The Dexter Leader
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Potential career paths illuminated for students
By Sean Dalton, Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: May 15, 2008
It was Career Day at Mill Creek Middle School last Thursday and it lived up to the "day" part of the name, because it was an all-day affair.
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Volunteers from the parents to teachers to interested members of the business community came out to talk to all of the middle school's student body about what they do professionally in four separate sessions in an effort to broaden those students' horizons.
"It was a really cool thing to do," said student Justin Carder, who was overwhelmed by the number of professionals that came to the building.
"I visited with the ER doctor and he used a dummy to show us how to put a tube down a person's throat to help them breathe," said another student, Kelsey Miller.
The Career Day program is the product of collaboration between two teachers, Sue McCarthy and Pam Hintalla that started last year.
"Pam and I started contacting and recruiting possible presenters as early back as November and we had a great resource in the volunteer signup sheet that was given to all of the Mill Creek parents at the beginning of the year," McCarthy said. About 30 parents also volunteered to work throughout the day for general assistance, particularly during lunch periods.
McCarthy switched her curriculum this school year and changed her BABY (Building a Better You) class into "Career Awareness," which is sort of how the concept of last week's program started gelling together.
"I feel that kids need to have more exposure to career awareness or career consideration earlier on," McCarthy said. "Middle school age is perfect for that general exposure."
She doesn't feel that she has strayed too far from the core concept of the BABY class, which was designed to help develop students in a more general sense. Focusing self development on marketable skills and finding what those are is still a form of "getting to know (oneself)."
Cynthia Furlong Reynolds is an author and a journalist. She was one of the volunteers knows a thing or two about moving around in a career.
"I've worked for the St. Petersburg Times twice, Omaha World-Herald, Portland (ME) Times, and I've freelanced for more than 50 magazines and journals," said Reynolds, who has also written five books for Sleeping Bear Press, among an established list of many other published works.
"When I was middle-school aged there seemed to be few careers available for women (aside from) nursing and teaching predominantly," she said. "I was very impressed by the scope of professions represented at the Career Day - I wish I could have sat in on other programs."
Reynolds says she talked to several students that asked some good questions and seemed to have a genuinely sparked interest in becoming authors someday.
Eileen Slank, another presenter who cracked the door open for a peek into the life of an attorney, is a career day regular at other schools that host such events, including Ann Arbor, Lincoln, Whitmore Lake and Ypsilanti. She is also a Dexter parent.
"An opportunity to participate in career day in my own community was a bonus," Slank said.
"The kids paid greater attention than I expected they would."
Of the 100 kids that came through Slank's presentation, many did well in a question and answer period she held at the end of each session.
"We had them 100 percent - I think it is extremely important to expose children to many professions early on nso they can start thinking of where they would be able to use their gifts to best serve society."
Slank said she liked the idea of drawing kids "outside of the box" to their strengths and that Mill Creek's Career Day was a right step in the direction of the old days when apprenticeships were the gateway to a profession.
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