I have had the honor and pleasure of serving students in other countries in various capacities, and those experiences are part of the foundation of Law School for Teens. Allow me to share the story with you.
Back in 2017, I was emotionally burned out. I had been teaching high school for five years while going to law school, and then after graduating law school and passing the bar exam, I jumped right into starting my own law firm.
On top of that, I had been coaching high school basketball and running a volunteer organization to support teachers in my school.
And as school wrapped up that May 2017, I was weary. To my bones.
I needed to escape, and found an organization called Limited Resource Teacher Training (now called Inspiring Teachers) that allowed me to get away from my current environment and try a different environment – Bangalore, India.
After a short stopover in Oban, Scotland, for a week to recharge my batteries, I arrived in Bangalore, India, for the month of July 2017 ready to serve teachers. And it was amazing.
I was there to collaborate with teachers who served students in a limited resource area (hence the name of the charity). The experience was great, but the overwhelming feeling of just being a drop in the bucket went with me as I left. You can see more about that experience in a video here.
When I returned, I realized that I had a heart for serving students in need, but I was not properly equipped to serve at the highest level. I went in search of a way to grow so I could be better at equipping others. That trip was the soil and foundation for what would grow into Law School for Teens.
That led me to the Maxwell Leadership Team (MLT). The MLT taught me to be a better leader. I already have a natural giftedness in this area, but the framework that John Maxwell’s teachings give me helped launch me to another level – but that is a different story.
The MLT also has opportunities to serve in other countries teaching values to transform other countries. You can find out more about this process in Maxwell’s book, Change Your World, but I will give you the gist here.
The highest representative calls John Maxwell and asks for his team to come to their country to teach transformational values to their people. This means the President of a country or the Prime Minister, or whatever title they hold, must take action to make this happen.
As I write this, 24 or 25 countries have made that call, but there is a vetting process. You can find out about that process if you’re interested in Change Your World (I swear I am not paid to advertise for that book – but I would recommend it!), but the MLT has been in Guatemala, Costa Rica, Paraguay, the Dominican Republic, and Papua New Guinea.
In July 2023, 150 of the MLT coaches will be in Panama opening the sixth country to transformation. Our goal will be to serve the citizens of Panama in training them on how to be facilitators in transformation tables teaching important values that the citizens of Panama choose for themselves.
It’s an awesome experience, and I’ve had the chance to go on three of these trips (with my fourth coming up in July). I want to tell you about two moments from those trips that have helped lay the foundation for Law School for Teens.
The first happened on my first Transformation Trip in May 2019. We were going into schools in Asuncion, Paraguay, and teaching students how to do the iLead curriculum, which helps instruct students about values and helping them see their worth as people.
A team leader asked me to roll with another guy to downtown Asuncion to work with a high school there. Of course, I said yes. My team leader said, “Great, but be back before nightfall.”
“Why?” I asked. “Well, it gets a bit dangerous. That is why I asked for you two – you guys are former military.” I just laughed and said okay, not really believing that it was that bad.
Well, as we drove from our posh hotel to the high school, the city conditions deteriorated significantly. The neighborhoods looked less prosperous, the houses were jammed closer together, and trash started to show up in bigger and bigger piles.
By the time we arrived at the school in question, I understood what the team leader meant.
As we started our lessons, though, I remembered why I was there. Within a few minutes of talking through a translator (they spoke Spanish and I do not!), the kids were engaged and asking questions. We laughed and shared stories.
They loved the book they received for the lessons, and they loved the content right away – they saw the value of what we were doing and what they could become.
My favorite picture ever was taken that day (at the top of this post). I spent 45 minutes in that classroom, but those kids changed my life forever. I hope I had a similar effect on them.
I left Asuncion with an idea forming in my mind – what can we do to help those kids be more successful. That idea was the seed for Law School for Teens.
One of the last experiences that pushed me towards creating Law School for Teens was discovered in my first trip to the Dominican Republic with the MLT in November 2021. I was tasked with a partner to go off and teach facilitators how to do Transformation Tables in Santiago, Dominican Republic.
And that was when I found out about the Kites of Hope Foundation (Fundacion Cometas de Esperanza), a foundation that serves students who were forced to find much of their livelihood in the biggest landfill in Santiago.
Over about fifteen years, this foundation had grown to be able to serve 300 plus students, get them out of the landfill (which was incredibly dangerous as well as unhealthy for the students), and get them into schools and improve their lives all around.
And these people thanked us for helping them! As if every day they weren’t making an incredible impact on the students in their community.
My thought after we left that wonderful place was again, how do we get tools in the hands of people who want to make the lives of others better that will help them accomplish their goal?
And that answer is Law School for Teens. Why? Because Law School for Teens will help teach kids how to think as well as understand how rules of a society are created and function. Along the way, they will learn to read better, think more clearly, and more deeply understand the world around them.
And that is another piece to the journey that has led me to create Law School for Teens, a business that I hope will raise up kids everywhere in their understanding of themselves, their community, and their society.
Until next time, Mike Traywick