Pathways to Success: Hope

To ensure that students develop concrete, actionable goals that will motivate them to stay on the path to post-secondary success, Pathways to Success schools will use a research validated personal development program, Possible Selves (Cross & Markus, 1994; Markus & Nurius, 1986; Hock, Schumaker & Deshler, in press) to enable students to reflect on their hopes, expectations, and fears; create a personal mission statement; set long- and short-term goals; and continually explore ways in which they can expand, modify, or change their goals and the plans they develop for achieving them. Additionally, students will have an opportunity to establish a personal connection with mentors employed by one of many community corporations that have agreed to partner with the Pathways to Success project to establish an internet mentoring project and draw on their mentors' expertise to develop detailed, personal action plans for step by step progress toward the realization of their dreams. This component of the project will be operationalized by the International Telementoring Center. Possible Selves thus will be an integral part of each student's education as they progress through grades and achieve their goals.