Ch. 12 – Designing and Implementing Comprehensive K-12 Career Development Programs

As I began reading the section on planning for a career development program, I could not help but think how much work is put into providing this program to students within the school system. I would love to take a visit back to my own school district and see if the steps to providing students with a resource for career development have actually been implemented. The first figure presented in the chapter on the ASCA National Model and having a counselor knowledgeable of these important elements of a school counseling program would have definitely helped me in my own search as to what field of work would correlate with my interests. In the section describing the writing of goals and objectives, I was actually surprised at how young children could start learning about careers. The examples given for each grade level reinforce the fact that education involves more than just textbook learning. With the opportunity to go on field trips to various workplaces, having guest speakers of different careers, and enabling students to job shadow definitely allows for a real world experience that would only help students explore career options. Students may feel that they would like to pursue a particular career and having the ability to meet and discuss what the responsibilities of the career include with an adult within this occupational field allows for personal insight that may not be available otherwise.

Outside of what the school environment can provide in regards to career development, it is beneficial to have the contributions of parents and the community. I never had a job fair conducted in my high school, and there was no job-shadowing experience for students. The only social agency listed in the text that was involved in my school district was the local 4-H clubs. Looking back upon my K-12 experience I realize how unprepared I was to make any career decisions. I knew that I liked going to school so choosing to go to college was the only decision I made regarding my future career. Luckily I chose a major that I was truly interested in, but it has taken me up until this point in my life to understand that the one element of helping individuals was what pushed me to pursue further education. Even to take some form of a career assessment or to have a school counselor/career resource center may have provided me with more direction as to what career path I should pursue.

Brown, D. (2012). Career Information, career counseling, and career development (10th ed.). New York: Pearson Education, Inc.