career orientation elective

[carol]

Wondering if anyone has done a career orientation class for a 1/2
credit elective. If so how did you do it?

Carol

[choirfarm]

I do not know that this would qualify as a credit, but this is what we talked about doing. We would meet once a month. Each mom would take one month to organize. For example, with my connections I would make mine the medical field. I would invite doctors, nurses, x-ray techs, etc. I thought about having some kind of form the kids would have that would say: educational requirements, duties, talents needed for profession, etc. Anyway, each one would talk about what is required for his/her profession, the tough parts of the job, the best parts of their job, etc. Then it would be open for questions. Then at the end each child would sign up to shadow a person for a day...maybe more...maybe none if they have no interest in the field. But I would think they should shadow at least one. Another month could be animal work: Zoo keepers, vets, etc.
Another month computer jobs, etc.

To make it for credit, you could make a basic information sheet and then maybe have them write a paper for each one... You could meet more than once a month as well. We were just trying to make it easy on us and the co-op meets 3 weeks then off one week. Just something we tossed around.

Christine

[Maverick]

A dad taught a 9-week "Careers" course at our co-op last fall but my kids weren't in it so I don't know many details. I know he used an interest inventory test to help the kids determine where their skills, aptitudes and interests were. They had to research careers they were interested in using the Occupational Outlook Index (or something like that) from the library. They had to interview at least one person about his or her career (I think he helped them find someone in their field of interest if they didn't already know someone).

We did something similar when I was in high school. In WA one of the 11 required subjects is occupational education. Way back when I was a freshman, all the 9th graders had to take Careers. We did six 6-week rotations through the vocational classes at our high school, including one session taught by the librarian about looking up career information, plus auto shop, agriculture, home ec, drafting, and business.

I like choirfarm's idea about having people come in and report on their careers.