The mixed messages we send kids

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• The mixed messages we send kids

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How about underwater basket weaving?
or, Music Appreciation?

• usually idioms referring in a negative way to
  supposedly easy and/or worthless secondary,
  college or university courses, and used generally
  to refer to a perceived decline in educational
  standards.

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• Did you know that

Since 1980, Reed College in Portland, Oregon has
offered underwater basket weaving class during
Paideia (a festival of learning)? Student
Resource Center _at_ the University of Arizona
offered a submerged snorkelling basket weaving
course in Spring of 1998? In early 2009, a
Rutgers University scuba diving instructor
offered a one-off course? That Underwater
Basket Weaving is a trademark of the US Scuba
Center, Inc, which offers a speciality class
designed to improve diving skills from which
participants can take home a memorable
souvenir.
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Here is my personal favorite, If you are not
careful your future will consist of asking on a
regular basis, Would you like fries with that?
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• So, heres the rub

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• When trying to create and cultivate a culture of
  career conversations within our schools, we must
  be very careful what we say and how we say
  it.

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• A school or district-wide career development
  initiative must be planned and purposeful
  especially during those transitional times when
  we choose to intensify their individual career
  developmental time.
• i.e., a freshman transition course. That move
  from middle school to high school brings with it
  internal/mental expectations that we must sieze
  upon in relation to that students personal
  career pathway development.

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• The following question intensifies in frequency,
  beginning in a students ninth grade year,
  whether we know it or not

So, what do you want to be when you grow up?
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Times in a students life that contribute greatly
to the frequency of this question being asked
definitely include pre-enrollment periods!
and in many instances, the importance of this
answer reaches its highest level of intensity
during their senior year of high school!!!
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• So, lets take a look at the next crucial
  transitional time in a students livethat senior
  year to post-secondary, freshman year.
• And, possibly what is happening because we are
  not addressing (from a career developmental
  standpoint) this time of crucial educational
  transition.

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• Surveys conducted annually by Collegegrad.com (a
  job networking website) have found the number of
  graduates moving back home
• with parents has risen each year over the past
  decade.
• To the point where 80 of recent graduates
  responding to its online survey moved back home
  last summer.
• Up from 67 in 2006.

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oh, and the
average college graduate has a student loan debt
of 23,186.
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In October 2009, 70.1 of 2009 high school
graduates were enrolled in college or
universities.
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Almost one-half of the students at four-year
colleges in the United States fail to graduate
within six years of entering.
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Emporia State University offers 55 majors Fort
Hays State University offers 54 majors Kansas
State University offers 114 majors University
of Kansas offers 135 majors Wichita State
University offers 79 majors
Did they realize that
Barton County Community College , 83
majors Butler Community College, 63
majors Colby Community College, 39
majors Hutchinson Community College, 53
majors North Central Kansas Technical College,
22 majors
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There are almost 200 classes offered where I
work, Hutchinson High School and Hutchinson
Career Technical Education Academy!
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After visiting every freshman English class at
HHS the last three years, I found out that over
97 of our freshman said they would be going to
college.
Oh, and over 90 said they would like to have
some sort of extended (6mos), part-time
employment during their high school years.
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• Whats the point?
• Responses by these freshman indicate they have
  expectations, strong expectations, no matter how
  those expectations were formed, about college
  work.
• THEY really, really want to begin making those
  personal connections between education career!!!

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• And, Im here to tell you, the education-to-career
  connection is not necessarily the same thing as
  the college-to-career connection.

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• OK, well it might bebut not for the same reason
  many in this audience might be thinking.
• In fact, the main connection between college
  and career, for many, many students, is that
  college disconnects them from their career!

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• Or, another way of putting it
• Career needs to drive the post-secondary
  decision ship, not college itself.
• Ironically, we might just talk more students
  into college, not out.
• However, we must, must let those post-secondary
  choices come out in the proverbial wash!

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• (irony and sarcasm intended when reading this
  next statement)
• Lets just be very careful, though, that we
  distinguish (as early as possible) between the
  lights (college bound) and the darks (non-college
  bound)!

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At Hutchinson High School, The class-choice
equation 26 credits required - 17 (of those
are core credits) 9 electives 4 more slots
to fill 13 (at least) class choices!

• 4 electives your freshman year
• 5-7 electives your sophomore year
• 7-9 electives your junior year
• 9-11 electives your senior year
• not to mention early graduation

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• High Schools are elective-driven!
• And, shouldnt we be?
• Cmon, by the beginning of their junior year,
  they are less than two years away from going to
  war and voting!

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And also _at_ our school
-You can finish College Algebra before end of
junior year -More and more students earning
college credit before earning their
diploma -More and more students earning
credentials before earning their diploma -More
and more dual credit courses being offered
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How can we not afford to help them develop a
4year Educational/Career Plan?
We must provide students with intensive
career development during the middle-transitional
years.
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Career development consists of -exploration
-personal-assessment -work-environment
awareness -personal profile design
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Career development is an across the
board, district-wide, planned, purposeful
initiative that is exemplified by
structured, measurable, ongoing interventions.
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• I.e., you gotta have a plan and it must have time
  to be implemented!

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• So, before I show you how we are helping kids
  develop their personal career pathways and when
  we intensify those developmental-planning times
  in their educational lives
• lets sum up why this is even important.

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• Nearly 100 of high school students think they
  are and must go to college.
• The average yearly cost of college is 6,585
  (tuition/fees) at a public university (does not
  include housing)
• The average college graduate has a student loan
  debt of 23,186.
• Almost one-half of the students at four-year
  colleges in the United States fail to graduate
  within six years of entering.
• Over 80 of recent college graduates responding
  to an online survey moved back home last summer.
• THERE IS A SKILLED LABOR SHORTGATE!

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Our strength is also our weakness the amount
of so many educational choices available to our
students.
Lets not take away their choiceslets help them
make the right choices for the right reasons!
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Heres how we see it coming out in the wash.
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www.kansascareerpipeline.org are you using
it? if yes, how? if no, why not?
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• In our district, career development exploration
  is most intense in 6th-9th grade.
• Culmination of intensity is with sophomore
  enrollmentstudents begin to make schedule
  decisions based on their career assessment
  results, personal profile 4-year educational
  plan.
• 10th-12th grades consist of creating next step
  action and real-world work experiences.

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• R. Kent Blessing
• Global Career Development Facilitator
• blessingk_at_usd308.com, 620-615-4184

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endnotes

• http//www.collegegrad.com/press/2009_college_gra
  duates_moving_back_home_in_larger_numbers.shtml
• according to an analysis of the government's
  National Postsecondary Student Aid Study,
  conducted by financial-aid expert Mark
  Kantrowitz. Only a dozen years earlier, according
  to the study, 58 of students borrowed to pay for
  college, and the average amount borrowed was
  13,172.
• http//www.bls.gov/news.release/hsgec.nr0.htm
• http//www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/06/03/55-perc
  ent-of-college-students-graduate/UPI-1567124406456
  7/ixzz1EfbLybRv
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_baske
  t_weavingAs_a_taught_course
• My personal 9th grade English class visits
  the past three years.
• http//www.businessweek.com/bschools/conten
  t/oct2008/bs20081028_629823.htm
• http//hubpages.com/hub/Skilled_Labor