Career Ideas Blog

By Diane Lindsey Reeves, Bright Futures Press

A couple years ago my daughter and I visited the Old Salem village in Winston-Salem. Old Salem is a historical museum portraying the day-to-day life of early Moravian settlers in North Carolina. One of the first things we learned about the inhabitants of this village is that they had an average life span that was several years longer than the national average at that time.

Hmmm…I couldn’t help but wonder why. Surely, the quality of their lifestyle had something to do with it. But what were they doing that was so different from other communities?

My conclusions are far from scientific–perhaps based more on the musings of a mother and educator who would like more for her children and grandchildren. But I suspect these people made it easier for their offspring to succeed by doing three things:

1. Surrounding them with a caring community that was completely committed to helping them find their way toward responsible adulthood
2. Equipping them with a solid education that emphasized both academic and practical life skills
3. Providing real world training opportunities that empowered them to survive and thrive on their own with marketable skills

In other words, they provided the ultimate “leave no child behind” experience—without the end-of-grade tests!

One of the most powerful examples of this premise was evident in the Single Brother’s House. By the age of 14, the village’s young boys were brought here to begin a seven year apprenticeship. Essentially, this is where they learned to be men, where they learned how to be productive, contributing members of their society, and where they learned to how to make a good living.  Master craftsmen shared their expertise to help prepare a new (and highly skilled) generation of tailors, joiners, clockmakers, shoemakers, tinsmiths, and other viable trades.

And, get this…

There were equal educational opportunities for girls! Quite a radical concept for the late 1700s.  Girls received the same offering of well-rounded academics, arts, and music! Their training differed in that, instead of official apprenticeships, they were trained in crafts more associated with home-making such as weaving, fine needlework, and laundry. But prior to marriage, they too were offered opportunities to put these skills to work as teachers and workers in the Single Sister’s weaving shop, laundry, and other enterprises.

The common denominator for both girls and boys was this–nobody was pushed out of the nest before they were ready to fly!

Fast forward to the 21^st century where one in four public school children drop out before they finish high school.  According to the recently released Building a  Grad Nation report, that’s 1.3 million students a year — one every 26 seconds, 7,000 every school day, folks! To add insult to injury, those students who do graduate and complete college often face staggering student loan debt and stagnant employment opportunities.

Really?

Surely, we can do better than this.  The future—ours and theirs—depends on it.

Filed under: 21st century skills, Bright Futures, Career & Technical Education, Career Academy, Career Clusters, Career Exploration, Career Pathways, Corporate Partnership, Educational Trends, Life Skills, Programs That Work, Project-based learning, Uncategorized by Diane
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“Summer social media intern needed to help author find audience of teachers and other professionals trying to help students discover what they want to be when they grow up.”

My email box quickly filled with promising replies from young professionals looking to exert some social media muscle. The candidates were impressive.

First came Yoonmi, an enthusiastic go-getter with a background in PR.  Rachel, a recent UNC graduate and young marketing professional, came prepared with a list of terrific marketing ideas!  Dylan was next, a journalism school student, fresh from a summer course in social media marketing.

It was a promising mix of talent and potential.  The makings of a social media dream team.

The search for one intern became a multi-faceted team project. Four teams were formed—marketing, publicity, new business development, and product development—and a profit-sharing agreement sealed the deal.

Rounding out the teams with fresh talent (nearly all discovered via additional Craigslist ads):  Susan, an up-and-coming graphic designer, Carmen, an experienced writer with terrific New York City credentials, and social-media savvy Bill, executive director of Lemonade International, a youth-oriented nonprofit organization.

Their goal? Use social media marketing tools to put Bright Futures Press on the map.

Now the interns are back in school leaving me with a fresh new website, a Twitter page, a Facebook, and this blog. Here’s hoping we find online ‘friends’ who want to help young people find bright futures as much as we do!

Diane Reeves
Author and Publisher, Bright Futures Press

Filed under: Bright Futures, Career & Technical Education, Career Academy, Career Clusters, Career Pathways, Corporate Partnership by Diane
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Citizen Schools Apprenticeships

Filed under: 21st century skills, Bright Futures, Career Exploration, Children's publishing, Corporate Partnership, Educational Trends, Life Skills, Programs That Work, Project-based learning by britt
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By Melissa Kerlin and Susan Schneider

The articles and initiatives are everywhere. People from all walks of public and private life are calling for adults to step up and teach kids the basic, relevant life skills they will need to have independent, productive and fulfilling lives as valued members of the workforce.

In speeches he gives across the country, U.S. Secretary of Commerce, Carlos Gutierrez, underscores the need for marketable skills training. In one speech, entitled, ‘Getting the Skills to Compete,’ Gutierrez said:

“If there is one piece of advice you can give people today, it is to increase your skills. The bottom line is that when you have more skills, you’re making more money…It could be a vocational skill. It could be an electrician’s skill. It could be the skill to fix air conditioners. Something. But you need skills.”

Well-known MSNBC.com career columnist Eva Tahmincioglu, wrote in a recent essay titled ‘Tough Love: Help your Grown Child Get a Job:’

“Is there a twenty-something unemployed kid lying on your couch?

If so, you’re not alone. Quite a few parents write me about their struggling adult children, many who are fresh out of college, who just can’t get on the right career path or any path at all.

Many found the professions they had hoped to break into weren’t as easy to break into. Others haven’t quite figured out what it is they want to do, biding their time in the rooms they grew up, in waiting for the career fairy to show them a sign.”

And Paul Graham, the successful computer entrepreneur and philanthropist, delivers a popular speech to new graduates entitled, “What You’ll Wish You Had Known” that includes this sage piece of advice:

“If I were back in high school and someone asked me about my plans, I’d say that my first priority was to learn what the options were. You don’t need to be in a rush to choose your life’s work. What you need to do is discover what you like. You have to work on stuff you like if you want to be good at what you do.”

But how do adults open kids’ eyes to the wide world of exciting jobs there are to choose from? How do they excite kids about their schoolwork and connecting-the-dots between the subjects they love and finding a fulfilling career? Most adults only have their own narrow career paths to draw from, so the ways in which they can help their child discover his or her unique calling is narrow too.

Two former human resources marketing executives, Melissa Kerlin and Susan Schneider, co-founders of Tailwag Studio, Inc., have recently published a line of very creative career exploration and employment preparation materials that address these challenges. Their ‘CareerWise, Grow Up. Get a Job.™” materials help kids explore, prepare and become excited about joining the work-a-day world by discovering their inherent talents, interests and natural abilities.

Kerlin and Schneider developed these products after working for almost for almost 20 years apiece as ‘behind-the-scenes’ executives for agencies that provided recruitment and retention programs for employers across the country. They helped create employment brands for companies ranging from Kaiser Permanente, Microsoft and Nokia to Jack in the Box, The Walt Disney Company and AOL.

They frequently heard from hiring managers that new graduates are not prepared with basic work-world skills such as how to articulately discuss their career goals or why they should be hired. Nor are they comfortable with basic employment practices such as job interviewing and discussing a compensation package.

Kerlin and Schneider decided to apply their experiences to the development of materials that are based on what employers wish kids knew and thought about before they enter the workforce. It is a perspective that is very different from that found in most career exploration/employment preparation materials.

CareerWise Grow Up. Get a Job. materials also help kids hone reading, writing, presentation, research and interviewing skills and help them become familiar with the employment worlds’ jargon, practices and employers’ expectations. The exercises and activities do not ‘spoon feed’ kids any answers. They have to figure things out for themselves – an important life skill in itself.

Besides helping kids understand the reality of what employers’ expectations are in the real world, CareerWise Grow Up. Get a Job. materials get parents and kids sharing dreams, plans, hopes and fears. They help everyone plan for the day when kids can leave their parent’s nest with the confidence and skills to go out and feather their own.

Visit www.GetCareerWise.com for more information.

Filed under: Career Exploration, Corporate Partnership, Life Skills by britt
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