Career Life ConnectionsSean Engbers, Surrey Christian School

- That our students would feel invited to experience interviews from industry professionals in a nurturing environment.

- That parents and industry professionals feel invited and connected to our students to listen and empower them in their career connections.

Deep Hope:

Essential Learning Targets:

I can prepare a resumé that reflects who I am. Knowing my resumé is a snap shot of where I am today.

I can engage in a conversation with a potential employer, to celebrate who I am and how I can contribute to their company and hopefully this world.

• Assess personal transferable skills, and identify strengths and those skills that require further refinement.

• Create and critique personal and public profiles for self-advocacy and marketing purposes.

• Explore possibilities for preferred personal and education/employment futures, using creative and innovative thinking.

• Engage in, reflect on, and evaluate career-life exploration.

Curricular Outcomes:

Habit(s) of Learning: Core Competency Outcomes

• I understand that my identity is made up of many interconnected aspects (such as life experiences, family history, heritage, peer groups).

• I can explain what my values are and how they affect choices I make.

• I can describe/express my attributes, characteristics, and skills

• I understand I will continue to develop new abilities and strengths to help me meet new challenges.

*Surrey Christian School uses the language of core competencies for Habits of Learning.

We all have things we love to do or where we find ourselves. Vocation is where our passions meet the world’s needs. God means for us to find joy in how we bring the Kingdom of God here and now.

There is delight in helping students journey into “who” not “what” they are becoming. The entire picture of vocation rather than “career.” Vocation is their whole being, not just their job. It’s awesome helping kids discover that.

The narrative around financial success is what is broken. The need to make more money to bring happiness is the wrong narrative. We HOPE students will want to do what they do because it meets a need in the world, and they wan to do that thing…sometimes having a job they may not love, might be what they need so they can do other things (vocation) in the time they are not working…it’s not all about what you do to earn money.

When we can learn to think about how we can bring the kingdom here and now and model this to our students, we move towards the kingdom, a better place. We (humanity) are moving towards something more beautiful, not away from it; we just need to recognize the places where we can be a part of the movement.

See God’s Story:

Storyline:

Becoming Our True Selves: A Source of Life 4 the World

Community Builder

Through continued work and discovery into who our students are, and then sharing who they are and what they hope for in life and work, they learn to be pursuers of community and finding how they can help bring shalom by filling a need in the world with the strengths they have.

Throughlines:

Formational Learning Experience:

Real Needs – The majority of the grade 11 students had never experienced an interview. They have now experienced 3 or 4.

Real People – Industry professionals

Real Work – Students prepare for resumé and interview.

Students were invited to participate in interviews after many hours preparing resumés and interview skills. Interviewers listened and provided feedback to our students. The students were empowered to share their resumés and stories. The environment was

nurturing and safe for them to receive kind, specific, and helpful feedback.

In this video, you will see interviews happening. Each

student was invited to participate in 3-4 interviews in 1.5 hours. It was a great

experience for both the interviewers and the

students.

Through this activity, I hope they can be

nurtured to delight in who they have been created to be and to

receive feedback from adults that reinforce those strengths to

empower them to be a source of light in this

world.

Student Reflections:

“I appreciated the feedback I received and will use it to improve my future interview/resumés. I also found the variety of the questions they used helpful, and now I know how to prepare for more than I think I need.”

“It was a great learning experience and totally worth the effort I put into it. It’s super important to practice this skill and this was such a good way to do so. This experience was totally worth it and I recommend to the grades in the future to participate in this and to put a lot of effort into it, since the outcome is awesome.”

“Today’s experience was very good. It helped me a lot because these were the first interviews I’ve done. I also appreciated the different interviewers because their questions and personalities gave me different experiences.”

The deep hope was realized by good preparation, expectations, support and opportunity. The students learned the essential learning targets in a really safe environment where they could grow and learn.

This activity is very repeatable (I did it first and second semester) and the feedback from the students is that we should continue to work at it.

The use of Microsoft forms was very helpful as a sign up for volunteer interviewers. I now have a decent database of interviewers.

Teacher Reflections: