Most tamariki aspire to one of just nine jobs as discovered in national survey, Drawing the Future.
‘Inspiring the Future Aotearoa’ is working to introduce ākonga to real stories of people in different careers, showing students just how vast their horizons can be; that they can aspire to 9,000 jobs, not only nine.
Inspiring the Future role models reveal their jobs to students at Newtown School, Wellington.
Tapawera Area School ran its first Inspiring the Future event last year. It’s a free programme for students aged seven to 13 and can be run at school and online.
Ākonga take turns asking the ‘role models’ different questions, with the end goal of guessing what their career is. Afterwards, the role models share their career journey.
“The students responded really well to the event. They enjoyed the game show aspect of guessing and asking questions,” says Gemma Walsh, the school’s career coordinator.
There is a diverse range of role models available, with more than 1,000 volunteers currently signed up with the programme. Tapawera School had a marine biologist, a recruiter, an engineer, a graphic designer, a commercial construction worker and an employee from the hops industry, which is a profession local to the Nelson area.
“We ran the event with our Year 7–10 students, and it was about opening up jobs ideas they had probably never thought of, jobs that are not careers in their circle, and careers their parents don’t do,” says Gemma.
“It opens doors for ākonga and shows them what else is out there. If they don’t know, they don’t know. It’s very easy to stay in your bubble.”
Raelene Miller from Waitakaruru School has run the programme three times over the past two years.
She is also an across-school lead within her kāhui ako and has run the event for 10 other small schools in her rohe.
During the events they have run, Raelene says the schools have seen “quite a list” of different role models, ranging from marine biologists to an Olympic cyclist, a regional security manager for Asia-Pacific and a fire engineer.
Raelene explains the students get excited working as “detectives” to figure out each person’s career.
Inspiring the Future role model demonstrates how she uses a skateboard in her job as an occupational therapist.
“But even better, they then get to sit down, choosing which mentor they want to learn more from, and ask them questions.”
She also puts the students in different groups to rotate around each role model, so they don’t zone in on just one career and are instead exposed to many. It’s about broadening students’ horizons, she adds.
“They [students] never thought that a job as say, a crime analyst would be exciting, but when that role model described what she did and how she investigates people using social media, the students were captivated – they thought it was so cool,” says Raelene.
Raelene also made sure to have a variety of role models attend her school’s events and has made sure to involve veterinarians. She says a veterinary career is quite popular with students in her farming community.
“However, what students think vets do and what vets actually do is quite different. Being a vet is not just cuddling cute animals all day.”
As many of Raelene’s students come from farming backgrounds, she says many only know about farming careers.
“Our students just aren’t naturally exposed to the huge variety of jobs that city-dwelling students can be.”
But she says Inspiring the Future is opening their minds to all that is out there.
One of her students comes from a family of generational farmers, but he doesn’t want a farming future for himself. When he met with a role model who designed irrigation systems, Raelene says he was captivated. He saw a new and exciting future for himself still tied into his skillset.
The events also help challenge students’ internal biases.
Raelene says a 25-year-old Māori loan partner fascinated her students. The students originally thought he was a model. Then they thought he worked as a bank security guard.
“It was all assumption. The students thought he didn’t look old enough to be a home loan partner.”
Another time, they had a female role model in her 40s. After the students worked out she was in the medical profession, they all guessed she was a nurse.
But she was in fact, a specialised surgeon.
“They made this assumption she couldn’t possibly be a doctor because she was female,” says Raelene.
“It was crazy the students, even at that young age, are prone to stereotyping. They based their guesses on small things, like age and how they looked. But it was really important to show the students that all of that doesn’t matter.”
Avalon Intermediate students try to guess what jobs the role models do at their Inspiring the Future event.
Chris Steffensen, principal of Plimmerton School says he runs the event at his school as he wants to show his students that life is greater than the grades they receive while studying.
“I want our tamariki to understand you shouldn’t just look for a job, you should work in an area that inspires you and enables you to make a difference.”
Chris says he’s made sure the role models speaking at his events have jobs within reach for students based on their local environment, but also careers not limited by gender, university degrees or focused solely on money.
“I believe we shouldn’t simply expect our learners to know what they want to be at 12 or 13 years of age or pigeon-hole their thinking towards one direction or purpose. The world we live in is changing before our eyes, so enabling our tamariki to think about what their skill sets are now, what they might need to focus on if they have a goal in mind or even empowering them to try different things, is important.”
The programme can be run in person or online, meeting the needs of each school.
Iwi Bennion has helped run the programme online at Tokoroa Intermediate School. She says the event gave her students “food for thought.”
One of her students has dreams of becoming a professional footballer. Through the programme, she got to meet and interact with several role models involved with the Phoenix Football Club.
“This programme is great for people like young Taylor, who is adamant about what she is aiming for,” says Iwi.
“But also, not all of the students are going to be like that, and so it still opens everyone’s minds that there is so much out there for them to choose from.”
Students have a kōrero with an Inspiring the Future role model about her job as a builder.
The Inspiring the Future programme provides teachers with everything they need to run an event, including step-by-step instructions and a database of role models.
BY Education Gazette editors
Education Gazette | Tukutuku Kōrero, reporter@edgazette.govt.nz
Posted: 10:02 am, 22 February 2024
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