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Understanding The Importance Of Career Development
Relative To Education
One of the goals of education is to produce a community of learners who are prepared to meet the challenges of an increasingly complex society. And yet, some of our many students just don't get it! They can't see the connection between education and future success.
The elementary and middle grades are a time of enormous opportunities and enormous risks. As educators, our goal is to motivate students at these grade levels to select career pathways and to guide them in choosing the appropriate courses they will need to achieve their career goals. At the same time, comprehensive school counseling and career guidance programs can provide young adolescents with the attitudes, knowledge, and skills needed to establish a strong foundation for future success. A fundamental component of such programs is effective career planning—initiatives that help students connect educational goals to career goals, and offer opportunities for career exploration through school-based activities and real-life experiences.
What Is Career Planning?
Career planning establishes a focus for achievement and helps elementary and middle-level students identify the strategies and tasks necessary to achieve their goals. It serves to guide them in making decisions about academic preparation, work experience, and the education and training necessary after high school to make a successful transition to the career path of their choice. It makes them better students!
Students should identify their academic and career goals early, and begin to design an actual career plan, before entering high school. Career plans should include the results of assessments of students' skills, attitudes, and interests by the time they enter eighth or ninth grade. Students should be exposed to career awareness in grades K-6, participate in career investigations in grades 7-8, and engage in career experiences in support of their individual educational plans in grades 9-12.
A comprehensive career planning program takes the commitment of the entire school community. These are the key components:
Vision: What students are expected to accomplish and how it contributes to the school's mission.
Commitment: The ongoing investment of resources and support by school, district, family, and community. Comprehensiveness. The degree to which all students participate in the planning process.
Collaboration: Shared ownership by stakeholders in the career planning process. Management. A program management system that ensures effective use of resources in the coordination, articulation, and transition of the program from one grade level to the next.
Evaluation: The degree to which the program provides evidence of success.
School Level Goals For Students
Elementary
Self-Knowledge
Knowledge of the importance of a positive self-concept.
Skills to interact positively with others.
Awareness of the importance of growth and change.
Awareness of the benefits of educational achievement.
Awareness of the relationship between work and learning.
Skills to understand and use career information.
Awareness of the importance of personal responsibility and good work habits.
Awareness of how work relates to the needs and functions of society.
Career Planning
Understanding how to make decisions
Awareness of the interrelationship of life roles.
Awareness of different occupations and changing male/female roles.
Awareness of the career planning process.
Middle School
Knowledge of the influence of a positive self-concept.
Skills to interact positively with others.
Knowledge of the importance of growth and change.
Knowledge of the benefits of educational achievement to career opportunities.
Understanding the relationship between work and learning.
Skills to locate, understand and use career information.
Knowledge of skills necessary to seek and obtain jobs.
Understanding how work relates to the needs and functions of the economy and society.
Skills to make decisions.
Knowledge of the interrelationship of life roles.
Knowledge of different occupations and changing male/female roles.
Understanding the process of career planning.
High School
Understanding the influence of a positive self-concept.
Skills to interact positively with others.
Understanding the impact of growth and development.
Understanding the relationship between educational achievement and career planning.
Understanding the need for positive attitudes toward work and learning.
Skills to locate, evaluate and interpret career information.
Skills to prepare to seek, obtain, maintain and change jobs.
Understanding how societal needs and functions influence the nature and structure of work.
Skills to make decisions.
Understanding the interrelationship of life roles.
Understanding the continuous changes in male/female roles.
Skills in career planning.
