Parents Can Help Students With Important Class-Choice Decisions

Middle school students and their parents face important decisions -- courses they choose to study in high school can have an impact on post-graduation plans. But how does a 13-year-old know what she might want to do with her career? Parents can help their children identify their own talents and aptitudes and then help match those to careers and jobs.

Al Arth believes that all children should be prepared for some sort of extended education beyond high school graduation. For some that means college or university work; for others vocational and community college education will be the preferred objective.

"We want to be sure to support everybody for advanced education of some sort," Arth said. Arth is a professor of education and coordinator of middle level education at UNL's College of Education and Human Sciences.

Middle school is the perfect time to begin career exploration, Arth said, because children are beginning to solidify they values they learned as very young children, and also choosing which values they will adopt as their own.

Parents can help middle schoolers, and even younger children, by pointing out each child's individual talents and helping link those talents, aptitudes and skills to the working world, Arth said.

"Parents should be talking to their children about things that are necessary to be good employees and business owners," he said. Perhaps a child is particularly adept at people skills and interpersonal relationships. Those competencies are necessary for good managers, health-care providers and teachers.

Arth suggested that parents and teachers help students learn about the range of careers and industries and what educational needs those careers and industries require. Exposure by classroom visits and field trips are helpful, he said.

But he's not a fan of all-school assemblies where "experts" are brought in to talk about their jobs. Experts work best in smaller classroom experiences where teachers can help lead the discussions and students are more likely to ask questions, he said.

Arth said parents can help children explore jobs by encouraging their kids to ask questions in various work environments.

"When you're at Wal-Mart, ask to talk to the manager," Arth said. "Ask the manager, 'What do you do? How did you get this job? Did you take special classes?' People like to talk about their jobs to young people."

Other options include talking about jobs depicted in television programs or about skills people in the programs are demonstrating in particular jobs they hold. Arth said, for example, that his family enjoys the program, "Monk," in which the main character is a detective. They talk about the deductive reasoning skills the character displays. Programs like CSI might prompt conversations about scientific inquiry.

Parents also can use reading time to talk about jobs and careers, Arth said.

He also suggested some unconventional methods of career exploration. For example, free videos "rented" from places like Home Depot might be used as impetus for discussing careers like construction, carpentry, landscaping or home decorating. A visit to the veterinarian might spark conversations about careers in animal care. Talk to a police officer or firefighter at the farmer's market about what they do in their jobs.

Arth also advocates exposing young people to arts and culture with an eye toward career possibilities. "And think about international and even interplanetary career options," he said. "Jobs exist today that were unimagined 50 years ago. There's reason to expect that jobs our kids will do in 20 years are jobs we cannot now imagine.

"I saw on a library wall once the saying 'no man can make a choice he's not heard of,'" Arth said. In other words, if you don't know of an option, you cannot choose it, he said.

"The exploration of a career needs to be a start, but not a locked-in direction," Arth said.

His department sponsors an annual career exploration event called Kids on Campus, in which middle school kids who have expressed an interest in teaching, come to campus for three days in the early summer to learn about teaching as a career.

CONTACT: Al Arth, Professor, Teaching, Learning and Teacher Education, (402) 472-2013