Genealogical Tree of Professions

A Strategy for the Construction of the Adolescent’s Life Purpose

Abstract

The construction of a life purpose (LP) by adolescents can direct their behaviors towards more pleasurable and healthy activities that will give meaning to their lives and a perspective of future. Having a PV can also drive young out of harmful situations, such as drug use and other risk behaviors. Despite their importance, educational practices that are aimed at helping adolescents to build their PV are rare. The objective of this paper is to present an activity developed in a classroom with students from the third year of High School from 2013 to 2017 that aims to assist in the construction of the PV from dialogues with their relatives. The adolescents were asked to build a genealogical tree of the professions of their relatives, in which they could include friends. Next, adolescents should ask each person who inserted the following questions into their tree: What profession followed?; What profession did you want to follow? What profession do you admire?; Which profession suggests that the adolescent follow?. At another time, the results of the tree questions were presented and discussed with the group. The results showed that this activity promoted: (a) closer bonding with family members; (b) knowledge of various professions; (c) understanding of their expectations and anxieties, especially when they have relations with the expectations and anxieties of their family members; (d) elaboration of their PV with the help of the knowledge and experience of others close to them. In this sense, the genealogical tree of the professions emphasized the importance of the family for the construction of the PV and it was a strategy of easy application and favorable to the development of the life projects of the students. It should be noted, however, that other aspects should be taken into account in order to think about the PV of the adolescent beyond the professional choice