Northview — What kind of careers might fit my interests? What are soft and hard skills? How much does college cost? How will my classes today help me be successful in the future?
Sixth-graders in teacher Marli Oliver’s homeroom class at Highlands Middle School explored these questions, and many more, during a career exploration unit this winter. The purpose of the study, Oliver said, was to help her students begin thinking about possible future jobs, the skills they will need to do that work and how the education they’re getting at Highlands fits in.
“Our seventh/eighth-grade building does a more in-depth career unit, but sixth grade is not too early to start exploring some of these topics,” Oliver said. “My goal was definitely to connect what we’re doing in sixth-grade math, reading, writing and all of our classes, to ‘How can this apply to my goals when I’m an adult? How is it relevant to what I want to do in the future?’”
Much of the months-long exploration was student-led, based on their interests or what jobs they already had in mind. If a student was interested in art, for example, they did research to discover what kinds of career paths are available in that field, such as an art dealer, a museum curator or a teacher. If a student already had a dream career, they researched the type of higher education or on-the-job training needed to pursue that path.
Students also did deep dives into how much education or how many degrees they would need for their chosen career, the tuition costs for colleges and technical education, and the general salaries they could expect in various career fields.
For many in the class, like Camille Kimmons, this part was a small reality check.
“The most surprising part is how much college is,” said Camille, who started the unit thinking of becoming an artist one day. Once she discovered the average salary for fine artists, however, she turned her attention to becoming an art teacher. Still, she learned, it wouldn’t be easy.
“Colleges are like $26,000, and that’s so much!” she lamented. “I was thinking like $2,000 for college but that’s literally nothing. It’s all so expensive! I’ll probably have to work at McDonald’s or something to make it happen.”
Open to Being Vulnerable
Oliver said it was important to make this study not only relevant, but personal. That’s why she kicked off the unit by discussing how much the state of Michigan and the Northview community spends to educate each student in Northview Public Schools: just under $10,000 annually, or about $130,000 total for every graduate’s K-12 education.
Her point? “Your state and community are investing in you. Are you investing in yourself?”
“It was shocking to them, how much is spent on their education, so we talked about why a community would invest so much money into students,” Oliver said. “And we talked about taking advantage of your education, because people are pouring so much money into you.”
They also spent time learning about “soft” and “hard” skills — not just a dictionary definition, but what kinds of specific personal and professional skills their desired careers might require for a person to be successful.
Oliver asked each of her students to choose four soft skills they have been developing — such as creativity, problem-solving or empathy — and rate themselves on each skill.
Then, in an act of vulnerability, they had to ask their peers and two other adults at Highlands to rate them on those same skills.
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We spoke to a few students toward the end of this career exploration unit to see what dreams they have for the future, and how this unit may have helped crystallize those ideas. See what they had to say.
“Asking for feedback is a hard thing to do, because you’re opening yourself up and you don’t really want to hear anything negative, but it’s all about growing as a person,” she said. “Our staff did a really great job of being honest and providing good comments, and (my students) really respected their opinions.
“We had some good reflection time after we got (the surveys) back, like: ‘This is what I aspire to be, but maybe I’m not quite there yet, so what am I going to do?’ It helped me learn what their goals are, and that turned into a dialogue where I can challenge them to work on some things.”
Receiving others’ feedback on his skills and character traits was eye-opening for Shane Keasey, who dreams of becoming an archaeologist one day.
“A lot of times people say I’m empathetic, but one teacher wrote down that sometimes I am not that empathetic, and that was just like a big shocker for me,” he said. “From that experience I would say that I really need to watch how I comfort different people, and work on how good I can be with working with other people.”
Reflecting on her own skills feedback, classmate Autumn Jonker said, “Most of them scored me pretty high on imagination, which, yes, that is true — I do have a lot of imagination. For vulnerability I was kind of half and half, so I learned that I could probably be more vulnerable.”
Life’s Next Step
Autumn, who focused her research on becoming a 3D animator, said she appreciated the push this unit gave her to start thinking about the future.
“Instead of waiting until a lot later and not having a lot of knowledge of how we can find all this (career) information, now we have the tools that we need,” she said. “I would say it’s been helpful because we’ve at least been thinking about what we want to do or some options for other jobs.”
Oliver said she hopes the connection has been made between classroom work and the student’s hopes and dreams, but ultimately she’s seen “tremendous growth in them as humans” as they explored future careers, she said.
“In Northview, our motto is, ‘Preparing students for life’s next step,’ and thankfully we live in a country where you get to decide what that next step is,” the teacher said. “As we approach the end of the year, I’d like our dialogue to be along the lines of, ‘What else can I do to help you develop these skills you’re going to need? How are we already helping you?’ I’m really proud of the progress they’ve made.”
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