WNY Regional Alignment in Education and Career Pathways...It's Happening!

Please watch:                                 https://vimeo.com/157939876


This past week, a group of people met forming an amazing committee!  We are in search of a name, but here is our mission:  To align education and workforce in Niagara County.  It will all begin with planning a Career Event at the New York State Power Authority slated for 2017.  The goal, for a plethora of Regional Business and Industry to participate providing interactive displays and career pathway literature transferable to high school planning.  This event will fill the gap in both student career pathway awareness and regional workforce development.  

What catalyzed the formation of this committee and the Career Event?

Situation #1:  I sat with a wonderful group of students last week asking them many questions.  Two questions, in which students could not answer, greatly concerned me.

I asked 10 students to name one business in Niagara County that offers a career pathway.  They ALL asked me to clarify what I meant (problem # 1).  I restated, "What companies exist in our county where you can begin working that may also offer a carer pathway" (Still, no idea what I meant).  Last try, "Name one company in Niagara County where you can work." OH...now they understood the question.  However, not a single student could name a single company, other than Footlocker.

Situation #2:  The students were very engaged in this discussion, so I asked another career related question, "Can everyone please list 2 or 3 employability skill sets you have, or know of, and how you have developed these skills." Once again, students were not familiar with this language, therefore unable to identify strengths or skills unique to them.  These non-academic components are just as important as academic.  An accepted fact in education is, if a student shows aptitude in math, she/he should become an engineer, so on and so forth. Allow me to elaborate...

What we are born to do can be different from what academic classes we are good at.  There are skill sets and motivators that are important predictors of what a students should become.  It was apparent to me there is a lot of work to be done when the students could not identify any skills they possessed, only that they liked certain subjects.   Liking subjects and being good at them are NOT skill sets. Yes, knowledge coupled with a keen interest in specific subjects is wonderful, but only a forth of the career equation.

Conclusion:

There is a lot of work to be done developing the whole student and then aligning all the student academic and non academic components to the many careers throughout our region.

Solution:

It all begins with a regional partnership between education and employers, i.e., this newly formed committee.  Career Events, like the one we will have at NYPA, are super starts.  More specifically, I encourage you to familiarize yourself with the Indigo Project.  This committee will focus on these solutions!

Education meet Workforce and vice versa! Part 1

Where it all begins!

Is it safe to say that education and workforce need to better align themselves?  Are we ready to have a constructive conversation recognizing the two need to merge so we can progress as a community?

I am looking to merge our region in education and workforce.  Where education recognizes school needs to prepare career pathways for all students as well as grow students through developing their strengths.  I listen to workforce voice concerns regarding the struggle for work ready employees as well as employees.   Then I listen and work within schools and hear students are confused and unaware of their regional opportunities, as well as themselves.

The fact is, the regents curriculum is only a fourth of what needs to happen in schools!  There is 3/4 left of a child that needs to be developed.  School is the place where the entire future workforce attends until age 16.  That is huge!  Here is where intervention needs to happen!   If we are struggling both in education and in the workforce, it just makes sense to strategically plan together!

It starts with the Indigo Project:

www.indigoproject.org

Here students discover themselves!  Who are they besides an SAT score or class rank?  We have been measuring only academic performance for as long as education has been in existence.  Simply because it is easy to quantify.  Yet, there exists a whole child that needs to develop and grow in 21st century workforce skills.  What about all the students who are not motivated by a grade, therefore cannot be quantified within in one size fits most curriculum?  What would their grade be if they were motivated to learn specific to their strengths and values?  I can safely assume these students spend more time being disciplined, talking, and some may even drop out.

Indigo can  measure all the non-academic components of a student! Do they possess leadership, empathy, teamwork?  How are these skills being developed in the classroom?   Indigo brings the opportunity to measure and grow the whole student, to teach to and align their motivators, behaviors, and skills with regional workforce, designing a tailored and purposeful career pathway! This would bring relevancy and excitement to students as they attend school and learn curriculum.  Maybe their pathway involves college upon graduation and maybe it doesn't!  Maybe developing a skill and working within that industry will preface college?  But these options and pathways need to be tailored and offered to all students.  Students need to know what they CAN do, not just what they struggle with.  Let's add these measurements to a report card!  Or a profile card?  The solution is to change what we see is not working!  Indigo is the tipping point for evolved education!