What Place Does Career Development Have in Your School?

Today's students are entering a highly competitive global workforce. Nearly 90% of the fastest growing jobs in the US require education beyond high school. Almost all jobs in the future will need some form of certification or post-secondary degree. Are your students going to be college and career ready? Are they learning enough about themselves and how to make informed career decisions? Do they have personal career plans and access to career information?   

The Oklahoma Career Information System (OKCIS) is an Internet based career information delivery system customized for Oklahoma that combines a wealth of career, education and labor market information into one comprehensive, easy-to-use career exploration, career planning and job search tool. Have you introduced the Oklahoma Career Information System to your students?

OKCIS TRAINING Oct. 3 – Stillwater, Oklahoma
CareerTech, 1500 W.7th Avenue

Whether you have never used OKCIS or if you just not familiar with the new features and updates in OKCIS this Fall, we are providing an opportunity for you to learn more about providing the best career information to your students. On October 3 in Stillwater, we will host two OKCIS training seminars. From 9 am-12 noon we will cover new features, updates and a general overview of the basic and Junior OKCIS programs. In the afternoon from 1:30-3:30 pm we will look at the completely redesigned OKCIS Administrative tools.  Come for the morning on basics and updates or the afternoon session for a demonstration of the redesigned Administrative tools, or come for the whole day. Just sign up online and let us know you are coming. Click this link to register online today.

Your Perspective Matters!

We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.
Food for thought...  

We look at situations and events with a personal perspective, and we interpret what other people say and do, according to our own set of past experiences.  Our culture, faith, and values help us to form our beliefs about ourselves, about others, and about the world in general.  Our interpretations of our societal environment (whether looking at it from the academic, workforce, or leisure perspective) is framed with meaning.  The meaning we give events, the way we make sense of our world, is based upon our personal set of core beliefs.

The Core beliefs system typically comprises three frames of reference:

• How I think about myself
• How I think about others
• How I think about the world

So…our minds are constantly trying to make sense of the world by forming judgments and opinions regarding every situation and interaction we encounter in our daily lives.  Those judgments and opinions will be affected by our core belief system. 

The core belief system may be influenced by:

• Past experiences
• Childhood upbringing
• Societal station in life
• Culture
• Faith
• Values
• Societal norms
• Current circumstances
• Character traits, including genetic influences

Through the expansion of our individual awareness regarding academic, workforce, or leisure perspectives, we will benefit via new ideas and resolutions to current challenges and proposed opportunities, whether in the present or to be encountered in the future.  By not seeking different perspectives to promote new ideas, we limit potential opportunities.  Offering and accepting opportunities to ask questions and reflect on shared ideas expands the boundaries of an individual’s reality and by extension, can promote feelings of encouragement and inclusive validation.

Sometimes it is a matter of simply taking another look at something to find POSITIVE BEAUTY.

Counselors are more important than ever!

Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education, U.S. Department of Education recently penned a letter about school counselors and the importance of school counseling.

Check out this letter at:

http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/guid/secletter/140630.html

 

Some quotes from that letter are:
“I want to call attention to the urgent need for highly effective school counselors and discuss the importance of amplifying the impact of school counselors on students’ academic success, social-emotional well-being, and college and career readiness.”

 

“School counselors are pivotal in helping students manage their academic programs as well as the inevitable life events that may threaten students’ ability to succeed in school.  Yet, as the Civil Rights Data Collection recently found, one in five American high schools operates without any school counselors on staff.”

 

“Schools that do employ counselors may not use them to full advantage.  Despite the critical role school counselors play in supporting students’ college and career readiness, they often are asked to perform many “non-counseling” duties that can distract from their core work and ultimately leave students without the individualized attention they need to complete their academic course work, successfully navigate the college admissions and financial aid processes, and/or prepare for productive careers.”

 

I believe counselors are more important than ever.  In my experiences with business and industry, I have heard them also talk about the importance of career counseling and career development, more so than previously.  Yet we still see when resources are in trouble, counselors are often first on the chopping block.  Duncan made some fine points in his letter-now if we can only see those points be put into practice.