From the Desk of: Mr. Jeff Kuhns

Most of us remember what we or our children wanted to be ‘when we group up’ - Firefighters, policemen, dancers, maybe the occasional teacher or nurse. You never hear much about elementary students wanting to be a botanist or an actuary or some of today’s most in demand jobs– AI Prompt engineer, photovoltaic solar installers, logisticians.

One day at my previous district, a couple of young men rang the bell out front. My secretary was having difficulty understanding what they were asking so I went out to greet them. They were both carrying rather large drones and control pads, but they were dressed in work clothes: tan Carhartts and fluorescent tees. When I inquired what they wanted, they stated that they just wanted us to be aware that they would be flying their drones along the electrical lines doing routine inspections. I replied, ‘Do you know that you have one of the coolest jobs in the world?’ they laughed and one of them put his finger to his lips and said, ‘Shhh…don’t tell anybody.’

A friend of mine and I will often say, when we see a job that we never heard of that seems cool or incredibly easy, ‘My guidance counselor didn’t tell me about that one!’ Flying a drone as a full-time career was definitely never on my radar as a student (of course I was fairly deep into my career when drones were invented.)

I mention this because these incidences fuel my desire to make sure that every student can know about jobs that fit their strengths, passions, curiosities as well as to be prepared for jobs that don’t even exist yet.

Pennsylvania is one of the few states that has academic standards related to college and career readiness. From experience I know that some schools look at that as a box to be checked. At West Perry that is not the case. We aren’t fully there yet but our vision is to have a comprehensive K-12 program that starts students on the path of career exploration as early as kindergarten and adds to that foundation every year of the student’s career.

To track career exploration through the years, we use a program called Smart Futures. Every student has a Smart Futures account, and the program keeps track of what students have done to not only explore career options but also to attain employability skills. Employability skills are those behaviors that employers look for and improve access to those jobs that haven’t been invented yet.

In the elementary grades the focus is on identifying ‘Who I am?’ Activities in these grades focus on understanding what you may enjoy doing as a career, what kind of career you may be good at, and setting realistic career goals. Think of it as transitioning from ‘I want to be a policeman’ to ‘What does it take to be a policeman?’

At the middle school the focus changes to ‘Where am I going?’ In grades 6-8 student lessons are focused on exploration of careers and career clusters that pair well with what they learned about themselves in the elementary grades. In this grade span a student might go from ‘What does it take to be a policeman’ To ‘In addition to being a policeman, what other careers are similar to law enforcement that I may also be interested in?’

Finally, in the high school grades, the focus is on implementation. Starting in 9th grade students will focus on transitioning from exploring careers to finding relevant pathways to prepare for their eventual career. This may be stated as going from ‘What law enforcement careers might I also be interested in?’ to ‘If I want to be a forensic science technician, what should I do while still in high school to work towards that goal and prepare me for a career or continued study after high school.’

As parents, teachers and community members, you can support these efforts in the following ways:

1. Foster a Growth Mindset and Love of Learning

Encourage children to view challenges as opportunities for growth and learning. Show them that they can do hard things through perseverance and effort. Don’t be too quick to jump in and ‘save’ them. Let them toil a bit.

2. Develop Strong Academic and Study Skills

Support children in building a solid academic foundation and effective learning strategies such as time management, organization, critical thinking, and problem solving. Ask questions rather than always giving answers. ‘What do you think you should do next?’

3. Explore Diverse Interests and Career Pathways

Help children discover their passions and potential career opportunities by exposing them to a variety of careers through volunteer experiences, discussions, books, job shadowing or internships and apprenticeships. When you are out in the community, talk about the different jobs that you see people doing.

4. Build Essential Soft Skills

Develop crucial interpersonal and life skills that are valuable in both college and work environments such as communication skills, emotional intelligence, collaboration and teamwork, independence, and self-advocacy. Put children in positions where they must use these skills. ‘Maybe you should go talk to your teacher about that.’

5. Support Financial Literacy and College Planning

Prepare children for the financial aspects of higher education and career development by discussing finances associated with college and career options, teaching basic budgeting and money management, and encouraging saving and setting financial goals. A small allowance is a good place to start.