The Real Me

Aim: This is a light-hearted survey of interpersonal values. It is designed to help

young people identify the kind of social relationships they currently value and which
people often seek in work.

In planning a group project, the exercise can be useful to help students discuss the
potential role of members within that team.

Materials: Print one copy of the Real Me questionnaire per student.

Procedure. Students complete the questionnaire individually and then score it

according to the following guidelines:

! Make sure that each of the 36 items has been graded by circling the appropriate
! number. There are six scales and they are totalled as follows:

! Add together the scores given to the first item in each of the six blocks. Mark
! the total in the top scale of the scoring box below the quiz.

! Now do the same for the second item in each block, marking the total on the
! second scale. Continue with the third, fourth, fifth and sixth item in each
! block and mark the totals on the scales.

! A colour textliner could be used to produce a horizontal bar chart of the

! scores on the scales. This would help students to compare their scores.

A brief description of the six scales

1 Independent. Often preferred by those who are rather self-contained, like working
alone at tasks and prefer their own company. In a group exercise, could this be the
ideas person or even the quality controller? May wander off to do their own thing so
how else might you involve this person?

2 Attention-seeking. Usually selected by those who enjoy being the centre of

attention. May be just the person to sell the team or its services to others. How would
you keep this person occupied when their behaviour becomes an embarrassment?

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3 Organising. Preferred by those who enjoy leading, advising, or persuading.
A real problem could arise if there are too many leaders in the group. Could the
leadership role be shared in some way?

4 Mixing A good indicator of those who enjoy teamwork. Sociable and friendly,
possibly a jack-of-all-trades. But is there a possibility that they will jog along and
edge out of the way if any problems arise?

5 Helping The sign of a caring and supportive team member. A morale booster when
things go wrong. Nice people to have around but not if they start having meetings
and writing reports.

As with an occupational interests guide, there are no right or wrong answers but
research with this type of material has shown that over-use of the ‘Not Sure’ category,
is often associated with an inability to make decisions and the lack of a clear image.
With younger students, this is entirely understandable; individual profiles usually
become more differentiated with age and maturity.

Job Links. Encourage students to identify jobs in which the social behaviours listed
might be an advantage, eg

Independent: Working at home, security guard, underground driving, writing,

product testing, laboratory research, optician (testing), forestry, farming

Attention seeking: sales work, demonstrating, auctioneering, entertaining,

modelling, acting, dancing, tourist guiding, politics etc

Organising: Teaching, policing, firefighting, coaching sports, management, trade

union activities, A&E hospital duties

Mixing: Professional team sports, ship’s crew, supermarket work, armed forces,
building and construction, oil rig work, hotel and catering

Helping: Medicine, social work, care worker, home help, children’s nursing,
information centre, call centre work,

Encourage the students to think of these as skills. Emphasise just how valuable it is to
be adaptable and have the ability to work alone, to capture people’s attention, to
organise them, to work in a team, and to have concern for others. In this respect, the

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job of a teacher is an ideal example! This leads to a consideration of how such
abilities can be developed at school and in home or community activities.

Work skills

In any discussion linking interests or attitudes to occupations, it is also important to

encourage students to think about the core skills demanded by different jobs and how
these are developed through school and extra curriculum activities.

A set of work photographs or illustrations can be a useful aid to such a discussion.

Having identified the name of the job job, encourage pupils to work out the main
daily tasks or demands of the work. A basic checklist such as the one which follows
should ensure that nothing is overlooked.

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Practical skills: making, mending, assembling, repairing
Social skills: talking and listening to others, helping, caring, advising
Scientific skills: puzzling out how or why things work, researching.
Office & administrative skills: working with facts and figures
Outdoor & active skills: physical fitness, strength, mobility
Sales and service skills: persuading, demonstrating, explaining, serving
Managing skills: organising, leading, planning.
Literary skills: reading, writing, communicating, speaking
Artistic skills: designing, illustrating, displaying, entertaining

It is also worth considering the possible difficulties and distastes which may come
from the work, but pointing out that what is found challenging is not necessarily
unpleasant.

For further ideas and exercises relating to different jobs and the demands they make,
see Junior Jobmatch! freely available from the same publishing site on scribd.com