Answers will vary, encouraging a good discussion. Have them identify each statement as one type of goal: immediate, short-term, long-term, or lifelong. Provide students with a situation (having breakfast, completing an assignment, getting up, writing a letter, enrolling in college,getting married, getting a job, etc.). Following are a few goal-setting resources to be used with different types of instructional objectives (writing, arguing, explaining, teamwork, self-realization, organizing, presenting, and more) and different students:ġ. Goal setting, or talking about what you really want through any other kind of process that suits you, can be very self-revealing, and it can guide instruction and learning as few other activities can. Is your long-term goal not to look stupid? 'I don't want to look stupid.' Do you think you look stupid now? Tell me more.'I will please my parents.' How so? Is your long-term goal to please your parents? Do you agree with them? If not, let's talk about you! Maybe pleasing your parents is what you want to do now, and that makes you happy!.

'I can get a job.' Really? What kind of job will your GED get you? Is your long-term goal to get a job?.

Students will provide very different responses to that question. George claims, 'My goal for enrolling here is to pass my GED.' Is that enough for George? Might discussing that concept further be useful both as a personal growth tool and as an educational tool? What does 'pass my GED' mean to George? Some might call short-term goals 'objectives.' What's in a name?! Call them blue wants, green wants, pink wants, and purple wants, and they could represent the same concepts.

In our dominant American way of thinking and organizing thoughts, goals can be described in terms of time: life goals, long-term goals, short-term goals, immediate goals. The process of goal setting/identification (identifying what you think will make you happy) can be very informative and invaluable as we interact as learners. In the meantime, we think we want things for certain reasons, all of which will make us happy. That's what most of us are taught to believe. We strive to be happy, and we confuse having things (money, homes, jobs, toys, wealth, education, travel, friends, time, youth, health, fitness, family, sex, stability, food, beauty) with being happy. In all likelyhood, we are like our students. So would you say that your goal is to be happy or to have one-million dollars? If you had a choice between being happy and having a million dollars, which would you choose? You might write, 'I want one-million dollars.' Why? 'It will make me happy.' Hmmm.

The good fairy tells you, 'Make a list of what you want at the end of five years, and I'll grant you each item, as long as you are sure that (1) you really want it, and (2) you explain why you want it.' What does your list look like?

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