We Believe In The Future:

Preparing Your Children for Tomorrow's Workforce!

By Patrick Feeley, Parents' Source, July 20, 1998.

Preparing your son or daughter for The New Economy, one that is highly complex and technologically advanced, can be a real challenge. How can you help a child choose a career? How can you motivate them to understand how education relates to their future success? Building career awareness, encouraging them to do job shadowing and internships, while constantly making education relevant to their future, are a few places to start.

Career Awareness: There are many programs available to students that help them understand the various jobs in our community. Yet there is a very effective way to build a students "career awareness" right out of your own home. Discussing your job to your son or daughter is certainly a good place to start. Parents always want to know what happened at school. Did you ever think that maybe your son or daughter wants to know what happened at work. Sharing information about the world of work from your perspective can be extremely valuable.

Shadowing Programs: Job shadowing programs are growing in popularity throughout schools in the United States. Most programs simply involve having your son or daughter visit a person who is in a field that your son or daughter might be interested in. There are some schools that do not offer or coordinate these opportunities. However, you can be just as effective in setting up a job shadowing program for your son or daughter. For example, if your daughter is interested in becoming a doctor, contact your own physician to see if she can shadow him/her during the day. You may have a contact at a local hospital or medical center. It could be someone in nursing or even in hospital administration. They might not be able to have your daughter visit this week but if you plan far enough ahead, most would be happy to have her come visit for the day.

Internship Programs: Believe it or not an internship is no longer just for college kids anymore. Today, thousands of high school students in Pennsylvania have internships that provide them with hands on experience in a given career. The increasing popularity of these programs has been quite dramatic. Your son or daughter can start gaining valuable work experience today. Why wait until their 21 years old? But, there is a strong word of caution that many teachers and parents are voicing concerning internships. If the internship interferes with a students ability to have time to do homework, get involved in school activities or simply be a kid and have fun, then the internship has gone to far! A child does not need to work full time from the age of 14 to 70. In my opinion, many successful internships are the ones that occur over the summer. This gives the student enough time to learn from the internship without interfering with school.

Business Education Programs: Since the mid 1980's educators have been under a great deal of pressure to make education more relevant to the workplace. Many teachers have become very creative in their approach to teaching the traditional subjects of math, science, English, art, history, etc. They have found ways to make the teaching of these subjects relevant to future careers without loosing the value of learning the core lessons of that subject. Parents often ask: "Why should my son or daughter take a history class? Shouldn't they be learning Microsoft Word or Lotus Notes? - something they will use after graduation!" As one of Berks County's biggest fans of business education, I surprisingly disagree. What is it about the history of America's free enterprise system that lead to the invention of the light bulb, the automobile and the computer? A student who can research an answer to this question will be further ahead than the student who only understands how to use Microsoft Word. Teachers are increasingly combining business education into their core subjects making education more relevant than ever.

Here too you can help by simply asking your son or daughter how their homework fits into something they will need to know out in the workplace. If a student is learning adding a subtracting for the first time, talk to them about how important that is to counting money. Bring money into any conversation about math with kids and you will see their ears perk up.

If you are unsure about what your school is doing to help prepare your son or daughter for tomorrow's workforce contact your school today and ask if they encourage career awareness, job shadowing, internships and business education.

If you would like to find out more on this and related topics, take a look at "Family Net", it lists some web sites that may steer you in the right direction for finding programs that may be implemented within community.

Patrick Feeley is president of Junior Achievement. They teach kids how business works by partnering business volunteers with local educators. To find out more call, 610-373-3500.

"We Believe in the Future" highlights the positive effects that members of our community can have on our families and children to help make a brighter future for everyone. If you would like to contribute, e-mail: Parents' Source.

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