What did the adults gain from mentoring the "Future Jobs School" for 14-year-olds?

The "Future Jobs School" workshop conducted by Nippon TV R&D Lab and Dentsu Group's cross-organizational " Future Business Creation Lab ".
Through an initiative where second-year junior high students, rather than focusing on existing occupations, considered "occupations that would improve the future" while examining contemporary challenges, we challenged ourselves with forward-thinking and fresh career education.

In our previous article, we shared insights from the two core organizers of this workshop about the challenges that inspired the project, the origins of their ideas, and future plans. This time, we interviewed seven members who participated as "mentors" in this project. Akane Yamada from Dentsu Inc., who also served as a mentor, shares their insights and lessons learned while working with the children, incorporating the voices of all seven mentors.

Adults Gathered by the Idea of "Future Job School"

This year, the "Future Career School" was held at Tsukuba Municipal Midori Gakuen Compulsory Education School.
The mentors' role was to facilitate sessions to help participants expand their ideas, foster a comfortable atmosphere for discussion, and particularly amplify positive elements from participants' opinions to support the deepening of ideas.

The following four points were thoroughly emphasized beforehand as "Mentor Guidelines":

Mentors refrained from expressing their own opinions, instead striving to stimulate the children's thinking by digging deeper into ideas, broadening perspectives, and offering hints for improvement. By engaging with these 14-year-old second-year junior high students—at that exquisite age—the mentors themselves gained surprising insights, exclaiming, "Wow, that's the kind of impact we had!?"

During interviews, mentors shared insights unique to their experience: impressions of the Future Job School project, reasons for participating, feelings and discoveries from working with the children, and things they want to keep in mind as adults to contribute to the future.

"The thought of them not encountering their 'dream job' sends shivers down my spine," "I want to tell them that they can shape the future however they want." Reasons for Volunteering as a Mentor

While each mentor had their own reason for participating, product designer Takashi Nemoto recalled his own encounter with his profession, which sparked his interest and empathy for the project.

I became a product designer because, at around 3 or 4 years old, my parents took me to the Tsukuba Expo, where I learned about Luigi Colani, a German product designer. That's when I discovered there was a job that decides the shape of things. In my case, I was fortunate to encounter the career I wanted. But thinking about how I would have searched for my dream job as a middle or high school student without that encounter makes me shudder.

I decided to participate because I hope that by creating opportunities like the Future Career School for children at that awkward age of 14—neither quite child nor fully adult—they might not think much of it then, but perhaps recall it later as high school or college students and find it useful.
In recent years, while there's a tendency to favor solid, stable careers, I also deeply resonated with the idea of creating a chance for people to envision and pursue a "job that doesn't exist yet" – one they truly want to become.

The idea of the Future Career School perfectly aligned with the vague concerns I'd been pondering.

I myself spent my adolescence solely focused on exam preparation, attending a school geared toward university entrance. While I believe I diligently completed the tasks assigned to me as a student, entering society revealed that grades aren't the only measure, and the right answers are ones you create yourself. It was a revelation to realize how crucial it is to engage passionately with whatever captures your curiosity, exposed to diverse values.

After hitting walls and struggling intensely while considering my own career path, I obtained a career consultant certification during my childcare leave. I began thinking: eventually, I want to change career education. By sharing experiences directly with students from adults navigating society's rough waters, I want them to learn about diverse options. I want to help each student decide how to spend their time now and chart their future path in a way that feels right to them. I joined hoping that even if it meant serving as a cautionary tale—like saying, "I studied so hard, but this is how it turned out"—I could offer students something valuable.

"My awareness of the challenges is heightened as a parent of an elementary school child," shared researcher Yoko Kudo.

Compared to when I was a child, kids today have less freedom. Back then, there was a flow of creating new games, but now there's no sign of that. With so many extracurricular activities, even few children play in parks. I felt this situation makes it hard for them to develop confidence and a sense of self-efficacy.

Freely thinking about the future broadens choices, and creating something from that is creativity. I thought the ability to foster hope for the future was a positive aspect.

Having middle schoolers freely imagine what they'd like to see in the future builds confidence and imagination. As a parent, I thought, "That's great." While I believe there are things I can do "as a parent" in my personal life to address the challenge of children struggling with self-esteem and self-efficacy, I also realized there are things I can do "as a working adult" by being a mentor at the Future School.

The Effects and Benefits of Imagining "Jobs That Don't Exist Yet"

During the workshop, many children struggled to come up with other ideas after initially proposing a rough concept, making it difficult to encourage flexible thinking. I felt that Japan's open future requires not only teaching fixed answers in school education but also training in switching perspectives – like "discarding an idea once proposed" – and thinking about things that don't exist yet with no single correct answer.

Amidst this, copywriter/associate producer Aki Kimura shared that she was pleasantly surprised by the unique perspectives that came specifically from middle schoolers.

"It was fascinating that, given the premise that 'non-existent jobs' were acceptable, they came up with such free-spirited ideas—things I thought probably wouldn't happen in my lifetime.

Only middle schoolers, with their free-thinking abilities, can come up with such wildly out-there ideas. That said, they're at a perfect age where their ideas aren't as disjointed as elementary schoolers', and they can still present their background concepts clearly. For adults who tend to filter things through the lens of "feasibility," the children's free thinking was truly astonishing.

The skill required to draw out flexible thinking helps adults grow too.

Each of us had to grapple with how to advise the children while interacting with them. Producer/Planner Takashi Chiba and Business Planner/Engineer Ikuo Yasaki shared the following insights:

Figuring out what to praise in each child and what elements to provide to deepen their thinking was tough because it's different for everyone! We had to carefully consider what would resonate with each child while talking.

Even among 14-year-olds, their interests vary, and when considering them as a bridge between adults and children, their leanings differ too—which was fascinating. Also, as we talked, I noticed moments where they'd seem mature one second and suddenly have a childlike expression the next—truly a delicate age.

During the consultation, I thought it might be better to break the ice, so I consciously included small talk. I also replaced suggestions like "You should do it this way" with examples from romance or club activities that middle schoolers could easily imagine.

The age gap made it challenging, but this approach seemed to resonate better. Sharing what I would have wanted to do at 14 also felt like it closed the distance, and mentoring was a learning experience for me.

Communicating with people from a different community and generation than usual provided many learning opportunities. Especially as a mentor at Mirai Vocational School, where the goal is to draw out the mentee's thoughts and support the development of their ideas without overstepping, deeper communication is essential.

One mentor remarked how challenging it was to phrase things so children wouldn't perceive it as criticism.

It's just one suggestion: "Wouldn't it be better if you tried this?" They can take it as a reference, or if it doesn't feel right, they can just ignore it. Building that sense of trust with the children was essential. And in this Future Career School, we had to build that trust within a limited timeframe – essentially, just the hour or so we spent together in an online meeting. I felt this was where our skills really came into play.

The Effectiveness and Benefits of Learning from Engaging with "14-Year-Olds" – Neither Fully Adult nor Child

As mentioned in the previous article, the age of 14 is a key point in the Future Career School. Senior Producer Akie Sekijima and others shared their candid thoughts on interacting with these students, who exist in the space between adulthood and childhood:

Fourteenth-year-olds, in their second year of junior high, are at an unstable time for their minds and bodies, often struggling within the narrow worlds of home and school. Amidst this, the opportunity to share their thoughts with adults completely unrelated to them—parents or teachers—and receive praise, thereby nurturing their self-esteem, might have a more positive impact than career education alone.

Some thought about things logically like adults, while others imagined jobs they wished existed with pure innocence. Since 14 is such a delicate age, treating them like children is definitely not good; interacting as equals felt best. At the same time, it was challenging to gauge how much jargon or specific language to use when explaining things to them.

Even as adults, we may have things we want to teach or convey to children and students, but without a teaching license, opportunities to do so are rare. In that sense, this was a valuable experience.

For Both the Praiser and the Praised!? The Effects and Benefits of "Praise"

As mentioned at the beginning, one theme for the members acting as mentors this time was "praise." Consciously applying this while interacting with participants led to various discoveries for the praising party as well.

Looking back, I realized that "praising" is fundamentally the same as the core principle of advertising: "finding the good points and communicating them." I discovered that this is something I've always been doing.

Considering the strengths of a product, the strengths of the current situation, and the strengths of an idea. The daily work of advertising is a continuous process of "finding strengths." Precisely because Dentsu Inc. has been creating advertising for so many years, I believe we can communicate the importance of this "Future School" project and the underlying concept of "praising." It became a catalyst for thinking that we can spread this message by starting with what's within our reach and steadily putting it into practice.

Adults are no different—when your own ideas are praised, it brings joy and builds confidence. Furthermore, learning about other students' ideas on the same theme seemed to foster new perspectives and greater understanding of others. Since we worked in teams, simply seeing or hearing others praised created an effect where the whole class felt acknowledged.

Giving praise also boosts the praiser's motivation. Seeing the other person happy made me feel happy too. I also gained a sense of fulfillment, different from when I'm praised myself, like I'd created something joyful.

It's said that the very act of "consciously giving praise" activates the brain. Seeing the other person happy or motivated after being praised allows you to feel a tangible "result" of your own action, bringing a sense of fulfillment and happiness. This has a positive impact on the adults serving as mentors too.

Mr. Kudo also shared an interesting perspective on the position and relationship of a "mentor" to children.

You know how we describe children's relationships using the terms "vertical, horizontal, and diagonal relationships"? For children, vertical relationships like parents or homeroom teachers, and horizontal relationships like friends, are often cited. But relationships with adults who are neither parents, teachers, nor friends are "diagonal relationships." I believe the Future Job School is precisely the kind of initiative that can create these diagonal relationships.

The Future Career School offers rich learning opportunities for mentors as well. The greater the diversity among the adults serving as mentors, the more varied their insights become, providing valuable stimulation for the students. We are now reconsidering how to broaden our framework for recruiting mentors.

Recruiting partners to create a better future! The Future of Future Career School

In recent years, the "GIGA School Initiative" has introduced one-to-one devices and cloud environments, eliminating time and location constraints and making it easier for society and schools to connect.

We don't want the "Future Career School," a joint initiative between schools and companies, to end after just one or two sessions. We want it to be an effort that spreads to children across Japan. We plan to establish a permanent "Future Jobs" submission site. Similar to a "Children's Telephone Counseling Room," mentors will respond to inquiries posted there. Depending on the content, we will connect them with experts, seriously deepen research, pursue commercialization, and connect them to realization—an attempt to sow seeds for the future. After completing the first workshop, we mentors are considering such future developments.

It's vital for people to believe, "We can create the future we want." We want to increase the number of people who think, "Let's build the future our way," and expand the community of people connected to this vision.

Currently, our workshops target businesses and clients, but we realized our audience isn't limited to companies. Even in corporate workshops, when we shift from grounded discussions about assets like strengths or forecast planning to backcasting—envisioning the future we want to become—we witness participants' eyes light up with genuine enthusiasm.

Thinking about the future is exciting and fun. "The future we want to create is one we can build ourselves." I believe it would be great to increase the number of partners who share this mindset and move forward together, not just with companies.

This led to discussions about what kind of chemical reaction the "Future Career School" could spark for students like high school and college students approaching employment. We are considering expanding it beyond middle schools to various types of schools.

Furthermore, solution planner Emi Iwashita proposed an idea for a "Future Career School" that would dramatically shift generations.

In this era of 100-year lifespans, it would be interesting to shift the age focus and create a Future Career School for middle-aged and senior adults, targeting those in their 50s and 60s. We also thought a "Future Career School" where people whose desired jobs don't exist in companies can create new job types themselves would be valuable.

We are considering not only increasing the number of participating students but also expanding the circle of mentors. We discovered numerous benefits gained from serving as mentors, starting with the act of giving praise, and we want to explore ways to utilize this model for training programs aimed at business professionals.

Our desire to expand the "Future Career School" project, involving a wide range of companies and diverse schools and institutions, has only grown stronger.
We at Mirai Business Creation Lab are actively seeking partners who want to create the future they envision and collaborate with the generation that will shape it!

[Contact] info@dentsumirai.com