It is important for career development to begin early in life. Career development and employment skills are learned behavior and teachers can incorporate career lessons into their daily learning. A career focus can be fun, rewarding, and is imperative if our students are going to become the professionals of tomorrow. Take a look at the shortage of educated people needed in the workplace now.

Discussions and sharing of people in the news, in history, on TV and in the movies can be excellent ways to put careers in your classroom. By the way, what was Walt Disneys' career?

Reading books and watching videos are prime times for career awareness activities. What did Charlotte's owner do for his/her livelihood? What would be good careers for Harry Potter? Got the idea?

Workplace skills are taught in the classroom daily. Instead of disguising them as classroom procedures, rules, behaviors and the like, teachers need to dress them up as workplace skills. Following are some examples of easy ways to do this:

Many teachers use weekly job contracts with their students. Why not design these contracts so that students can earn some type of "promotion or commission" for 6 straight weeks of completion. Time management, quality, completeness, dependability, etc. are all a part of this interaction.

Employee evaluations from local business can be used or adapted to use in the classroom. This is a great addition to the "report card" and for parent conferences. Workplace skills such as time management, quality, cooperation, completeness, dependability, etc can be rated in this manner. Make sure the information is presented in the context of workplace skills not just classroom manner.

Career Education Resources: