Other Education Professionals
This unit group covers Education Professionals not elsewhere classified. It includes Adult Literacy / Numeracy Teachers, Careers Advisers and Student Services Advisers.
Subject selection week
You are a careers adviser at a senior secondary school, in the week when Year 10 students choose their subjects for the next two years. It is Monday morning, and the subject choice forms are due on Friday. Your calendar has meetings, a student at your door and a request from the principal. None of them can wait.
Choose what you would do. Then see what happens. There are often good reasons for each choice.
Can you just tell me what job I should do? I am no good at anything in particular, and everyone else seems to know. I just want someone to say do this and I will pick my subjects.
Ask him what he does with his free time, what he is curious about and what he finds easy
Joel mumbles that he does not do much, and the conversation stalls. Good questions need a way in. Asking about what he enjoys is right, but it needs concrete examples to get going.
Give him a quick list of jobs that suit most students and send him off to read about them
Joel takes the list and picks the first thing on it because it is easier than thinking. He comes back in a week saying it was boring, and you have lost a week.
Offer a few small, concrete questions and suggest he try something new this term
He realises he likes fixing things and explaining them to people. You steer him toward subjects that keep several paths open, and he leaves with a plan he feels is his own.
My son Henry will study medicine. It is decided. He keeps saying he wants to do design, but that is a hobby and not a career. Please tell him that he will regret it if he does not take the hard sciences.
Agree that sciences are the safer choice and encourage Henry to follow the family plan
Mrs Tran is pleased. Henry says nothing, takes the subjects and quietly dreads each lesson. Eighteen months later he is struggling and has told no one why.
Say that the decision is Henry's and you cannot get involved
It sounds neutral, but it leaves Henry alone with the pressure and leaves his mother feeling dismissed. Both of them feel unheard.
Meet them together, ask Henry what he wants and show how to keep both paths open
Henry is nervous but speaks. His mother is surprised by how seriously he has thought about it. They agree on subjects that give him choices, and she says she'll think about design as a career.
I need you to run a session for the whole of Year 10 tomorrow on career pathways. About two hundred students. A guest speaker pulled out. You have the careers expertise, so I thought it was a good fit.
Say yes and put together a presentation on all the career options out there tonight
You deliver a session full of facts. Two hundred students sit politely, and most forget it by lunch. A broad lecture is not the same as helping people choose.
Say you can do it, but suggest a hands-on format with small groups and a short activity about interests
The principal agrees. Teachers help run groups of twenty, and students leave with a short list of ideas they've actually thought about. It takes more setting up but it is remembered.
Refuse because there is not enough notice and the group is too big
Your concerns are fair, but you offered no alternative. The principal asks another teacher to fill in, and the session runs as an assembly with little value to the students.
How it went
Friday arrives and the forms go in. Some students chose with confidence and some are still unsure. A careers adviser does not tell people what to do, but helps them see their options more clearly, including the difficult conversations with families. Could you see yourself doing this work?
This is a simplified, fictional situation to help you explore. It is not professional instruction or a test of your ability.
Case study: The would-be vet who struggled with science
A fictional case set in a careers office at a fictional senior secondary school.
The situation
Dev was the careers adviser at Lakeview Senior College. Imogen, in Year 10, came in and announced she was going to be a vet. She had always loved animals and volunteered at a shelter on weekends. But her science marks were low and she dreaded the subject. Her parents had told her to aim high. Dev knew the path to becoming a vet was long and demanding, and that Imogen was already discouraged. He did not want to crush her, and he did not want to mislead her.
What they did
Dev asked Imogen to describe a good day at the shelter, rather than telling her what to do. She talked about calming nervous dogs, helping new owners, and keeping records. He showed her a list of work that involves animals, from animal behaviour to farm work to nursing to running a shelter, and let her mark which sounded like her. He was honest about what vet work demands and encouraged her to talk to a local vet. Then he suggested how science could be one part of a bigger plan.
How it turned out
Imogen did not give up the dream straight away. But she picked two options she was excited about and booked a work experience day at a clinic. Dev told her that her plans could change, and that was fine.
What would you do?
- Why did Dev ask about a good day instead of a job title?
- How honest should an adviser be about how hard a path is?
- What parts of your own good days might point to a kind of work?