Being part of the Future Ready with the Library program has been a very enlightening experience. Truthfully college and career readiness for grade school students was a new concept for me and the community I serve. The following is the steps I took, the program I created, the lessons I learned and the impact of this program on the community.
The challenge
The initial steps for the Future Ready with the Library program were all about looking at your community with a new perspective. This meant stepping outside of my library and looking at my community with fresh eyes. It also meant reaching out and talking with community members about college and career readiness for grade school students. I talked with elected officials, educators, business owners, parents, grade school students and employers. This is what I learned:
- Filling entry level positions is very difficult for employers.
- Bringing new businesses to the area is very challenging partly because of the skills of the available workforce.
- Young adult and new adults are competing with adults for jobs that are traditionally thought of as first job positions.
- One of our regions greatest strengths is agriculture yet many young people in the area do not view it as a real job.
- Employers have found that young adults and new adults have horrible job interview skills
- Our elected officials are very concerned that many of our best and brightest students leave the area to fulfill their career potential.
The experience of talking with different community members about college and career readiness for grade school students was very interesting and a little bit disheartening. I like to be a solutions based person and stepping into this type of project truthfully felt overwhelming.
The solution
After talking with my program coach I was encouraged by two key terms. “This is all a giant experiment” and that awareness is a first step in creating solutions to college and career readiness for grade school students. With that in mind I had a little bit of focus but was not 100% clear on what program I should create. I decided to go on Instagram and put forth the following question.
“What is the hardest question in a job interview?”
A nineteen-year-old volunteer from the library responded with “Duh “tell me about yourself”
This ultimately led to my decision of focusing on awareness around college and career readiness for grade school students with two key focuses job interview skills and agricultural career awareness for grade school students.
The program:
The program I created was called Job Interview Skills and Agricultural Career Awareness at the Tehama County Fair.
On July 19th 2019 1,000 grade school students were at the Tehama County Fair. This is a special fair day where it is open just for them. The library had a booth at the main entrance of the fair.
Before the fair each student was given a BINGO card. With specific agriculture career awareness questions to ask the different agricultural vendors at the fair. If students got double BINGO they could return the BINGO cards at the library booth and receive a coupon for a free ice cream cone from the local McDonalds.
Once the students received the ice cream cone coupon they could play job interview jenga. We had four different giant jenga tables set up. Each block had a job interview question on it. Students were told that they need to answer the question like they were on a job interview in order to place the block on the next level.
The students spent about 20 minutes with each vendor and had program facilitators with them. The program facilitators were directed to encourage the students to ask the vendor questions and the vendors were supplied with BINGO dabbers to check off as the questions were asked.
The library booth had buttons for students with “ask me what I want to be?” on them, music and food.
The team
During the process of learning about my community and looking at it with fresh eyes I cultivated these team members for the project. These team members were crucial to me in creating and implementing this project.
SERRF (Safe Education and Recreation for Rural Families): Out of all the team members SERRF was the most crucial in the success of this program. SERRF helped me identify ways to incorporate STEM into the Agricultural Career Awareness BINGO game. They also worked closely with me on how to communicate the intention of the project with the vendors and program facilitators. Lastly, this was SERRF’s fair day and they were amazingly gracious about Future Ready with the Library working with them.
McDonalds: Out of all the businesses I talked to McDonalds was the most engaged and helpful. Learning about their experience of hiring people was very interesting. Particularly the reality that teenagers are in competition for adults for fast food work in this area. It also helped me recognize the importance of starting job interview skills early. Lastly, McDonalds was so invested in this project that they supplied me with 1,000 free ice cream cone coupons to hand out. McDonalds has made some big efforts with its “Americas Best First Job Campaign”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QP9Q_Fa-BA
The support they showed Future Ready with the Library during this project really is reflected in that philosophy. This was an unexpected relationship and one that I am happy to continue to learn from.
Event
The event itself was very smooth. Our biggest issue was the heat it was 110 degrees by 10 a.m. and the event was an indoor/outdoor location. Below is a list of the different booths/vendors that the students asked agriculture career awareness BINGO.
Jefferson Bee Company
Crain Walnut Shelling, Inc.
Transfer Flow Inc.
CALFIRE
California Conservation Corps
The Society of Women Engineers
Driscoll’s Inc.
CalFresh
Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board
Every Kid in a Park w/ Latinas in Action
Public Health—Physical Activity
PublicHealth—Nutrition
My main observation from this interaction was that the students were able to make the connection that these are real jobs in the community. Additionally, the vendors/booths indicated to me how appreciative they were that the intention of this project was around building career awareness.
Job Interview Jenga: was my primary focus at the event. We worked in small groups and it was just an amazing experience. First of all, I loved seeing the students faces light up when they heard they were going to play giant Jenga. Secondly, seeing the team building happen between these students was just very inspiring. We talked quite a bit at ALA Midwinter about active listening and this was the ultimate active listening test. I learned so much about what the students in the community hope for the future. Including:
What is your dream job?
Cop
Doctor
Lawyer
Hair Stylist
Military
Bracelet designer
Farmer
Singer
Rapper
Basketball player
Where do you see yourself in five years?
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
I don’t know
FIVE YEARS??????
I worked with a school at the fair that sadly experienced a school shooting this past December. Every single student said that they either wanted to work in law enforcement or be a paramedic. The big eye opener for me with this information was how vital life experiences are to people’s career paths. As librarians I am sure we all have pretty distinct memories of the librarians that worked with us as kids.
With the five year question I felt that the students had very real responses. It perfectly demonstrated the gap we have in college career readiness.
Extra
Below is a link to a newspaper article from our local paper about the event. It was also posted to our social media pages and we received some amazing feedback for our efforts. The Department of Education is working on a video highlighting the work we are doing and will be sure to add it to the COP afterward.
https://www.redbluffdailynews.com/2018/07/19/summer-students-enjoy-day-at-fair/
http://www.enjoymagazine.net/2018/07/25/177399/the-new-tehama-county-library-in-red-bluff
(this article has some information on Future Ready with the Library at the end)
This video also details the day and the collaboration.
https://vimeo.com/281319888
Nest steps
My next phase of the project is to work out a plan on how to incorporate real life experiences into our youth programming efforts. I also have a career visioning workshop planned which will be geared towards young adults that I am excited about.
I learned so much working on this project. I learned about the power of partnerships but also to be very strategic and to be patient to find the right partner. They might be very unexpected but are a perfect fit for you. I also learned that by creating experiences and a dialogue between people is a very powerful tool in validating people’s career vision. The social, emotional and connected learning philosophies that we discuss are constantly evolving but by creating experiences we can really have a positive impact on our communities.
(attached are photos of the event, the agriculture awareness BINGO, signage and playlist.)