The strides made by students like Alexis and Alejandra (in the previous article), combined with Greenleaf Elementary’s rising Academic Performance Index (API) score (777 this year!), reflect the school’s focus on high achievement. Our 1st Annual Career Day gave them a chance to see where their continued hard work might lead, years down the road.To host the most comprehensive Career Day, Greenleaf staff appealed to people they knew in several fields. Among the presenters were a doctor, a public speaker, a landscape designer, and a firefighter. These professionals rotated to different classrooms so that students were exposed to a range of careers. In Maureen Weiner’s class, 1st-grader Tyreke was brimming with questions for computer game designer and animator Mitchell Weiner, who shared a short animated video he’d created. “I want to make games when I grow up,” Tyreke said after the presentation.
Weiner also brought along a working model of one of the characters, which the class clamored to see up-close. In their follow-up questions, they were piecing together what it takes to wind up in a career like this. “Did you go to college for this?” one student asked.
A key part of Career Day was making connections drawn between the outside world and the classroom. Ms. Weiner helped the kids draw parallels between the model of the character and their work in class, comparing its creation to the clay sculptures they’d recently done in class.All of the visiting professionals took pains to, as Greenleaf’s flyer urged, “make their job come alive for our students.” Laura Cusak, a chef, demonstrated cutting safe cutting techniques with her collection of cook’s knives. After answering students’ questions about her path to becoming a chef, she left them with a message that echoed across all of the Career Day participants’ presentations:
“If you ask people, and study, and be really open, you can discover your passion and pursue it. And then you’ll be inspired and fulfilled by what you do.”
No comments:
Post a Comment