| I'm active in the PTA in my town, too. We had a career day for the
8th graders. Essentially, it was organized like an assembly. We
had 7-8 volunteers (I forget the exact number) who gave a brief
talk on what they did, their responsibilities, special skills, etc.
Ahead of this, students were given a list of the speakers and
requested appointments with them. Each student pick their top
five speakers. Parent volunteers organized the schedule for the
speakers who spoke with 3-5 kids at a time in a booth-like area
in the gym. The kids could then ask specific questions in a small-
group setting. They got to talk to 3 of their 5 speakers and
almost all of them got to see their top 3 choices.
We didn't want to do this with the elementary kids. They don't
seem to need the motivation to learn as much and they aren't
really thinking about life after 5th grade.
You can contact me off line for more info. I have an article
about it that was written up in our newsletter.
Diana
|
|
I remember ads that used to be run in something like "Scholastic Kids"
magazine, that were always intriguing to me. I was in 6-10? grade at the
time, so it might be a little old, but you could probably tailor it.
It would have a picture of a kid doing something "fun". And then it would
explain the basic skills that you need to do that fun thing, and then it would
explain the JOBS that you could get if you had those skills.
One ad had a picture of a kid shooting pool. The caption went something to
the affect of;
Joey loves to play pool. Playing pool requires good geometric skills. And
with good geometry skills, Joey can learn to be an architect, a Geometry
professor or ... (it listed 3-4 things).
So maybe you could cut it that way ....
Patty loves to play computer games (well, that's a lie, but let's go with it).
Playing games on the computer teaches her basic skills, and helps her
understand the way a computer works. Understanding how computers work can
help her get a job doing .... whatever.
Maybe leave off the last part, but if I were to come into your classroom,
maybe I'd say "I'm a system manager. Some of the things that helped me learn
about computers was
o to play games on them, to learn the keys, and how a computer works
o thinking logically - because everything that a computer does is "in order"
and only what it was told to do
o be accurate - a computer has no tolerance for mistakes
Those sorts of things .... you could probably get lots of suggestions through
here.
Of course I *STILL* haven't figured out why we had to learn about history ...
OR geography! (-:
-Patty
|