or other challenges.
“We’re not teachers, more mentors that will help them,” he said. “The key part is students who want to step forward and make a change in their lives.”
Knebl said students in the program volunteer to be a part of it. Sometimes they have to be prodded, but ultimately it is their decision.
The program, LaPrier said, is open-ended. This is the first year for the program at Valley.
The initiation and installation ceremony started with a welcome and introduction by Cook. She said JAG teaches students personal and employable skills. It gives students the tools to get them on their way after high school.
Guest speaker Don Roulo, CEO of Life Quest, is a life, business and career coach. He also owns a couple of businesses.
During his half-hour talk, Roulo told students to understand that they are world changers.
“No matter what you choose to do, you are a world changer,” he said. “Great things are done when men and mountains meet.”
Everyone has obstacles in their life, but you can’t let them stop you, he said.
What makes great men and women great, he said, is that they see things differently. Don’t spend all your time looking in the rearview mirror thinking about your mistakes, he said, while a person’s income is directly proportional to the problems they solve.
“Great men and women are dreamers. We have to help people to dream. Dreaming is important to your success. Don’t ever stop dreaming,” Roulo told the students. “A dream without a plan is just a fantasy.”
He encouraged students to spend 30 minutes a week of solitude just dreaming and think of how to move their dreams forward.
“Five years from now, you will be doing the same thing you’re doing today unless you have a plan,” he said. “If you don’t make a plan for your life, everyone else will.”
Roulo told students to put their time into what will bring them closer to their dreams. “You got to give yourself to what you really want to do,” he said.
Great men and women surround themselves with people who are great. The quality time they spend with people should pull them up, not bring them down, he said. They will raise you up to another place.
“Great men and women are quitters,” he said. “They quit doing things unsuccessful people do all the time. They quit hanging around bad people who put them in bad situations all the time.”
Winners quit thinking small. They quit being selfish. They quit saying they can’t and quit waiting for something to happen, he said.
“You have to quit thinking of yourself as insignificant. You matter. Quit thinking you’re insignificant and stop living beneath your potential. Quit settling for anything but your best,” he advised.
After he finished, Cook then conducted a “sand ceremony” with students. The ceremony is a way of demonstrating the coming together of different people to make a body of one, LaPrier said. Each student put an amount of different colored sand into a bottle. The mingling of the sand is hard to separate, and becomes a symbol.
Tippecanoe Valley Schools Superintendent Brett Boggs said JAG is something new for Valley. It will be good for the students, he said.
