Why are you in school?

Not too long ago I was talking to one of my students who was not "feeling" school.  I asked him why he is in school.  His answer was because he "has to go" and that was genuinely a heartbreaking response for me to hear.  And yet, I am wondering what most of you would answer to that question?  For real, why are you in school?  Why do you log in or come to school every day?  Is it because you have to?  What would you do if you weren't in school?  What would your future look like?  What would you want to do or become and how would you choose to spend your time?  Perhaps the future seems far away to you.  I know, I am old, but I promise you that my age allows me to tell you that time plasses SO fast and that before you know it everything is different.

Let me give you a concrete example of how fast things change.  "Pandemic."  I am sure that we had all heard the word prior to these last six months, but truthfully, at least for me, it wasn't a word I would have thought of often or really considered.  Now COVID, Coronavirus, and Pandemic are words that dictate so much of our lives.  It is strange, but the truth is, that is how the world works and there is a (weird) part of me that thinks this is actually rather exciting.

I love the fact that you are learning in school so many things that are designed to teach you not just content, but problem solving and engagement, and ways of thinking and doing that will impact you for the rest of your life.  And you get to look forward to a future, but your future careers may be jobs that don't even exist today.  You will most likely be facing different challenges than are present today - just like when I was in high school I never could have imagined the challenges that exist in the world like we are in right now.  (Granted, let's be honest, at the start of 2020 I wouldn't have imagined this either.)

So, how do you go about preparing for a job that doesn't exist today?  You absorb every ounce of knowledge accessible to you and you keep learning, you keep thinking and you keep growing.  You explore careers and think of them creatively.  You apply your own spin and I believe that these experiences of adjusting to remote learning and the eventual move to the Hybrid format on September 29th (hopefully you all heard that news by now) is going to allow you to recognize the value of thinking outside the box and coming up with unique solutions or different ways to approach whatever issue you may face in your life.  So I hope that as you are going through remote and hybrid learning you will try to view these not just as formats that are happening to you, but rather opportunities for you to push yourself in new and different ways.

Additionally, as you think about your learning and start to explore more careers, I want to put another plug in for YouScience.  It is a great tool that is FREE for all WKHS students.  You can use some of your connections time to do the aptitude assessments and then use the career tools to explore what types of jobs might fit your interests and your abilities, or, even better, a combination of the two.  If you have lost your YouScience code or perhaps you never received one, feel free to email me and I will send one to you.  Because while I don't know what the future holds, I do know that you have a bright future ahead and you deserve to find jobs that you love where you can and will make a difference in our world!