A friend of mine commented in an email the other day that he was fascinated by the study backgrounds of people and where their winding career paths took them.
My oldest daughter is currently wondering whether the path she chose is the one for her. My youngest is wondering which path to choose.
I am sure that one thing will lead to another, that new fields and interests will unfold in front of them and that in their lifetime, like most people their age, they will embark on a number of different paths. Sometimes the connection between them might be obvious, at other times less so.
Making the initial choice is often more complex for gifted young people especially those with talents in more than one area. Some are left feeling that choosing one means they will have to ‘give up’ another passion. I recall the young man who spoke at the Curriculum Council Awards presentation in early 2008 telling us he decided to study engineering and music for this very reason. Sometimes one interest or talent is more easily maintained outside of ‘work’ than another, sometimes not.
We know that many of our gifted youngsters start grappling with career choices much earlier than their age peers. Whether career guidance is available at the time it is needed or not, does school help kids find their way to the first of their steps in the wider world?
Perhaps for those who are shining academically some choices may seem obvious starting points. But what about those creative individuals whose talent areas aren’t part of daily life at school? And what about the ones whose interests remain hidden or undiscovered because the curriculum doesn’t touch on them? I am fairly sure that my daughter’s interest in philosophy remained hidden from all but one of her teachers during her school years.
The world is changing rapidly, the skills that are currently or previously useful are likely to become less important over time. The careers that have been considered prestigious may not remain that way.
When my oldest daughter started school we were told that 80% of the careers that kids her age would enter did not currently exist. How then, we wondered, would school prepare her for life? In the last 15 years or so, things have escalated further. While we accept that working in the same field (or with the same employer) for 25 years is unlikely these days, many of us still struggle with the idea that our young people will change not only jobs but career areas a number of times in their working lives.
So how can we help prepare our young people for a life we can’t imagine?
No-one knows for sure, but a few ideas that might be beneficial include exposing them to a wide rang of experiences, nurturing not only the skills to master content but also those to make connections, encouraging creativity, looking for more than one answer, making critical (evaluative) thinking part of every day, learning about the lives of others (in the past as well as in other places), teaching and modelling flexibility……….
And perhaps the hardest thing of all as parents (who grew up when the world was a different place) – encourage them to pursue their passions without knowing what the outcome will be………….
I am sure the parents of the young lady mentioned in my friend’s blog last week (Putting an Arts Degree to good use) would have had the same concerns.
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