• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Lawmakers to Seventh-Graders: Start Planning Your Careers Now: State Lawmakers Are Pushing for Career Education in All Middle Schools

Posted on: Sunday, 9 April 2006, 06:00 CDT

By Hannah Sampson, The Miami Herald

Apr. 9--Courtney Mathis-Kiner, 13, wants to be a lawyer someday.

"I like to argue a lot," the seventh-grader said.

His classmate in the Exploring Technology class, Stephanie Bekerman, wants to design roller coasters.

"My family is really obsessed with Disney," she explained.

As for Isaac Amor, also a seventh-grader at Pioneer Middle School in Cooper City: "I have no idea . . . maybe like an actor, comedian. Maybe the next Adam Sandler."

Hey, middle schooler -- what do you want to be when you grow up? It's more than just the nagging question your relatives ask at family gatherings.

As Florida seeks to reform middle and high schools, one area getting a lot of attention is career education.

An education bill that passed the Florida House late last month would require all middle school students to take a half-year career exploration and education planning class. A companion bill making its way through the Senate would have all kids in middle school create a personal academic and career plan.

And a high school reform task force made similar suggestions for middle school kids: that they take at least a nine-week course in career education and develop a five-year plan.

The problem, say Broward school district officials, is the fickle nature and changing desires of middle school kids.

"Kids at that age really don't get locked into what they want to be," Broward School Superintendent Frank Till said. "They have more of what I call dream careers. . . . A high percentage of our boys wanted to be professional athletes and a high percentage of our girls wanted to be models and actresses."

Said Rebecca C. Dahl, principal at Sunrise Middle School in Fort Lauderdale: "I think it's too early because the children just at this age don't have a lot of clues on what they want to do when they get out of high school."

Now, many eighth-graders meet with guidance counselors to figure out what courses they're interested in taking during high school. And middle school principals say they already infuse instruction about careers into other classes.

"In my opinion -- and most of us that are middle school principals in Broward County -- we feel they're asking us to duplicate something we're already doing," Dahl said.

Science teachers talk about careers in biology, for example, or mathematics instructors point out that a certain skill would be helpful for a job in accounting.

The Pioneer Middle Exploring Technology class is an elective that lets kids try their hand at computer-assisted drafting, experiment with a wind tunnel, put together a multimedia presentation and more.

Teacher James Plisko said many kids come into the class not knowing what their career interests might be.

"Sometimes they do get an idea of what they want to do after this," he said.

But instead of letting individual schools present career information as they see fit, lawmakers want all students to get the same information.

"Let's look at what we're doing now," said state Rep. Ralph Arza, R-Hialeah, who sponsored the House bill. "I don't think that it's working."

Arza would like to see more students go to college and believes early career exploration will foster that goal.

Some principals worry that kids would have to give up a class like band or art if they're forced to take a course in careers.

"How will we know if they want to be an artist if they never get to take an art class?" asked Linda Arnold, principal at Pioneer Middle.

Till said an average high school graduate will switch careers six to eight times.

"If you know that, why do you believe you can give a kid a career in seventh grade that's going to last a lifetime? But you can give them skills to last a lifetime."

Broward School Board member Stephanie Kraft, who was on the high school reform task force, said the idea was to make school more relevant to students by showing them how their classes relate to real life.

"You can't make kids choose a major in sixth grade," she said. "The point is to make them familiar with things that are out there."

-----

Copyright (c) 2006, The Miami Herald

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

Source: The Miami Herald

More News in this Category