(You can find the full text of the 3LPlace Curriculum section on Self-Awareness here.)

By the time students begin work on this module, they should have enough self-awareness to embark on the next two steps of their personal growth:

• Developing more sophisticated use of newly learned skills
• Integrating new abilities
• Developing a more sophisticated use of acquired skills begins with a searching examination of their inner worlds. Part One of this module, Understanding of the Self, contains a process designed to facilitate this.

Education reformist David Perkins defines understanding as “… being able to use what you know flexibly in unfamiliar situations or to address new problems.” (Perkins 1998).

Meaningful self-understanding informs our choices and helps us gravitate to people, activities, relationships, professions, passions and environments that we find life-affirming and meaningful. 

Part One does not need to be completed before beginning Part Two, Development of the Self. Once results from Understanding of the Self (i.e., self-understanding) have appeared, Part Two can be started.

Part Two encourages students to dream about their lives and the kinds of people they would like to be. At this point, many students are able to start making decisions and to set goals that are in harmony with their needs, desires, strengths and challenges. With this context, goals are more fulfilling and successful.

By working on self-understanding through active exploration, students become empowered as they approach adulthood. They become agents of positive change within themselves and for others in many life situations.

The goals of this module are to:

• Deepen self-awareness
• Achieve an understanding that personal growth is an ongoing, dynamic process of trial and error, learning, reflection and self-evaluation.
• Provide tools and coping-mechanisms to manage factors that interfere with positive, meaningful self-awareness – such as self-criticism, self-doubt and low self-esteem
• Provide creative methods for helping individuals maintain self-awareness
• Link self-awareness to interactions and experiences with others.
• Increase understanding of oneself in a wide variety of contexts: activities, tasks, different environments, situations, choices, decision-making, problem-solving, etc.
• Learn to create goals aligned with one’s own needs; how to enhance one’s experiences; how to open avenues for change and opportunity (personal, interpersonal, creative, recreational, educational, work and career, independence)
• Learn to use new self-awareness to increase self-advocacy and self-care.{REMARKS BOX}

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