WAIMEA — “What do you want to be when you grow up?” adults often ask youngsters. Not an easy question when you don’t know what the options are besides doctor, rock star or professional athlete. It’s a little easier question
WAIMEA — “What do you want to be when you grow up?” adults often ask youngsters. Not an easy question when you don’t know what the options are besides doctor, rock star or professional athlete.
It’s a little easier question to answer for those who have strengths and interests or those who have future-oriented parents. But for many young people the answer is often, “I don’t know.”
If you ask a Waimea Canyon Middle School student this question the answer you get may be, “I’m not sure … yet.”
Students in grades 6 through 8 participated in the school’s annual Career Day on March 11 and were given many possibilities to consider.
Career Day addressed the Hawai‘i Department of Education content and performance career and technical education standard: explore and understand educational and career options in order to develop and implement personal, educational and career goals.
Career Day also gave students another look at how the goal-setting and decision-making skills they are taught and encouraged to use are necessary lifelong skills.
Students selected presentations they were interested in and rotated through four sessions shared by twenty-five various career representatives and businesses. Students learned about the skills and educational training needed in the world of work as well as day-to-day job responsibilities and expectations.
Underlying the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” is another question, “What do you want to be like when you grow up?” Career Day offered students a taste of that too.
They could envision themselves in a helping profession like nursing, occupational therapy or substance abuse counseling.
They got a glimpse of contributing to society through agriculture, environmental work, the service industry or the arts.
At the end of the sessions students wrote reflections about the experience. Some of their comments were: “I am thinking about the legal aid program because you have to fight for what you believe in” or “I learned that employers look for people who have a deep passion for the job as well as someone who possess the skills for the job and above all they have to have a good heart.”
