Lifelong Learning in Career Education Audio

Listen to Lifelong Learning in Career Education (Windows Media Player)
Listen to Lifelong Learning in Career Education (Real Player)

Download Lifelong Learning in Career Education (Part 1 of 2)
Download Lifelong Learning in Career Education (Part 2 of 2)

Transcript of Lifelong Learning in Career Education

Karen Wolffe: Good afternoon, I'm Dr. Karen Wolffe. It gives me great pleasure to welcome each of you to the American Foundation for the Blind CareerConnect's first live webcast, Lifelong Learning in Career Education. Our second session, Determining Current and Future AT Needs will be held tomorrow afternoon at 2 p.m. Eastern Daylight Savings time. We are able to bring these offerings to you without charge thanks to the generous support of AT&T. And we plan to offer another pair of webcasts next year, so stay tuned. We will post information about upcoming sessions on the CareerConnect web site, www.afb.org/cc, or you can sign up to receive our newsletter, Connections, at the same web site. Finally, if colleagues of yours were unable to attend today's sessions, but wanted to do so, please advise them that both today and tomorrow's sessions will be archived on the CareerConnect web site for future reference.

If you are interested in continuing education credit for today's session, please be sure that you are properly registered and don't forget to complete the evaluation form. There will be two code words shared with you, one at the end of my introduction and one at end of the session, that you will need to insert in the appropriate place in order to qualify for continuing education. We can provide you with either ACVREP or CRCC credit. If you prefer, we will happily send you a certificate of attendance as long as you have completed the evaluation. If you have any questions following the session, please correspond with us at CareerConnect at careeerconnect@afb.net or call our toll free number from within the North America at 888-824-2184. By the way, the evaluation can be completed on line and the link you received that enabled you to participate today is where you need to go to complete the evaluation as well. We look forward to receiving your feedback, so please do complete it. Please make a note of the initial code word, which is "AT&T." If you have any questions during my session you may text them to me throughout the webcast. If I do not get to your question today, the answer will be posted on CareerConnect's web site.

So let me begin. Lifelong Learning in Career Education. On this opening slide I give you my e-mail address because it's important to me that you be able to reach me in the future. The main thing to remember is that if you want to connect with me, you must spell my name correctly. My e-mail address is Wolffe (W-O-L-F-F-E) at afb.net (wolffe@afb.net).

[Brief pause]

The career education model that I share with you about today includes six major stages. And I have put them up on the next slide to show you the six stages and then I shall come through each stage and address each stage's critical components. The very first stage of the model is career awareness; second stage, career exploration; third, career preparation; fourth, career placement; fifth, career maintenance; and sixth is career mentoring.

The first stage of the model, career awareness. This is the earliest stage of a child's life. And in this stage, basically from birth up into early elementary school, what we are hoping for is that the child will begin to learn about work incidentally. What I mean by this is that children learn—typically developing children, typical seeing children—learn about work without ever even realizing that that's what they are doing. They look around them, they hear what's going on around them, they pay attention to what's going on around them, and they learn about what is happening in their lives. We call it learning incidentally. It is more difficult if you cannot see because if you cannot see, you're not easily going to be able to, for example, observe from the window in your room what's going on outside of your home, what people are doing outside of your home for work, things like mowing the yard or painting the house. You may hear some of those things, you may smell some of those things, you may hear, for example, the mower, you may smell the grass, but you may not realize all of what is involved in the task. For example, if I'm a sighted child sitting in front of the window and I'm watching someone come out and mow the yard, I may have first seen that person go into the garage, get the lawnmower, check to make sure that the oil filter was clean, check to make sure that it had enough petrol, and pour the gasoline or petrol into the mower. I may be able to see that it's a push mower, or I may see that it's a ride-on mower. And it gives me a different idea about what is really going on with that task, then if all I learn about mowing the yard is based on listening to the mower, or smelling the grass once it's clean...uh, cut. Clean because it smells clean. But the reality is that I might miss important pieces of what the task really is. So for children without vision, it's important that we, who care about them—parents, teachers, counselors, occupational therapists, all the people who work with blind and visually impaired children—that we understand that there may be gaps in their incidental learning which will have an impact on their understanding about work and about careers, so that we can fill in those gaps for them.

The second important point that I want to make for you is that during the career awareness stage, another important thing that children are doing is learning about what the significant others in their lives are doing. I need to understand, for example, if my father works, or my mother works, or my grandparents work, what kinds of jobs do they do? And what is involved in that job? So if I should become aware, for example, that my father delivers packages, let's say, does he do that through the United States Postal Service? Does he do that with FedEx? Does he do that with UPS? And how do those differ? It's this combination of learning both what the significant other does, and what incidentally I might have picked up if I could see. So for example, if I learn that my father, for example, works for UPS, it would be important to also learn that there are other people who have similar jobs, like at the post office or with FedEx or with other carriers, who do a similar kind of work. And that one of the ways that people with vision differentiate between those two or three or four kinds of jobs is through what they see. So for example, as a sighted person, I see someone delivering packages. I don't get confused about whether that person works for the postal service or FedEx or UPS whether he's my father or not, because I know that the UPS man always wears chocolate brown and that he drives a chocolate brown van, and that is what these kids need to learn. They need to learn in order to be aware, truly aware, of the jobs and the variety of jobs around them, what it is these significant others are doing, how I differentiate that from other like jobs, what that work really entails, and I need to pick up on these incidental details. Early, early on, preschool, early elementary school, my expectation is that for blind and visually impaired children, we are doing just as we are hoping that those sighted kids are learning incidentally, a lot of input for blind and visually impaired children so that they don't just hear about jobs, but they come to really understand what those jobs are, who's doing them, and how they link together or don't link together with other jobs.

The third important thing to share in this career awareness area is that young children develop either positive or not-so-positive work habits early, early on. Work habits are those soft skills. Work habits are what really ultimately are going to cause a person to either keep or not keep a job in the future. They're also going to have great impact on how successful a child is going to be when he transitions from home into school and into academic careers. Because, frankly, it's those good work habits—understanding that you need to be places on time, understanding that you need to go, attend to school, attend to work, understanding that you need to work cooperatively with other people, understanding that you need to be a self-starter, that you are the one who needs to get moving, that you shouldn't have to wait for the teacher to say, or for your mother to say, or for your father to say, or the boss to say, "It's time to get started," but that you would understand that that's your responsibility—and those work habits are formulated early, early on. So much of it happens based on the development of those habits, happens based on what we experience, at home. So if at home your parents insist that you get up, get moving, get to the table on time to eat your meals, that you get up in time to get dressed and go to church or to synagogue on time, it becomes engrained and your expectation is that you are supposed to be places on time. Developing positive work habits is one of the most important contributions that families can make to early career awareness because you're building a foundation that will enable your child to be successful in life, if they demonstrate those good work habits.

The fourth area that I mentioned to you in career awareness refers to developing strong transferable work skills. The skills are what you are really going to do when you work. Those are the actual abilities that you demonstrate that show that you can do a task, that you know, for example, how to unwrap a package, you know how to wrap a package back up. That you know how to use basic hand tools—scissors, staplers, things like this—much of which is typically learned, again, at home or in the early years when you are in school participating in activities, just like other children are participating in. I underscore the "just like other children are participating in," because sometimes blind and visually impaired children don't have that same opportunity. People, well meaning, well intentioned adults, sometimes have a tendency to pull back and say, "Oh, don't ask her to make the cut, she might hurt herself." Or they'll say, "Oh, let me do that for you, I can take care of that much more quickly and much more efficiently." But the children really need that opportunity, they need the opportunity to use those hand tools, they need that opportunity to work with their hands, they need the opportunity to work, to participate, to be engaged in the same kinds of activities that the other children are engaged in because the other children are engaged in the kinds of activities that are going to help them develop the kinds of skills that they're ultimately going to need to be able to use and transfer on to the job.

So, basic skills. Think back, those of you who have children of your own, if they are young, think of some of the things that really, really young children enjoy doing. They love to...well, they love to do lots of things, but they especially like to do things where they are organizing pots and pans, taking them in and out of one another, slamming them back together. They love to be engaged in the kinds of activities where they are modeling what the adults in their life are doing. I mean, frankly, most of us who have children of our own recognize that the very best time for building these skills and work habits is when they're very, very young, because that's the only time they really enjoy household chores. And when they're really young is when they love to do these kinds of things. They love to help you unload or load the dishwasher. They take great pleasure out running their little toy vacuum cleaners around following mother or dad vacuuming up. This is when they enjoy taking the silverware and sorting it into the right category in the drawer. Every single one of those "play activities" has transferable work skills built into it. And so career awareness, this early stage, is about learning how to do the kinds of things with your hands, with your body, with your mind, that all the other kids are learning how to do, so that you can transfer those skills into the work you're going to do at school and the work you're going to do for life. It's about developing those positive work habits so that you know that the expectation is that you will perform. It's about following what your mom does, what your dad does, what other people are doing—both in the home and within the community—so that you can learn what those jobs entail.

I think about these grocery store situations that we see so often these days, where they have a small set of grocery carts for little ones to push through the grocery store. No one expects a 4-year-old to shop for the groceries. But how wonderful that the 4-year-old has that opportunity to push a little cart beside his mother or father through the grocery store, to gather food items into the cart, to go through the queue, to put the groceries up on the conveyor belt to be rung up at the cash register where the cashier takes them, and to see them packaged up and handed to them in a bag to take out to the car. And to have someone with the child who can talk to the child about the job. "You need to give the money, please, to the cashier. Put your hand out so the cashier can give you change. Wouldn't that be a fun job?" And to talk the to the child about it so that they learn in that natural environment what their job is, what the mother's job is, what the cashier's job is, what the person's job is who's taking those groceries out to the car. Those are good, real life career awareness activities.

My next bullet point for you under career awareness deals with developing social awareness. I think most of us understand that social skills are another one of those foundation skills that really make or break, sometimes, a person in terms of being successfully integrated into the larger community. And a lot of our social awareness is built on our understanding about what our role is and what the roles of other people in our lives are. Social awareness means that you have a perspective outside of yourself, that you understand the impact of your behavior on other people, that you're prepared to reciprocate when other people ask things of you, or when you are in a conversation with another person, or if someone hands you something that you're supposed to hand it back to them. And this social awareness is developed in large part, again, at home initially, and then in the early stages of preschool, kindergarten, elementary, where the expectation is that you will play with other children, that you will take turns with other children, that you will share your toys with other children. All of this is a part of developing a good social presence and awareness, which again transfers into adult life, and transfers into the milieu which will ultimately make or break a person, which is where you do your networking to build job contacts. Developing social awareness when you are young sets the stage for success when you are older, and you are ready to capitalize on those friendships that you've made by asking other people to work with you to help you find work.

I mentioned a little earlier learning tasks within jobs. That's my next bullet point, so let me just underscore the concept there again, that often for blind and visually impaired children, they may not learn all of the tasks inherent in a job and it's important that they learn all of the tasks, that they not just catch a piece of a job and think that that's the whole job. For example, if the chore that the mom or dad assigns is to help with the dishes, the whole task would start with perhaps clearing the table, rinsing the dishes, drawing the water, adding the soap, washing the dishes, rinsing the dishes, drying the dishes. Or it might involve clearing, rinsing, opening up the dishwasher, putting in the dishwasher soap, putting in all the plates and all the silverware, closing it up, setting the dials. At the end, taking them from the dishwasher, putting them away, they need the whole picture. They need to get the big picture of what a job entails so that they don't think that a job, for example, teaching, is just standing up and lecturing to the students, and don't understand that that job also involves lots of other kinds of activities: picking out the textbook, writing up the lesson plans, organizing the materials for the lesson, grading the papers, reporting back to the students, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. They need to learn the whole task.

And then my last bullet point on career awareness that I want to share with you, I think is reinforced by everything else that I have talked about to this point. They must, early on—children with disabilities in particular—discover and do chores. The importance of doing chores cannot be overestimated. This is a huge, huge issue for many children with disabilities because people want to make their lives too easy. They think they're being nice, they think they're being kind, they think they're being generous. And they're really setting the children up for failure. Children need to contribute to their families, it's part of being an integral part of the social milieu. If you don't give children chores both at home and at school, the underlying message is not a message that says, I care about you, I love you, I think you're great, I'm happy to help you. The message is really a message that goes something like this: I don't believe in you, I don't think you can do this, I don't think you're able to do this in a way that would be acceptable to me, I don't need your help. And that's a terrible message to give a child. And it sets the stage, if they get that message, for them to believe that they are incapable for life. Which, of course, means that they will not be able to go to work, which is absolutely the opposite message that we're trying to give young people. We're trying to say to children from the beginning of their lives, "You can contribute, you're an important part of the family, you're an important part of the community, and through your contributions, you help both family and community." Chores are the foundation there.

So next, I have career exploration. This is the next stage in the process of career development and the career development model, or career education model. Once children have become aware of jobs, aware of work, they understand their role and responsibility within that spectrum, then they need to really move to exploring careers in a very, very meaningful way. This usually happens in upper elementary into middle school or junior high school. And some of the key components are learning time and money management skills. I know that many people no longer wear a watch, I know that many people use their cell phones to keep time. I share with you my own bias, which is that a watch is a wonderful thing. And I would hope that the young people that you work with and that you are concerned with will have watches and learn to use their watches to keep up with time. If they don't use watches, then they must have some other technique which enables them to learn about time and keep up with time, because learning about time and learning how to manage your money are two of the critical skill areas that have to be learned in this area of career exploration. It goes back to what we were talking about earlier in terms of those work habits that they became aware of and learned the basic elements of, early on in the career awareness stage. In the career exploration stage, they are refining and using those skills in a meaningful way. So for example, now I learn about how time is important and I understand that if my mother says to me, "You have an hour to get this task accomplished," that the timer should go off literally or figuratively so that I understand that when I start this task, I have exactly 60 minutes to get it accomplished.

It's at this stage, upper elementary, where I expect that young people, children, will start to manage their own money to a certain point. That they will save money, that they will learn to differentiate between how much things cost, how much money they have, and the relationship between the two. That they will learn that they have to save their money in order to get some of the things that they really want, and that they have a system in place for saving their money so that they can, in fact, get some of the things that they want.

It's at this point in their lives where children have to learn to start balancing home and school and community responsibilities. By the time they are in upper elementary, my expectation is that they are engaged in some extracurricular activities that are going to take up a lot of their time, things like scouting, things like church or synagogue volunteer activities, other kinds of community-based volunteer activities, that they'll want to be out there, that they'll want to be engaged on little league teams, that they'll want to be participating in different kind of sports and athletic events. And so now they have to learn how to balance what's required at home in the way of chores, what's required at school, and what their responsibilities are for homework, for keeping up with their academic demands, and what they have to do in order to keep up with their community responsibilities and learn how to balance all of those things as a part of building out their ability to manage time, but also because it's at this stage where I expect them to really start exploring and start thinking about what kinds of careers might be associated with those kinds of activities.

For example, it's at this point in their lives where lots of children will start to talk to their parents, their teachers, and others about some of their dreams. I want to be a baseball star, or I want to be a rock and roll singer or I want to be a ballerina. We start to hear some of these early, early fanciful ideas. In the career exploration stage, it's no holds barred. I want children to explore those careers. It's not to burst their bubble. We don't say to someone, "Oh, you can't be a ballerina, you can't see. What would happen? You might fall off the stage." You don't go there. What you say is, "What a wonderful idea. Let's find out how you could become a ballerina. What does it take? Let's read about ballerinas. Let's go to the ballet. Let's see if we can meet some ballerinas and find out what it's all about. Maybe you'd like to take some ballet lessons." We help the child explore. We don't pass judgment. At this stage of the game, early on, when they're in elementary, I'm happy for them to dream. I'm happy for them to be thinking about anything and everything, because that's going to help us, as helpers in the future, because even if the career is something where we think, Oh, I don't know, I don't know if that would really work. If they explore it, we know they have interest. If we know they have interest, maybe that first thing will prove to be something that's not really feasible, but maybe they will find some other things associated with it that are, and that are equally satisfying to them. I guess what I'm really trying to share with you at this point is, try not to be too judgmental. Try not to be too overly concerned early on in a child's career exploration process that they be realistic. It's more important that they dream, it's more important that they explore, it's more important that they find out for themselves is it feasible or not? There's plenty of rude reality time coming up.

In the career exploration phase, I expect young people to be building their academic, social, and avocational skills. In elementary, in middle school, it's my expectation that you are building those strong, strong academic skills that you're going to need in a world where most jobs require literacy skills. They require you to manage information. Most of the jobs in our economy require good literacy skills. During the early part of children's academic careers, they need to be sure they are getting the same kind of academic exposure as the children sitting beside them with full vision. Likewise, they need to be engaged in the same kinds of social activities and avocational activities. If they are not, they will fall ever further behind in terms of the people with whom they will compete in later years for work. I understand that not everyone can always excel at everything, but in the early stages of academic work, there's room for success for almost everyone of every ability, and we need to be sure we give those children those opportunities. If we see there are shortfalls in terms of academic skill development, that we work with the young people to modify or accommodate their needs so that they can maximize their learning, that they can learn through alternative means what they may not be getting through a standard, traditional curriculum. Build good academic skills, build good social skills and good avocational skills during this career exploration stage of life, and you have a much better chance of being successful with your career exploration.

The next important thing to share with you about in terms of this career exploration stage, and now I really am thinking more toward the upper end of elementary and middle school, primarily, children need to come to understand that there are occupational clusters, and that the community worker roles that they've been learning about primarily in elementary fit into those occupational clusters. So, for example, they may have been to visit, very typical in elementary, that they would have gone on a field trip to visit, for example, a fire station, maybe a police station, maybe even a hospital. They might have visited a newspaper, they might have visited a symphony hall, or an arts studio alliance kind of facility where painters are working, or they may have been to a studio where dancers are, or they may have had an opportunity to go visit other sites where people are working. And they need to understand that those jobs cluster, so that, for example, the policeman and the fireman, even though their jobs are different, there's similarity in that they are both in that cluster of protective services. And that the people that they saw who were dancers and that the people that they saw who were painters, and maybe they had an opportunity to visit a television studio, or a filming studio, that those jobs all cluster under entertainment, or arts. It's this notion of clustering, so that they can start to think in terms of, Which cluster is of more interest to me? Maybe they went to a bank and they need to understand that that's part of the financial industry. Or maybe they went to, I mentioned the bakery, that that's part of the food services industry. They need to start to understand that there are these clusters so that they can start to think, Where would I fit best? Where would my interests, my talents, my abilities fit best? Sports is always a big deal with lots of young people these days. Where would they fit in that cluster? Would they fit in the athletic, physical, performing kind of end of things? Or would they do better over in the business side of things? And to understand that those are different, but similar, in that they're linked through interest. This is the time, during career exploration is the time to really start to hone in, understand that there are lots of different workers, they have different roles, but many of them cluster under occupational categories or groupings.

This is also the time in your life when you are encouraged, hopefully, to explore your own specific vocational interests in a really meaningful and structured way. And for people with disabilities, visual disabilities, it requires that we who are teaching, counseling, nurturing these young people, that we help structure that career exploration, vocational exploration, so that they can access the information in a way that it's meaningful to them.

Let me give you a good example. I mentioned the fact that lots of times in elementary school, kids will go to the fire station for a field trip, a wonderful opportunity to learn about being a fireman. But I've noticed, and some of you will have noticed, that on some of the field trips, all of the children are expected to stand back just a little bit, and to listen to someone talk about what it is they are looking at. The key word here would be "looking at." And so the fireman might come in and talk to the group of kids about what it's like to be a fireman, and what the work involves. And he, or she, might have the kids even come and get into the fire engine and pull the string or push the button and make the siren go, and that sort of thing. But the expectation would be, on most of these kinds of field trips, that the kids would look at the fire engine, they would see how huge it is. They would see the equipment that's on that fire engine. And for the blind child, or the child with severely impaired vision, that's not going to help as much as hinder in terms of him of her actually exploring a vocational interest. Maybe they come away from it thinking they would like to be a firefighter because they like the horn. But do they know, for example, that the hose on the fire engine is an extraordinarily long hose? And that it's very heavy, and that it's flat? Do they realize that it's not like your average garden hose? Not unless they touched it, they don't know that. Not unless they got up close to it, they don't know that. Do they understand that the equipment that the firefighter has to carry is really, really heavy? Do they lift up the jacket? Do they put on the helmet? Do they lift up the boots? Do they touch it, do they feel it, do they explore it?

When I talk about exploring vocational interests at this level, with blind and visually impaired children, I'm literally talking about hands on, to the extent that it's possible to put hands on. Any part of a job, all parts of a job, as much of a job as you can make tangible and real to a child who cannot see from afar what it entails. You may need to talk about it more, you may need to touch it, you may need to really answer questions in a way that the child explores it holistically through touch, through hearing, through smell, if possible. But not just stand back, hear about it, expect the child to get it. So at this level, where we're talking about career exploration, the expectation is that young people are really starting to explore those vocational interests. If they want to be a baseball player, that they're starting to try out for the teams. That they're starting to find out what professional baseball players run and hit and so on and so forth, what they do, and how you get engaged in that kind of work, holistically.

Finally, during this career exploration stage I have an expectation as a career counselor that young people are refining those work habits, their skills, in different settings. So I don't want you to just be on time for school. I want you to be on time for school, and I want you to be on time for the Girl Scout meetings, and I want you to be on time for the debate club, and I want you to be on time for church, and I want you to be on time for the volunteer work that you do at the local hospital. And I want you to be on time if you're going to walk my dog. They have to be required to continuously upgrade and refine those work habits and in different settings, those work skills, and in different settings, so that we're sure that they can generalize from one setting to another. Too often we hear as teachers, "Well, my child does that at home." Or as parents we hear, "well, my child does that at school." It doesn't matter, they have to be able to do it everywhere, all the time, if they're going to use it, ultimately, to go to work.

The next step or stage rather, in the career education model, is career preparation. And at this stage, here I really am thinking early high school by the latest, even some middle school kids are starting to really, really hone in on the kind of work they'd like to do, and they're starting to really apply some of these well developed, by now, academic skills in a way that has potential for the future. For example, if I know I want to be a journalist, if I think I want to be a journalist, in middle school and early high school, I should be writing stories, I should be submitting them to the newspaper at school. I should be engaged in the kinds of activities where I have an opportunity to take my well developed academic skill—writing, reading, editing—and put it into real life kinds of situations.

I have an expectation that in elementary...sorry, in middle school, and in early high school, that young people are involved in what I call value clarification activities, where they have an opportunity to do some of the things that they've been saying that they believe they would like to do. And that they believe in doing. So if you tell me that you really think you want to work with people, that you're really good with people, that you really like being around people, I expect you to take that value and put it into action. So that would mean, for me, if you've been saying to me that you're thinking about, you might be interested in becoming a teacher, a counselor, a social worker, my expectation is that you would understand that you have a value in helping others, and that your activities would mirror that value system, and that you would be engaged, that you would go into, for example, and volunteer as part of one of your activities that you did during your free time. The values clarification piece is that it helps you if you take what you believe are your values and move them into activities, to see whether or not that is, in fact, what you want to do. It is, in fact, a value that you hold dear enough that you would want to be engaged in that kind of work because it met your needs from your belief system.

During career preparation stage, my expectation is that you start to develop and put down on paper both personal and vocational goals. That you actually begin to think to yourself, "You know, if I want to be an actress, if I want to be a baseball player, if I want to be a doctor, if I want to be a lawyer, if I want..." If you have some beginning ideas, that you start to set out on paper what the idea is and what you as an individual personally need to do beginning now to achieve that goal, and what you need to be doing now to achieve that job ultimately, or that career. So for example, if I know that I want to be a lawyer, or I think I want to be a lawyer—probably don't know for sure at this point, but I think I do—if I really think I want to be a lawyer, I might look at my personal self and think well, you know, I'm a pretty good speaker, but you know, my writing skills are not the best and I know if I want to be a lawyer, I'm going to have to write briefs. So maybe one of the personal goals I would set for myself would be to improve my writing skills. And I might even decide that I would take an A.P. English class or a creative writing class to set the stage for achieving that personal goal. I would start to develop the plan for how to achieve that goal.

And from a vocational perspective or a vocational goal perspective, I might have on my piece of paper: I want to become a lawyer, what do I need to do? Well, gosh, I probably need to spend some time with lawyers. Maybe I should see if any of the lawyers in my community could use some volunteer help when I'm available. I'm available during the summer. Maybe I should go see if any of these guys or gals who are lawyers would be interested in having someone, maybe just to help with answering the phones so that I could be around lawyers and see whether or not that was what I really wanted to do. So my goal might be: volunteer with lawyers to get a better handle on whether I want to really be a lawyer and then I set my activities to meet that goal. In career preparation, goal setting is critical. You can't achieve something if you don't know what the "something" is that you're trying to achieve. And you can't get somewhere if you haven't set a destination and figured out the route to get there. Setting personal and vocational goals enables you to set a destination and plot out the course, or the route, to achieving that goal.

During career preparation time, I expect that the individual not only has...I expect that they've already learned how to manage their time and money, but now I expect something more. I expect the individual to understand the importance of resources, and how those resources are allocated, and not to take advantage of any of those resources. To understand, for example, that if I'm the counselor, and I've scheduled you for an hour appointment, that my time and your time for that hour are correlated both to what you get and what I get, you in terms of my counseling, and me in terms of compensation for my counseling. And that those resources are only the tip of the iceberg, that there are other resources that come into play here. There are resources beyond my time that go into my providing that hour's worth of counseling. Resources like the support staff who work with me, so, additional staff time. The resource of materials. I have my office setting, my desk, my digital recorder, all of these are resources, and people need at this level to understand that those resources are put to bear to get a certain outcome. And that all of them have importance in the world of work. And that they have to be valued in terms of work. So it comes back, I think in some ways at this point, of understanding both your own need to manage time and money, but perhaps more importantly at this level, that you're going to have to transfer your own self knowledge to knowledge about what it is that employers expect of you in terms of managing and being cogent about their resources.

An example: If I go to my employer and I say to my employer, "I need your assistance." That requires his time, his energy, his resources put to bear on my problem. That's fine, I can do that on occasion. But if I go every day and ask for help, it's an indicator that I don't understand this concept about the utilization of resources because I'm asking too much. I'm taking, taking, taking, instead of recognizing that it's a finite amount of resources that I'm allowed to pull from in terms of maintaining a balance at work. That's the critical piece at this stage in terms of career preparation.

By the time young people are in middle school and high school, my expectation as a career counselor is that they know how to use their technology efficiently to do tasks. That they know how to use their technology, that they don't need me to teach them how to use their technology. My expectation is they know how to use it, they know how to fix it when it breaks, they know how to coax it, they know how to problem solve it when something goes wrong. They know how to turn it on, how to turn it off, how to upgrade it, they know how to use it. And they know how to use it in order to get the tasks that I give them accomplished, and if they don't, it becomes a vocational handicap. So it's critical during career preparation that we, service providers, ensure that the students or clients who are working with us have the ability to use the technology that they're going to need ultimately on the job efficiently and effectively. Now, you'll learn some more tomorrow about evaluation of technology and use of technology. Suffice it here to say that in the career preparation stage, my expectation is that you are not well prepared to go to work unless you have at hand the devices you're going to need in order to do the tasks that are going to be required of you on the job. And that's what this is referring to here.

My next point under career preparation is that you understand—during career preparation stage—the acquiring, evaluating, and using of information. This means basically that if you don't have an answer to a question that I ask of you, or that a potential employer might ask of you, that you know how to go out there, capture the information that you think you need, evaluate that information to see if it got you what you needed, and then use the information that you captured to answer the query that was posed to you. All of us in this 21st century are inundated by information. We get information via e-mail, we get information via TV, we get information via radio, we get information from people, we get information from newspapers, we get information from books, we get information from magazines. We are absolutely inundated with information. Successful people know how to sort through the information and manage it in a way that the information doesn't paralyze them, but instead, enables them to work more efficiently and more effectively on the job. High school students have to be able to get, evaluate, and use information from a multitude of resources. They need to be able to use the Internet, they need to be able to use the telephone, they need to be able to ask the right questions of the right people in real life to get information, evaluate it, and put it to the task that they're trying to accomplish. Career preparation is only successful when you can manage information.

I remind us all, we live in an information age. The work in this country and in most of the developed nations of the world is about managing information. Young people who are blind or visually impaired have the opportunity to do that acquiring, evaluating, and using information just like everyone else, but they must learn how to do it effectively and efficiently, and I think the key is learning how to evaluate what they bring in and discard what they don't need, keep what they do need, and in an organized, structured format so that they can retrieve it when they need it. Many of us who have taught, counseled and worked with young people and adults who are blind and visually impaired, can share with anyone who will ask us that the most successful blind and visually impaired people that we know are those who are well organized. And it's because you don't have the luxury without vision of simply glancing around and finding that thing that you're looking for. You need to be organized, and information is the same. You can't just grab information and grab information and grab information. You have to have systems in place for rejecting the pieces you don't want and getting it out of your life forever, and then building a system that enables you to keep up with the information you need, and retrieve it at will, so that you can put it to bear on the tasks you have at hand. Organization is key.

This next bullet point really probably should have followed using technology efficiently, but I didn't think of it until now. It is actually about selecting, using, and maintaining tools and equipment. To do most jobs, most of us use tools and equipment, not just technology, but tools and equipment. I mentioned it earlier on in this discussion when I was talking about career awareness—basic hand tools, things like scissors, stapler, paper cutters. I think about all the equipment in the office that I work with—copy machines, fax machines, paper shredders. I think about all the tools that I used to use when I taught crafts in the crafts room, wonderful tools, from crochet hooks to potters' wheels. To be successful in any of those jobs, the individual doing the job had to be in a position to choose the right tool for the right task, use it, and then maintain it. So, for example, let's use that wheel for a minute that I used to use in the crafts room. If I came to that wheel and there was dried up clay on it, I would be furious because that meant that I had to start my task by cleaning off the wheel. My expectation was that the wheel would be clean so I could right away go to work, with my clay, my water, to make the piece I was going to try to make that day. Selecting, using and maintaining tools and equipment, that's what I'm talking about. You have to understand that if you're the potter, that you've got to choose the right wheel. You use it with all your other tools whether you're using a paddle or whether you're using your hands, the water bowl, all of those things, that's your responsibility, to pick the ones you want, to use them effectively, and then at the end of it, to clean it up and put it back where it belongs so that you maintain the viability of that tool for the next person's use. And that's critical in this stage because we're trying to get kids ready to go, literally, into work.

I think this is my last bullet on this slide: demonstrating problem solving and creativity. There's a standard rule of thumb for all employers. They expect you to come on the job with the ability to solve problems. Many blind and visually impaired kids have come up through the school system and come out of their homes with other people solving all their problems all day, every day. They pick up their clothes for them, they carry their books for them, they take their notes for them, they cut up their meat for them, they order their books for them, they order their equipment for them. These kids have one answer to solving problems and that is, ask the teacher, or ask my mother, or ask the other adults in the environment, and someone will take care of it. That is not the right answer for going to work. The right answer for going to work is, I'll figure it out. And that's what this references. This bullet point references the critical need by the time you are a middle school student to have resolved it, to understand that you must solve your own problems. To be strong enough to be able to say to people when they say to you, "Oh, I'll take care of it," to say, "No, no, no, I'll take care of it, no worries." Or, "I'll go get it, no worries." So that they show that they can, in fact, solve problems, so that other people will allow them to continue to do so, because the employer expects it. The employer expects people on the job to be creative in how they're getting the job accomplished. They're looking for people who are going to come up with new and innovative ways to do the tasks so that they can joyfully change things up for them. So understand that in this career preparation stage, my expectation is that we are seeing young people, middle school students, high school students, who can demonstrate good problem solving and creativity. They will be more employable.

Here's the last point. They must acquire these good job seeking skills at this level. They must understand, at this point, how you actually go out and get a job. They must understand that we tell other people that we're interested, we go out there, we speak to those folks. When they say—the prospective employer—you need to fill out an application, that we take the application, we ask, "May I take this with me and fill it out at home?" If the employer says, "No, you can't," then you have to either be prepared to do it yourself with an optical device if you're able to see, or maybe you have brought someone with you if you're not able to see, to help you as a scribe. They need to understand how people who are blind complete job applications on site if they are not able to see them. They have to understand how to interview successfully, what the employer is looking for, what the employer might be concerned about, what the employer is going to want to know about you. All of those things, they've got to be prepared at this juncture, because my expectation, my hope, is that by freshman, sophomore year in high school, that they're ready to go to work, that they want to go to work, that they want to get a job, either within the neighborhood—babysitting, or pet sitting, or washing cars—or they want to get a job at their church or synagogue doing something, like helping in the nursery, or they want to get a job at the grocery store, they want to get a job. And if they want to get a job, they need to understand how to do that, that you have to put in an application, and that you have to interview, and that you have to answer the employer's concerns. I share with you very, very quickly, that all employers, all employers, who are working with people who are blind or visually impaired, have some very specific concerns about safety, about how they're going to access print, about transportation, and about productivity. And these kids have to know how to answer those questions in the course of an interview. They must be prepared. They cannot come out of school—I don't mean literally from graduation, I mean literally from school—say they're a sophomore, walk over to the pizza place, and ask, "May I get a job, do you have a job?" And the employer says, "Oh, you know, I don't really have any jobs right now but you can fill out an application," they can't just say "Okay, thank you," and walk away. They have to understand thay they have to say, "May I take the application with me and bring it back to you, I really am interested." Then they have to fill it out and go back to the pizza parlor. Maybe the guy says, "Oh, I don't worry about applications, sit down and talk to me." They have to be prepared to sit down and explain to that employer why they would be the right person for that job, what they have to offer, how they do the job without good vision. They have to be prepared to tell a little bit about themselves, to explain why they would make a good worker, what they do well, what skills they have that they can bring to bear in that job, they have to be prepared to talk about all of those things before they go in to ask about the job. If they don't, they cannot do the job. It just won't work. So job seeking skills, I expect will have been acquired during the career preparation stage because this next stage is about career placement.

Career placement means you actually move into work. You move into work. And that means you start to gain work experiences, both volunteer and paid work experiences. My expectation, my hope, my dream, is that not a single young person, high school age, leaves high school without having work. Work is what sets the stage for success. They must gain work experiences during high school. They're going to be in so much trouble if they walk away from high school with no work experience. Doesn't even have to be paid, they can do volunteer work, but they must work. And so career placement is about first, acquiring work experiences. Secondly, it's about refining all those work-related skills and habits through work. If I take the job at the pizza parlor, and I don't show up on time, or I come in and I haven't cleaned under my fingernails, or I have a fight with one of the other co-workers, I don't get along with other people, I'm out. On the other hand, if I do my job well, if I come every day on time, if I get along with the other people, if I'm one of the people who's early, who's a self initiator, I do above and beyond what I'm asked to do, chances are, I'll stay. I may even get a raise. And that's how you refine those work habits and skills, is through your work experiences, applying what you've learned.

During this stage I expect young people to gain access to adult role models. Adult role models are critical to life. Obviously, your parents are role models, and teachers are role models. Often for young people who are blind or visually impaired, they don't have easy access to adult role models without vision. We make available, through the American Foundation for the Blind, access to successfully employed adults who are very, very happy to work with young people, and adults, through CareerConnect. I'll give you some additional resources at the end of this lecture, but let me share right here that CareerConnect, www.afb.org/cc, CareerConnect, has a body of adults who are willing to engage with young people or other adults and be part and parcel of the answer to this concern about access to adult role models.

During career placement, my expectation is that these young people and adults, frankly, because really, career placement happens in high school, college, postsecondary, right up into adult life. It's what we do with all that we learned in school when we apply it in the jobs that we take. And it's where we really have the opportunity to focus and refine our interests and our experiences to get better and better and better at what we're doing so that we can advance in our jobs. If you're still in high school and you're planning to take part in postsecondary training, I expect you to be preparing for that postsecondary training through your experiences in your jobs that you are gaining through high school and into college. So, for example, if you want to be a lawyer, I'd rather you go work in that lawyer's office answering phones, as a receptionist, for example, or as a gopher, going for papers, delivering papers, that kind of thing, than working in the pizza parlor, so that your preparation during your career placement is in preparation for that postsecondary training that you're going to need in order to gain that career goal that you set for yourself. I expect you to be participating in career-related kinds of activities. Again, if you want to be a lawyer, my expectation is that you will be engaged on the debate team. If you want to be a musician, I expect you to be playing piano, for example, at church, so that you have related kinds of activities that you're doing, both careerwise and avocationally and academically so it all fits together and helps you refine those skills.

I will say it loud and clear. Career placement is about developing strong networks. We know that one of the best ways for people to get jobs in the future is through their networks. So when you take a job, any job, every job, volunteer, paid, all work experience, think about your co-workers, think about your bosses, think about all the customers who come in, think about everyone you meet on that job as now part of your network, and that's what I want to get across to young people and adults. The stronger your network, the better your chances for gaining your career goal in the future. Strong networks are a lot like a spider web. The spider who catches the most insects has the most web flung out there. To get the best jobs, the most jobs, have the most opportunities, you need a strong network, and it's through this stage of career placement where you gain that opportunity.

And then finally, in career placement, my expectation is that you are making your plans for life and career, so that the jobs that you are capturing connect to your career goal, and that the life activities connect to your career goal. It all has to fit together to be successful.

Now, quickly, because I don't want to run out of time, let me come through the career maintenance stage. Once you've come through school, you've captured your job, you're working away, you've done your postsecondary training, and everything is fine, you have a good job, you're a happy camper, now I expect you to keep that job. And to keep a job, to maintain a job, this stage of career maintenance, which really probably ought to be called "career maintenance and career advancement" because this is how you advance as well as maintain. You demonstrate all day, every day, good social skills. If people don't like you, I don't care how skilled you are, you will not keep a job! If people like you, on the other hand, they will help you keep your job, even if your skills need a little time to be refined. Because if they like you, they'll show you the tricks of the trade. They'll teach you what you need to know. But you've got to have good social skills, and you must demonstrate them all day, every day. You must demonstrate those good work habits, the soft skills: punctuality, attendance, cooperation, self initiative, honesty, all of those good, strong work habits have to be demonstrated, have to be in evidence for other people to see. And you have to be able to demonstrate skill, ultimately.

You have to manage your time, your money, and your resources. It is not my responsibility as your employer, it's not your co-workers' responsibility to give you our sick time. You need your own sick time. If you take too much sick time, you're the one that's going to suffer the consequences. If you run out of money before the end of the month, it's not my responsibility to buy your lunch, it's your responsibility. If you don't manage your time, your money, and your own resources, you cannot keep a job. It's that simple.

Good employees are sociable, they have good work habits and good work skills, and they manage their own time, money, and resources. To keep a job, to advance in a job, you have to stay healthy. You have to eat well, you have to exercise, so that you can put your attention and energy, as needed, to work.

It's important to remember to file your income tax. I probably don't need to say that since we've just so recently dealt with April the 15th, but I will say it because it's critical. If you don't file your income tax, if you don't file your related paperwork, for things like medical claims, you're going to end up in trouble. If you end up in trouble, you will not keep your job because you're going to have to go deal with the trouble, maybe literally by going to jail if you don't file your income tax in this country, or by being in some other kind of dire strait which will preclude you from being able to successfully put your attention on work. So remember, career maintenance, advancement, filing income taxes and related paperwork. You have to work with your supervisor to advance in a career. You need to find out from your supervisor what is it you need from me, want from me? What can I do better? What I can do faster? What is it that it will take for me to move to the next level? People need to understand, adults need to understand, you can't just do a good job. You need to find out what is the other piece of this? What do I need to do to advance in this career? And it's your supervisor who can tell you.

The last stage of this career education model is called career mentoring. And it's actually an acknowledgment that even those of us, and I count myself in that number, who are approaching the age where we might consider retirement, have to think and recognize the importance of sharing what we've learned with others. Mentoring someone else, teaching someone else, in a way, is accepting responsibility for younger and less experienced co-workers and saying to them, "I want to prepare you to take my place." Maybe not literally, but figuratively speaking. Mentoring is recognizing that importance and being prepared to share what you've learned. Accepting responsibility for those younger, less experienced co-workers' education and demonstrating for others how to succeed in a chosen field. Through mentoring, you replace yourself, and we are happy to have you engaged with us, if at all possible, in terms of mentoring.

I'm running out of time, so I must quickly give you some resources. I encourage you look at and read Skills for Success, a career education book that I was involved in editing. It's available through the American Foundation for the Blind press, AFB Press. It's activities from preschool all the way up through high school. Transition Planning and Employment Outcomes for Students with Visual Impairments and Other Disabilities is a chapter in a book that I wrote for students with multiple disabilities. Career Education, Foundations of Education chapter, again through AFB Press. Transition Issues Related to Students with Visual Disabilities is a skinny little book I wrote with Jane Erin and available through PRO-ED. Career Counseling for People with Disabilities is the book that I wrote for adults, and it's available through PRO-ED.

Last slide, in terms of resources, some specifics: www.careerconnect.org or www.afb.org/cc, both will get you to CareerConnect. Our toll free number at CareerConnect: 888-824-2184; careerconnect@afb.net, the e-mail address; or, you're welcome to e-mail me: wolffe@afb.net or call my local number: 512-707-0525.

I thank you for your participation and now I'm going to take a minute to see if there are any questions that anyone may have wanted to ask.

Wonderful, then I get to ask my own question and answer it, which is, If sky's the limit, if there are no holds barred, if you could do anything at all to make it better, to ensure that young people with vision impairment grew up to be successfully employed, what would be the one thing you would choose? And I would say to you: put them to work. As early as possible, as often as possible, doing as many different kind of jobs as possible. Give them chores if you're the parent. Give them chores and responsibilities at school if you are the teacher. Give them activities that you expect them to accomplish if you are the therapist or the counselor. And then give them realistic feedback on how well they've performed. Did they meet your expectations? Did they come close? Were they way off the mark? Did they do much better than you expected? Be realistic with them. And judge their performance not on what you expect of them as a person with a disability, but what you would have expected of them if they were a person without a disability. Because that's the benchmark. Too often, we allow young people who are blind or visually impaired and adults who are blind or visually impaired, to get mixed messages. We'll say, "Oh, you're doing a great job, you're doing a great job," even when it's really not a great job, it's maybe just a good job. Sometimes it's not even a good job, sometimes it's a mediocre job. So what we really need to do is if they're not meeting our expectations, the person who gave them the job, who gave them the responsibility, who gave them the chore, what we need to say is, "I really appreciate it that you tried. You did a really good job up to this point, but at this point, I would have liked to have seen you do..." and tell them what they need to do to make it right. Don't just say you didn't do it to meet my expectations or you didn't do a very good job, be specific. Be specific about what it is that they need to do in order to make the task right. Because I remind you, the competition for every child, for every adult with a disability, is a child or an adult without a disability. And so they must be able to compete on this playing field, the playing field of life. And the playing field of life is not level, it's not even, nothing about it is fair. It's just real. And so we need to make sure that they're prepared for that, that they're willing to problem solve those hurdles, and figure out ways to creatively compete. They can. We know that they can. We know that they will if they're given enough opportunity to learn the skills, the work habits, and those alternative techniques that are so important for them to be able to do what they need to do.

So I thank you very much for your interest and willingness to participate with us in this new, untried venue, at least for us. I hope that if you do have questions that you will e-mail those to me or text them to us so that we can address those on the web site, we're happy to do so. I remind you to let your friends and acquaintances know that if they missed today's session and they might like to catch it, that they will be able to do so. Shortly, we'll get this file archived, and when we have it archived, we'll send out an e-mail to those of you who participated today so that you can be aware of that. And we'll also send e-mail to anyone who asked us for it, we'll post it in our newsletter. And I just want to thank, once again, AT&T for their generous support. I thank all of you for your participation and remind you that in order to get credit for this afternoon's webcast, you simply need to add in the final code, which is "answer."

Thank you, appreciate it.

Related Announcements

• Onkyo Braille Essay Contest
• Essay Contest to Celebrate the Hadley School for the Blind's 90th Anniversary
• Pitt & Carnegie Mellon Recruiting Undergraduates for 2010 Research Experience
• View all announcements

Headlines