THEORY OF CHANGE
MyScore is built on a narrative theory of change.
The outcome we aim for in our work is a new story, a new frame of meaning, rather than just a new set of skills. Or put in another way, if we insist on skills, the new set of skills we impart to our students and that comes from the mentoring is interpretive skills, a new applied hermeneutic that better honors their human experience.
We want to invite our students to see
and hear their lives differently. Instead of seeing their struggle as signaling
failure or always being a victim, oppressed by trauma, disadvantage and despair,
they come to see themselves inhabiting the story of a courageous and successful
life learner. (SLL) That is not to underestimate their circumstances or the
serious disadvantages they face, but to help create a belief that adversity does not have to define them. That
is the point of the intervention that Project CHANGE is instigating through its
members. Why is that important? Because life, as William James writes, can
change if we can change our attitude to it. He wrote, “The
greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by
altering his attitudes.”
STORY AS OUTCOME- NOT IMPACT
As a result of the mentoring, advocacy, and continuing emotional support that a
member gives a struggling student over a year, that student will grow into to a
truer, deeper, and surer self-awareness
(“I believe in me”.) That includes their attitude to their emerging
identity, their own ability to learn, to get along with others, and to cope
with the challenges that life inevitably throws at them, and all of us. Challenges might impact this population more
significantly because our clients, through no fault of their own, often start
from behind. As a result of our service, the students will have a better chance
of shaping a larger future for themselves. It is less a goal to be achieved
than a life orientation to be adopted, or a direction that we encourage the
student to move toward, to replace a deficit mindset with a growth mindset. In
the final analysis, the best evaluator of that change is the students
themselves. They must be able to claim it to live it. What matters is
not what others know about themselves from outside, but what they know and live
on the inside. That is how they will show up and shine through.