2nd Grade Careers Lesson

This week, we'll start our first lesson in 2nd grade! In preparation for 2nd Grade Career Day on October 12, this lesson is about careers.

We'll first discuss that, in general, "the more you LEARN, the more you EARN." I'll explain briefly that students who complete college have more choices of careers and earn more money on average than students who finish high school or drop out of high school. I'll show the classes piles of fake money to give them a visual comparison between the average salaries of high school drop-outs (approximately $23,000 per year), high school graduates (approximately $30,000) and college graduates (approximately $52,000). (I got those numbers from a U.S. Census Bureau report.) We'll talk about how college graduates can choose any of the same jobs that high school drop-outs and graduates can choose, but choices are more limited if you don't finish high school or go to college.

Then, I will distribute a card with a career on it to every child, and they will quickly put together a brief page about that career to present to the class on "TV" (behind a cardboard TV cut-out). (If I get some good photos during a class, I'll post these soon so you can see how this ends up working!) When I made the cards, I tried to choose careers that kids would find interesting but might not know about yet, like a map-maker, marine biologist, speech writer, museum director, blacksmith, and forensic scientist. So, by the end of class, we'll have heard about 18-20 careers that might pique students' interests.

I will see Myrick, Patterson, Frith, Whitehead, Johnson, and Singley's classes this week. Next week I'll do the lesson with Dean, Horst, Phillips, Hamner, Bowlin, and Smelley.

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