Before learning how to light the fire of career passion in people’s lives, conduct a short social experiment. Ask twenty people what made them choose their current career. The twenty people can be from any demographic. They can come from different backgrounds. Likewise, they can hold any position in their organization. Ask them why they chose that work and who or what inspired them to pursue it. If you are anything like me, you will be surprised by their answers.
Growing Up Poor
I grew up in a small rural coal mining community. They say that for every coal miner, there are nearly ten supporting jobs in town. My family of three was supported by one of those other jobs, as my mom was a nurse. She was my only parent, and she worked very hard to provide for my sister and me. Unfortunately, her pay did not match her determination and grit.
Growing up poor did a lot for me. It provided a lifetime of motivation and a deep passion to do whatever I could to successfully bridge the chasm from poverty to the middle class. It has also driven me for nearly twenty-five years in education to help our students do the same if they choose. Sharing the details of overcoming the effects of poverty is for another book. However, we as educators must realize that all students seek success. Indeed, they come to us with their unique talents and interests. Our job is to provide the opportunities and experiences that may ignite a passion deep inside them.
When I Became a Leader
I remember being in junior high, and my teacher chose about ten of us to stand in the front of the room. We were asked to arrange ourselves from shortest to tallest. It only took a few seconds, and there we stood, neatly arranged as she requested. She asked the class to identify the group’s leader, and I thought it was a very silly question. There was no leader. We almost magically arranged ourselves in only a few seconds like a work of art. I was genuinely shocked when everyone pointed at me. I didn’t realize it, but I had arranged and executed the plan to accomplish the task.
It was the first time anyone called me a leader. Looking back, it changed the way I looked at myself. In my head, I was no leader. I was the kid in off-brand clothes who laid in bed every morning, listening carefully and hoping my mom’s Pinto would start so she could make it to work on time. We did not have what others had, and I thought it was impossible that other students could look at me as a leader. I needed their perspective to begin seeing myself as something more than the poor kid with no options. It was one small activity in one small class, but I am forty-five years old and distinctly remember how proud I was that my classmates pointed at me that day.
More Hurdles than One
Poverty is not the only hurdle. There is a wide range of issues facing students. When you listen to teenagers, you understand they seek direction and options for their future. Many teenagers have difficulty sifting through the endless amount of information out there. Sometimes, having so much to choose from leads to indecision and frustration, then no choice at all. This is particularly true when students are left alone without intentional conversations with adult mentors or hands-on exposure to new things. They do not yet know what industry excites them, what type of work they want to do, or what lifestyle they want to lead. They only know what they have been exposed to and might not realize what can be made available to them.
Our role as educators is to provide experiences beginning in elementary school that guide students through a variety of career options to help them develop and hone their natural abilities while inspiring them by igniting a passion for their future work.
Light the Fire with STEM
An effective model for quality STEM education includes vertical alignment beginning in elementary school and continuing through junior high, high school, post-secondary, and into employment. In elementary school, students can be tasked with creating, building, coding, and solving open-ended problems regularly. They can be visited by guest speakers representing a variety of industries. These presenters may be asked to describe the type of work they do, details about their industry, and the education required for a range of positions in their respective companies. They could bring examples of their product and give the students a way to interact with them and the work they do. It is very helpful for students to consider their own personal use of the product and how it makes their life better.
For many students, it will be the first time they consider jobs other than what their parents do for a living. They will start to look at their community differently and wonder what types of jobs are out there. Their expectations for themselves will begin to grow, and their world will begin to expand.
Light the Fire with Praise
It is also important that we praise students for all that they offer the world. We must find and develop attributes that make great employees and citizens and not focus solely on academic success. Every classroom has future scientists, computer programmers, engineers, and entrepreneurs. However, they may face barriers because of some aspect of their lives. We must break those barriers down for them.
In junior high, we build from elementary experiences. Junior high students benefit from field trips where they can see, smell, and touch different businesses. We can use guidance counseling software to arrange eld trips that align with natural curiosities, interests, and strengths. Students can begin to see that there is a wide range of career options for them within each industry.
For example, they may think construction is the most appealing industry. After visiting an engineering firm, they may discover a new world of planning and design that they never knew existed. A student will have met an engineer who can later arrange for an internship for them in high school. These experiences, coupled with an exploratory career course and elective options, give students a variety of avenues to consider. There is something special about physically walking around a business and talking to employees that is much more effective than limiting exposure to an internet search or class discussion.
Preparing Students for the Future
As students prepare to register for high school, they should tour the school. They should be expected to visit each department and interact with teachers and students physically. They can see examples of artifacts or products created in each department. The goal is to avoid course selection based on friends’ schedules or teacher shopping. We should also begin discussing internships, apprenticeships, certification, and employability for skills mastered in STEM courses. Students want to know what it takes to obtain STEM jobs and the expected salary for those pursuing them. Our counselors play an invaluable role in helping students align the advanced math, science, and coding courses necessary to pursue these fields. It is much more feasible now with Concurrent Enrollment and online learning options.
Businesses have a vested interest in finding and growing local talent. They are eager to help schools if they are allowed to do so. School leadership should work closely with local business owners, higher education, and technical training facilities to offer stackable credentialing, internships, and apprenticeship programs. Such models allow students to graduate from high school fully certified in various fields. This exposure often creates a change in perspective for students. They begin to expect more from themselves and set challenging goals that they might not have considered without the experiences provided through a quality STEM education.
Light the Fire Early
How does all of this connect to the social experiment I proposed at the beginning of this chapter? I believe you will find that nearly everyone you interview will have landed in their respective careers by happenstance. It may have been a childhood experience that connected them to a specific field or a simple conversation with a teacher who suggested they pursue a path after demonstrating a skill. The truth is that many of our most important decisions related to career options were made because of a conversation or networking that we did not find on our own. Decisions were made because someone made a comment or suggestion. It was because an adult believed in us and offered a different possibility.
We must expose students to a wide range of challenges and experiences that allow those interactions to occur. In fact, we need to treat each conversation as THE time we will change a student’s trajectory. Why? Because that very well may be the case. We never know what will ignite the fire, but we can strike as many matches as possible.
About the Author
MIKA SALAS
Taking an opportunity to pay it forward, Mika Salas led a high-poverty middle school from one of the lowest performing to one of the highest in four years as principal. She has worked her way from “one of those kids” to Superintendent of Schools in her twenty-four-year education career. Additionally, she is passionate about setting high standards for students while adjusting the entire education structure to support them as they reach their goals and beyond. She is a steward of the PLC process, RTI, and finding ways to help students overcome the effects of living in poverty. Her writing is focused on the need to provide students with employable STEM skills that will allow them to span the chasm between poverty and endless potential on the other side.
She champions students and has been recognized as a 2017 Solution Tree Model PLC School, the 2017 Utah Rural Schools Administrator of the Year, and the 2016 Carbon School District Administrator of the Year. She also owns an education technology company, Tiered System Support, which offers a solution for managing flex time in secondary schools.
Website: www.tieredtracker.com
