Ahhhhhh, Career Exploration... Probably my favorite area of focus in Comprehensive Guidance because I get to see kids really start to get excited about their future. I have cultivated my Career Exploration lessons for the last seven years, and it is a program that is super fun and solid. One of the resources I love to use with fifth graders is the "Who Are You?" Inventory. Yes, it can be lengthy for some, but it's so awesome when it comes to giving the results. This inventory not only gives ideas of what a student might enjoy in the professional world, but it also gives personality traits of those in each area. In looking at the "Who Are You" results, you will also notice that the adjectives are both positive and negative. I have the students identify their top two or three areas, and when we go over those areas, I talk about the positive and negative traits of the personality types. After being together in school for a number of years, these kids know each other well, and they get to laughing pretty hard when the adjectives describe a classmate to a T.
A word of advice: Be sure to remind the students over and over and over and over again that this is not a job predictor. It simply brings to light different ideas of what a student might enjoy doing. It's always a fun time to try and talk down a parent who's mad at you for allegedly telling their kid that "s/he is going to be an artist and not a doctor" as the parents have planned for their child...
A word of advice: Be sure to remind the students over and over and over and over again that this is not a job predictor. It simply brings to light different ideas of what a student might enjoy doing. It's always a fun time to try and talk down a parent who's mad at you for allegedly telling their kid that "s/he is going to be an artist and not a doctor" as the parents have planned for their child...