Exploring Purpose at School: High school Purpose Programs from the Perspective of Alumni, Students, and Teachers

This presentation reports on qualitative studies conducted to explore high school students’ and teachers’ experiences with purpose learning programs. Students, alumni, and Teachers from two such programs—the QUESTion Project and nXu—were interviewed about their understanding of purpose and their experiences with the purpose learning program. Alumni reported that they learned to have a more open and meaningful relationships with their peers and teachers, and gained a greater sense of autonomy and capacity for discovery related to their purpose development process. Teachers described challenges to implementing a purpose curriculum but valued the benefits they saw for students and appreciated the structure a purpose curriculum provides for teaching students about pursuing a meaningful future direction. In this presentation, we will discuss these and additional findings, and provide the opportunity to discuss the challenges and benefits in providing purpose learning programs in high school.