Career Education: Its Meaning and Rationale

Without regard to which of the above three approaches to career selection seems most plausible, it is obvious that the educator’s work is intimately tied up with the entire enterprise. The design of the curriculum, the selection of materials, the style of teaching, indeed, the entire ambiance of the educational environment contributes in some subtle but definite way to the manner in which a youngster addresses this concern. In an older pedagogy, it was thought safe to ignore the question of life work, and to leave the decision to a later determination in the post-school years. Indeed, going to school was widely thought to be the best way to postpone the problem! The perennial student was the paradigm for the kid who just couldn’t seem to grow up. Nowadays, we are not so sure that delay and postponement is the best policy. Life is too complicated, the options too many. There is an urgency we have not felt before in bringing schooling and life into closer touch with one another-not in the class-trip-to-the-firestation sense, but in a generic locking together of what we teach and learn and what kind of growth and maturation we wish to generate in our students and in ourselves. Career education is an exciting new way of probing that connection.