Video transcript – connecting self, skills and work
Transcript of a video showing examples of how Rona Mulligan, a teacher at Tairangi School in Porirua, links careers to the curriculum with lessons in her classroom.
Connecting self, skills and work − Year 7 and 8 career education in the New Zealand classroom
Whaea Rona Mulligan / Teacher: It’s about not making careers a separate thing but making it part of what they work with each day. It’s all about making the connections with the students, about skills and opportunity in whatever curriculum area they are working in. It’s about building on the students’ thinking.
Example 1: Connecting the Geometry curriculum
Teacher: What machines were available, we’re thinking about back in the past for Māori and the culture and riding in a waka and paddling and timing for motion, so those of you who know about waka ama, when you hoe you are actually hoeing, you are paddling, in time. There is actually a rhythmic pattern to it. If you are out of sync with it, what do you think is going to happen?
Group of students: What about the measurements of sound… electronics… oh yeah the measurement of sound.
Student: It’s about netball, like all the shapes on the court, like where the centre stands or where the centre is allowed to go or where the other positions are allowed to go.
Teacher: So, let’s talk about geometry. What do we call it, do we just call it the sand, go to the…?
Students: Sandpit.
Teacher: Sandpit, thank you. Is the sandpit circle? Is it square? Is it rectangle?
Students: Rectangular or square.
Teacher: Is it deep? What do you need to know?
Student: Height and width.
Teacher: Who creates these things?
Students: Builders.
Teacher: Where do you get a sandpit from? Do you just go (clicks finger)?
Student: A shop.
Teacher: Really, so I’m going to ring up the sandpit shop and say “hey…”?
Student: A beach.
Teacher: The beach, so I go to the beach and I go “can I have a sandpit please”?
Student: Oh yeah you build your box.
Teacher: You build your box, thank you. Tell me a little bit about the process − we build a box.
Student: You buy the wood, you build the box, then you go and get some sand.
Teacher: You buy the sand absolutely. So, the kinds of people, there are people who actually do this kind of thing ok. So we’ve got a combination of various different skills that are within our family. What I want you to think about is how many of them could build a sandpit? Any of your family members could build a sandpit?
Students: Yes... yes... yes.
Teacher: What knowledge would they need to know about it?
Student: Measurements, wood, length.
Example 2: Connecting the reading curriculum with careers education
Teacher: What is the topic that we are reading about?
Student: War.
Teacher: War, what else?
Student: ANZAC.
Teacher: ANZAC, which is connected to what war?
Student: World War One.
Teacher: World War One alright, and of course we are going to Te Papa next week so all of this is helping us build our knowledge when we go.
Teacher: What I want you to do is go into your reading group. Can you do that now and look for the text “lest we forget”. Ok show us how it’s done.
Student: First of all we had to go in Room 2.
Videographer: Aha.
Student: And then we go in the reading bit for this week. These are the goals that the teacher gives us.
Videographer: Yep.
Student: We had to read it and these are the resources she gives us to help us.
Videographer: Aha.
Student: And these are the evidence we have to complete. And this is my PowerPoint. This is my favourite slide of them all because this bit is showing us what the nurses cared for. It’s pretty sad, because it’s pretty sad about the patients the nurses cared for, and the photos was really good because it showed us what they were doing in the photo and I just added a speech next to it what the photo was explaining to me, what it looked like.
Example 3: Using a thinkboard as a tool to make career connections
Teacher: Students went to the zoo first a couple of weeks ago and what we did was we unpacked the whole trip here for our recount writing, so then we are able to break it up like the symbols that you see at the zoo, the people who all went who are all involved, what skills were needed which was connected to our jobs and careers and then a visual representation which helped them with their writing.
Teacher: The subject that I am going to give you is camera. Anything and everything you know around the word camera. Begin.
Teacher: What about the people around the camera, what are the kind of roles people have? You’ve got actors, what else do you have? Don’t we capture things on places like Facebook and Instagram?
Teacher: Some of you are thinking really broad and you need to bring it back in and you need to connect it to what you do know, not what you don’t know, okay, because not all the answers are on the internet − a lot of the answers are actually in this room and your knowledge.
Student: Models, news reporters, comedians, dancers, singers, directors, entertainers and journalists.
Teacher: I like your thinking. They weren’t specific about a person, they said what kinds of people and they actually grouped them by those areas.
Teacher: It’s about not making careers a separate thing but making it part of what they work with each day.
Student: Finding out about new skills helps us.
Student: You should do it in your school.
Group of students: Ka kite from Tairangi School.