A Self-esteem And Motivational Program for Young People

An Innovative Program that Works!

"I Can Do If Too!" is a self-esteem and motivational program developed expressly for young people. Initially, this program tested the idea of setting poems to music in a rap-like style. Each poem has specific values or principles that are important for young people to understand. By packaging the poems in a rap-like style, using standard English, and clear positive messages, the messages were able to reach students who otherwise might not have been reachable.

Introduced in 1990, it was successfully piloted in the Philadelphia School system. This program is used in more than 100 schools in the Philadelphia area and is rapidly expanding to schools in other cities. The material has been used in classrooms and workshops for teachers and students in grades K through 12. The feedback on this material and workshops is very positive and encouraging. Teachers, who initially said that they hated rap, realized that this is a fresh approach to teaching young people about important values. Not only did the teachers like it but they could understand it. More importantly, the students like it, understand it and learn from it, In short it’ works.

Building self-esteem alone is not the total solution to helping students achieve. We must challenge them and make them think. We need to "pull the coattails" of young people and mentor them on survival skills for today. The "I Can Do lt Too!" program includes activities, exercises and information to help the students prepared for life after school. Life Skills and School to Career information cover those topics that students do not typically cover in school. It is important that students feel good about themselves but it is equally important that they learn those practical things that will help them survive in this world today. In addition, a Career Planning Guide for students is included to help students think and plan for their future. This planning guide provides all of the information needed to introduce students to career planning. It can he used at anytime by the teachers and is an excellent way to introduce students to career planning.

Included in the Teacher’s Resource Manual is the Suggested Assessment Strategies section. Assessment should be on going and varied to identify a student’s strengths and areas of needed support. To document intangibles such as self’-esteem, a pre-post survey (test) with a scoring guide to show change is suggested. Pre-Post survey forms, an "I Can Do it Too!" Scoring Guide and a Program Evaluation form are included to help in the evaluating of the overall effectiveness of this program.

The potential of the "I Can Do It Too!" program is only limited by the imagination of the teachers or facilitator who use this material! This program is flexible and allows teachers to pick and choose the parts of the program that is applicable to their lesson plans.