North atlantic scrod with quaker state

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Course Learning Outcomes for Unit

Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:

1. Express and understand what is meant by the term vocation. 2. Assess one’s own gifts, passions, and interests and where they might meet the world’s need. 3. Assess the role education has had in one’s life to breed conformity and to develop one’s uniqueness. 4. Hear the many and varied calls that are part of daily living. 5. Express in writing one’s current vocational understanding.

Reading Assignment

Leading Lives that Matter: What We Should Do and Who We Should Be

"Vocation", p. 111-112

"The Giver", p. 386-394

"I Hear Them…Calling", p. 395-403

Good Will Hunting, p. 322_329

Unit Lesson

Vocation literally means calling, and that is the point. Life is structured in such a way as to actually call us to be and to do. Callings are very real, and we experience them all the time. A child crying in the night is a call to mom or dad to change a diaper, feed, or calm after a bad dream. A want add in the newspaper that speaks to you is a call. Those pants getting a bit tight and the number when you step on the scale may be a call to eat better and exercise more. When the phone rings and it is someone from the company with which you interviewed last week for a job, and the person on the other end of the line says, “We’d like to offer you the job,” that is a call. We hear calls all the time. The question being addressed here is to which voices to listen, especially when listening for the call about how to earn a living.

There are a variety of voices that should be helpful in this case—parents, siblings, spouses, other relatives, close friends, and teachers. The key here is listening to people who both know you and care about you. These people will have a sense of what sort of work “fits” who you are. Reports cards, aptitude tests, career interest inventories, and the like may also whisper calls into your ears.

The first reading assigned is a really just a definition of vocation. Frederick Buechner lists three elements to the idea of vocation: (1) it is a call from God, (2) it is something you must do—something true to who you are, and (3) it fulfills a legitimate need of the world. This is the primary understanding of vocation that is used throughout this course.

In the selection from Lois Lowry’s, The Giver, vocation is explored in a fictional community of the future in which leaders of the community are charged with getting to know the youth of the community and assigning each to a specific career that fits the gifts and personality of the youth and the needs of the community. The book notes an interesting disjuncture that happens in the education process. Early education is geared toward inculcating socially accepted behaviors, the goal being that the student may learn to “fit-in.” Then education

UNIT STUDY GUIDE

Vocation & Hearing One's Callings

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UNIT x STUDY GUIDE

Title takes a turn, and one’s differences and uniqueness is sought, and then developed so that one can “stand-out” and contribute to society in a unique way.

In “I Hear Them…Calling,” Vincent Harding gives expression to the idea that vocation is not static but extraordinarily dynamic as he recounts the twist and turns vocation takes as he progresses through life. His story highlights the power of a community of faith in his formative years, as well as the role race played in closing the door on certainly callings and being the very reason to hear others. He concludes early on that, “callings are strange things,” but despite the strangeness of callings and where they lead, there is behind them finally one voice, and that voice is God’s.

Lastly, you are asked to read two sections from the screenplay for the academy award winning film, Good Will Hunting. Before embarking upon this reading, it is strongly suggested that you watch the film and then concentrate on these vocational passages. Sean, Will’s therapist, and Chuckie, Will’s best friend, both push Will to consider what his great passions and interests are in trying to determine what to do to earn a living. Neither Sean nor Chuckie will let Will ignore who he is, the incredible gifts he has, and the fact that they bring a special responsibility.