Career Education for High School Teachers

Abstract

UniversityProposals, experiments and pilot programs pertaining to career education are receiving increased attention by the press and television media. The time seems ripe for each school system to consider the scope and sequence of what should be done in the form of curriculum design and faculty involvement. Professional educators hope guidelines from federal and state agencies will not be too prescriptive and that the task will be defined as one of continuous planning and reorganization. Leadership is needed to develop perspectives about vocational planning and decision making as a process. Colleges of education should take the initiative in securing appropriate facilities, arrangements and personnel for orientation, and direct involvement of their students to an array of innovative approaches, experimental and developmental programs.This article emphasizes the need for preparing preservice students in teacher education for effective participation in the classroom and as a member of the guidance team. It includes basic questions to determine the readiness of students to facilitate career development, a professional approach to effective teacher preparation, a validation of objectives, essentials for prospective high school teachers, and a tentative format for a carefully designed, but flexible, interdisciplinary program involving all students preceding initial certification.Many students currently enrolled in teacher education are not receiving organized instruction pertaining to vocational planning and decision making about careers. In 1970, Hutson (16) reported on the teacher's role in guidance based on a study of 95 randomly selected private and public universities. He stated that about half of the teacher education curricula at the graduate level includes guidance as a desirable element. At the undergraduate level the course offerings in guidance were available in less than a third of the institutions being studied. An examination of enrollments in courses pertaining to careers, would yield an even greater dearth of exposure. A further investigation of key publications of teacher educators concerned with student teaching, laboratory experiences, and professional education would likewise show a lack of emphasis as it pertains to the education and training of teachers in career development.The urgency for immediate action becomes even more apparent if one considers the thinking of Sidney P. Marland, as it pertains to far-reaching changes in the curriculum and training of teachers. He envisages students becoming familiar with various job clusters and what is involved in entering them in the first six grades, learning more about particular job clusters that interest them most in grades seven and eight; selecting a job cluster to explore in some depth in grades nine and ten; and to pursue his selected job area even more intensively in terms of acquiring skills for immediate job placement, taking a combination of academic, and on-the-job courses for postsecondary training as a technician, or selecting a somewhat ...