T.C. Roekle is a highly respected educator who has solid leadership experience with a focus on innovative strategies to raise student and staff performance at the building and district level. T.C. is a member of the National Speakers Association; she has addressed thousands of educators at State and National Education Conferences, Technology Conferences and school communities.
Career-Oriented Education can help Keep Kids Motivated
School officials in some Baltimore High Schools are overwhelmed by demand for career-track programs in fields such as sports medicine and pre-engineering. Their hope is that career-oriented education can help keep potential dropouts in school by motivating students who might otherwise see little link between class work and the real world.
Article, Baltimore Sun 4.4.07
Career and technical education is more salient than ever, and integrating academics with a career-focused curriculum helps students understand the purpose behind their learning. Our goal should be to provide students with a broad vision so that they can find their passion and wrap a career around it.
Telling students, “You can do anything” seems like a positive, encouraging statement, but without a clear vision of what they would like to do, students can easily get drawn into an unfulfilling, uninspiring career
As teachers, we can act as “lamplighters” to help students identify and maximize their strengths, understand their weaknesses, and channel their interests toward promising career pathways. For example, a middle school in Michigan instituted an after-school program in which 8th grade students toured local businesses in vans provided by a local car dealer. They identified the skills needed for certain jobs and measured them against their own abilities and enthusiasm for the work. In this way, students were able to begin formulating ideas about the types of jobs for which they would be well suited, as well as what types of jobs would be exciting to them. As we strive to point out the correlation between current achievement and future earning power, it is important to acknowledge that college is not the only (or even the most important) goal of primary and secondary education.
Ask Yourself:
•Would our students be more likely to discover promising careers if we helped them define their strengths and find their passions?
•How can we broaden student awareness of new career opportunities?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment