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Strengths Explorer: Discoverer

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A thinker, a learner, you are excited about exploring ideas and making connections. You like to ask the questions “How?” and “Why?”
Clifton Strengths Explorer

Students with the Discoverer theme have a natural curiosity. They like to ask questions and seek answers. They love to learn. This learning may be best inside a classroom or out in the dirt. They are passionate and can often get fixated on one topic or subject in their quest for answers. Gallup puts it this way, “It is fun to be an expert, and when you find a subject or idea you like, you can spend a lot of time exploring it.”

Gallup writes about students with Discoverer, “You might be bored doing things the same way everyone else does because you like to find new ways.” Because of this, students will Discoverer might not seem like great “students.” They may challenge the rules, be disengaged in the classroom, and not even get good grades. One mentee we met this last year who had Discoverer in his SE themes drew this picture. He described in this image, he is on his own discovering a new island no one new existed. He said his favorite place to learn was outside and his least favorite place was inside. He is a curious kid and wants to know more about the world. Where a teacher may not have the time and space to allow this curiosity to run rampant in class, we as mentors get the awesome privilege of allowing our mentees to be exactly who they are during our mentoring time. If that means going outside and looking for bugs on the school property for an hour, there’s no place I would rather be.




If your mentee is one of the 25% of TeamMates mentees with Discoverer in their Top 3 SE Themes, they are learning all the time; but asking them “what are you learning?” may be perceived by your mentee as, “tell me about your homework.” Instead, reframe your conversation by asking, “what is your favorite new idea of the week?” Ask your mentee, “who is your favorite person to ask questions? What does he or she know about?” You might find more about what gives your mentee passion by learning with whom they’re discussing their curiosity. Finally, we always love to support any use of “nexting” or “futurecasting” with our mentees, because hope is such a powerful indicator of successful youth. Ask your curious mentee, “what is something you want to learn more about?” Then discuss whether or not that’s something you could learn about together. Remember, youth with Discoverer never stop asking questions, regardless of whether they are voicing those questions aloud. Allow your mentoring time to be a place where those questions can run free; you’ll find yourself learning and growing right alongside of your mentee.

-Tess


If you are interesting in guest blogging about one of your top 5 strengths for our 2017-2018 StrengthsQuest blog series, email Tess at tstarman@teammates.org 

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