She has a good point! Parents take some time to read this!!!!!!!!!!! I don’t like to rant on Facebook, as I like to keep this a happy place, but something is bothering me and I feel the need to put it out there. This is long, so if you don’t want to read it, keep scrolling down your newsfeed… Yesterday, I had the pleasure to speak at a local high school about the programs my community college offers. I spoke to two different groups – the first was freshman and sophomores, and the second was juniors and seniors. Without boring you about the nitty-gritty details of the presentation, I will just tell you this: After being there for just one hour total, I left having learned A LOT about our future generation and about what we parents (not teachers, not politicians, not anyone else) need to do to ensure this country gets to where we would like it to be. 1. Quit talking to your kids about college. Start talking to them about CAREERS. These kids have no idea of what careers are even available to them, yet we keep pushing them to get a four-year bachelor’s degree when that may not be the best path to the career they want. (Did you know there are certificate programs and two-year degrees that lead to just as lucrative jobs as a four-year degree? And in some cases, even better pay than a four-year degree?) If they don’t know what career they want, how can we keep pushing them to go to college? JUST STOP IT. Start talking to your kids about what you do for a living, what your friends do for a living, what that guy is doing who works in the doctor’s office. There are careers available as options to kids now that didn’t even exist five years ago. TALK CAREERS, not college. I asked the juniors and seniors, “Who knows what they want to be when they grow up?” Here’s the sad part: more kids knew where they wanted to go to college than what they wanted to study… and I’m talking about 4 out of 20 students knew what they wanted to study and 6 out of 20 knew where they wanted to go to college. These are JUNIORS AND SENIORS. These kids weren’t changing their minds… they were all UNDECIDED with zero direction at a point where they should have some type of an idea in order to do the things they need to do in high school to be successful AFTER high school. That’s not to say that kids won’t change their minds or find something that better suits them after high school – what bothers me is that they don’t even know what is possible. Also – please forgive me on this one – your Little Johnny just may not want to go to college or be suited for college, but he’s TOO AFRAID TO TELL YOU. If you move the conversation away from college and to “What do you want to do with your life?” it will be much more productive. There are technical and career programs where kids thrive because they found something that suits them better than a four-year liberal arts degree… let them explore that. It’s OK. There are students who graduate with a two-year technical degree who are making more money than I am and are finally happy because they are doing something they love to do. Stop this crazy thinking that a four-year degree is where it’s at and talk to your kids about their future, not your alma mater or the place they would like to party for four years. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not diminishing the value of a four-year liberal arts degree because I think there’s much to be gained from that experience – I’m just saying that it’s not the right fit for every kid and that kids need to be presented with the options available to them. 2. Talk to your kids about money. And I don’t mean about how much things cost – the discussion needs to go beyond that into how much do things cost relative to how much money the family brings in. Talk to them about your salary and your car payment and your insurance and your medical bills and your student loans and what a pain in the ass it is that gas is so expensive this week because the cell phone bill is also due. Talk to them about what it takes to maintain the lifestyle your family has and why you cant take a family vacation every year like the Joneses up the street. If Little Susie assumes that the latest iDevice and Ugg boots are just always going to drop down out of the sky when she wants them, does she understand what it will take to maintain that lifestyle once she leaves the nest? One of the careers I talked to the high schools about has a median salary of $70,000/year in my area. I asked the kids, “What do you think about that salary? Is it a good salary?” One girl said, “Well. Yeah. I think that’s pretty okay,” and other kids shrugged their shoulders and agreed, but obviously didn’t know. Not a goddamn clue whether a $70,000 salary was good or bad? If we don’t talk to our kids about this, who will? And it’s not good enough to tell them that $70,000 is damn good money – we have to show them what that means to someone’s every day life and that the difference between a $70K job and a $30K job might be the ability to take a spring break in the Bahamas every year. How can we expect them to make sound decisions with their futures if we don’t educate them on the lifestyle they currently live? 3. The kids I spoke to also didnt know that there are careers available in electronics and construction and welding, so lobby to your school boards to bring back Industrial Arts classes at both the junior high and high school levels and also ensure that EVERY KID takes a class. EVERY. DAMN. KID. Whether they are boy, girl, high on achievement test scores or low. Exploration of these types of skills (manufacturing, construction, electronics, auto mechanics, etc.) should be a part of our curriculum as we need more people who know they have these skills. There are kids who have them, but they just don’t know it because we have filled our high schools with college prep classes instead of giving kids exposure to various skillsets so they can figure out where they shine. Let me be clear: So THEY can figure it out – not the parents by their idea of what they dream for Little Johnny and not the teachers through some damn standardized test score – the student needs to figure it out FOR THEMSELVES. Let them explore – ALL kids need the opportunity to explore the industrial arts. And if your school won’t offer those classes, provide the opportunities for your kids through other means. Here’s the thing that I’ve learned as a result of my job: High schools are pretty much catering ONLY to the kids who are four-year college bound and are ignoring the rest; yet, there are a ton of bright, awesome kids who aren’t in the college prep classes and maybe who don’t want to go to “college” and they are getting lost because no one is telling them the following: “It’s OK if you don’t want to get a bachelor’s degree and you’d rather do something awesome like learn how to fix cars. Let’s talk about how to get you there.” This is terribly unfortunate because I’m always going to need a great mechanic as long as I own a car… Mechanical aptitude is a skill that is lost and sometimes downplayed in our society, but that is so desperately needed. Sorry – that’s another topic for another day… So my message after seeing 40 lost high school students is this: Start talking to your kids about careers, and money, and all that stuff that is hard to teach because, let’s face it – sometimes we don’t even know what the hell we’re doing. Sometimes we don’t know how we’re going to pay that bill or why we hate our job so much. But within the context of your child and your situation – help them understand where you’re at so they can understand the world they are about to go into because they really have no clue how much of your daily wages it costs for them to have clothes or food or a cell phone or a car to drive. Start talking to your kids about all of the different types of careers that are out there in the world. Kids honestly have no clue what a good salary really is or what careers are available to them. Help them to explore those different career options – let them take that non-college prep class in high school in electronics if it’s available, or go and talk to someone at your community college or your local unions to see what is out there. As parents, stop worrying about college for your kids and start worrying about their career and direction in life and what you can do to foster their curiosity. My daughter told me one night, “Mom, I don’t think I want to go to college,” and I think she was afraid to tell me that given that I’m an overeducated college administrator. And I said, “That’s fine, but you’re going to learn how to do something – weld, cut hair, be an electrician, work with computers – I don’t really care what it is, but youre going to do something because you’re not living in my house forever.” And I really meant it – I want her to be able to support herself in a career that she loves, which is the dream we should have for every kid, not, “I just want Little Johnny to get his Bachelor’s degree.” PLEASE, PLEASE STOP THAT and start the career conversation instead. We will all be much better off because of it, but mostly your kids will thank you. . LikeLike · 9 people like this. . Jacqueline Fendler-Mesec Thanks for sharing Gina! So true. 5 hrs · Like
Posted on: Fri, 07 Nov 2014 20:01:31 +0000
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