Deputy Principal – Strategy and Innovation
As we start a new year it is exciting to imagine what is possible on all of our learning journeys. With a 17 year old daughter studying the HSC, I am looking forward to seeing how she handles herself and seeks to move from compulsory schooling into finding a career. Through this I have been challenged by one of Adam Grant’s actions for impact from his book Think Again. Grant challenges us to stop asking kids what they want to be when they grow up! We need to remember that kids don’t have to define themselves in terms of a career. A single identity can close the door to alternatives. Instead of trying to narrow their options, we should help them to broaden their possibilities. They don’t have to do one thing – they can do many things. Nowadays this is even more pronounced with the Foundation for Young Australians suggesting that the average person is going to move through up to five different careers and 17 jobs over their work life. Locking them into one career from an early age may make them feel like a failure when they have to change in their future.
I’d like to encourage all adults to instead ask kids what they want to learn in the future. Challenge them to wonder how they will learn it. What skills they might need to learn in that way? Ask them what interests them and challenge them to use their learning muscles to delve deeper into it. With knowledge and content at their fingertips they will need strong learning muscles to help them navigate their way through so many changes. It is while they are young and malleable that they will learn to use these muscles and strengthen them. That is what we are trying to do in class. That is what parents should be trying to do at home. Challenge your young people to open up new doors and expand their options through learning as they pursue tomorrow.
See you out the back.
