Take Our Kids to Work program gives a dose of reality

Melissa Strle
Times Reporter

 

Grade 9 students across Canada, including those in Strathmore, participated in the Take Our Kids to Work program on Nov. 2.
The program allows Grade 9 students to shadow a parent, friend, family member or community member in their job for a day to experience the inner workings of the profession and decide if the career choice may eventually be right for them.
An alternate purpose of the day was for students to experience first-hand how their parents make a living and spark the thought process of thinking about different careers.
Linda Tucker, principal at Crowther Memorial Junior High School (CMJHS) said: “Kids are sent out into the community to learn first-hand what work is like.”
Tucker referred to the program as “outstanding” and said that there was an assignment that needed to be done and there were also a series of questions that students needed to ask the employers.
Laura Ryan, a teacher at CMJHS, was the local coordinator of the Take Our Kids to Work program along with other health teachers at the junior high school.
Ryan said that in Grade 9, students start to think about interests, and they start to look at what courses they want to take or what grades they need to get into certain education and job streams down the road.
She said the Take Our Kids to Work program “just kind of initiates that thought process. ‘What jobs do I definitely want, what am I definitely interested in or what am I definitely not interested in?’ ”
Ryan said the program also initiates conversation about future careers: How important is passion in a job? Do your parents do the job because they have to, or do they do the job because they love to? What do you want to do?
Ryan cautioned the intent of the program was not to pressure students into picking their career “because obviously that doesn’t happen for lots of people until they are 20.”
Ryan and the health teachers discussed general work etiquette with the students, such as what is on time for a job, or what does an actual job shift look?
She said some students assume a typical job shift for a teacher is limited to the six to seven hours that teachers put in at school, for instance.
“Teachers always find it interesting because lots of people think it’s only 8:30 to 3:30, but there’s lots of behind-the-scenes work,” said Ryan.
To take part in the Take Our Kids to Work day, students were responsible for setting up their host (employer), and this was most often the parent or guardian. However, if students weren’t interested in their guardian’s profession, they were able to go somewhere else by calling other community members and setting up a different place of work to visit.
The program works just as well at eliminating potential career paths as discovering potential career paths, and the process is one of true exploration. Ryan said a student last year went to a vet clinic “because she loves animals, but once the clinic started cleaning an animal’s ears and the student was exposed to certain smells, she suddenly passed out. She later said to me, ‘I don’t know if I can be in that environment.’ ”
After returning to school this year, students were given a career fair project where they had to discuss what they did for the Take Our Kid to Work day over two to three health classes.
“So then not only do they get to experience what they experience, they get to see what other people did and then it’s a little more job exploration,” said Ryan.
Next, students will be given an opportunity to use an online portfolio – My Blueprint – where they can select courses they could potentially take during high school that shows them exactly what post-secondary institutions and what careers would open up for them.
Ryan said the program is valuable because oftentimes kids get streamed into just 10 job ideas, such as teaching, nursing, engineering, accounting, and it’s hard to think past that scope.
“I think the fact that they have three-and-a-half years left in their mandatory school career hits them and they think, ‘OK, now I’m getting to a point where I do get to make my own decisions and that’s a little stressful but it’s also cool,’” said Ryan.