Dynamic young speaker
meets
teens where they are
Karyn Gordon helps teens make journey to self-esteem
By Debra Fieguth ChristianWeek staff
NEWMARKET, ON–She’s young, she’s smart, she’s attractive, and for the past year and a half she has been compelling teenage audiences with advice on self-esteem.
Yet a mere decade ago Karyn Gordon was shy and unsure of herself. Teachers thought she had a learning disability. She wasn’t good at sports. One day in grade 9, after failing her first exam, she remembers walking home from school "with this 38% in my pocket, thinking, ‘I have a choice.’"
Gordon became proactive. She got extra help with her schoolwork. And at 14, "I started praying that my life would be a miracle."
Her grades improved dramatically, and after high school she fast-tracked through university, earning a BA in psychology and entering the Counselling program at Ontario Theological Seminary. While working part-time at a medical centre she began to see a need among teenagers.
"There seemed to be a huge problem," she says. Most of the teens she worked with "suffered from very low self-esteem."
It seemed nothing was being done about it. So in the fall of 1996, while still in seminary, Gordon designed a workshop for small groups, approached a few high schools, and before she knew it, she was booked to run her workshop, called Mission Possible, 20 times in one month.
The need was so overwhelming that Gordon, who turned 24 last month, later changed the format to reach large assemblies. Since graduating with her Master’s in Counselling last spring, she has turned the project into a fulltime career.
Using a talk-show set-up called "Spill your guts," Gordon recruits several volunteers at each assembly, giving them 30 seconds to look over a character sketch before interviewing them in front of the crowd. "They have to make up situations," Gordon explains, "and they usually make up situations they’ve experienced."
She also gets the teens to look at their own lives, placing themselves on a self-esteem scale. Then she has them think about the possibilities. "The problem with people with low self-esteem," she points out, "is they can tell you every single thing they’re bad at, but not what they’re good at." She encourages them to write down what they’re good at, and to think about where they want to go.
She then tells them about her own journey from low self-esteem to confidence. She’s honest about growing up with loving parents and a strong faith, because "there’s no question my Christian faith–being loved by God–had a huge impact on my self-esteem."
At first she struggled with how much to share from a Christian perspective. But one day a 16-year-old boy told her, in front of a school assembly, and not knowing she was a Christian, "I want to win my friend to Christ, and I’m not sure if I can do it." Gordon responded that you can’t make someone receive Christ, but, learning he was praying for his friend, suggested he increase his prayer.
After that encounter, Gordon decided to share her faith in every school. She has never been criticized for it.
The response from teens has confirmed Gordon’s mission. Some write her letters or talk to her after the workshop. More than once a teen has approached Gordon to say, "thank you so much. I tried to commit suicide last night."
"There’s such a cry for help."
Gordon has since expanded her program to include workshops for teachers, parents and others who deal with teens. With a team of a dozen volunteers, she is launching a newspaper this month that will include a "Dear Karyn" advice column. She also has a database of 400 teens who want to keep in touch with her.
Looking back at the past year and a half, Gordon articulates her mission in one simple sentence: "When you find a need, [ask yourself] ‘what can I do to fill that need?’"
Thousands of Ontario teens have an answer to that question.
