Middle School

From the Counselor

by Rick Weatherholt

November 07, 2007

5th GRADE SKILLS CLASS

In 5th Grade Skills class we have been working our way through the Character Counts Pillars. We have spent time on the topics of trustworthiness, responsibility, respect, and caring. We also plan to cover the other Character Counts Pillars; fairness and citizenship. In addition to these topics we will cover many other topics that are important to middle school students such as decision-making, bullying, teasing, and peer pressure.

During class the 5th graders participate in a number of activities that involve writing, role-playing, solving problems as a group, and sharing their own experiences. It is a great opportunity for them to interact with each other and share information about some very important issues that come with middle school students on a daily basis. I am looking forward to another exciting year of Skills with the Seward Middle School 5th graders.

7TH GRADERS PART OF A CAREER PILOT PROJECT

Seward Middle School 7th graders are part of a pilot project that is involves taking the students strengths and building on them. This project is part of Nebraska Career Education, which continues to evolve to meet the demands of a changing world. The Nebraska Department of Education and The Gallup Organization have partnered together to develop this project.

As part of the project our 7th graders will take an online test that is called the Clifton Youth Strengths Explorer. This is an instrument that is based on 40 years of science and research. Strengths was created to help youth, ages 10-14, discover and develop the unique talents within them. It is designed to help make a lifelong impact on youth based on decades of research. This tool can enhance parents and teachers insights into our students discovery and growth process.

The students will get access to the assessment online. Immediately, an individual can print a report based on his or her responses. This customized report reveals a persons top three themes; descriptions of his or her areas of natural talent.

As part of the pilot project the students will be taking a pre-survey and then the actual assessment in January. After that they will be involved with some activities in the classroom related to the Strengths Explorer. Finally to end the project, they will take a post-survey.

One of our goals at Seward Middle School is to see how this can fit into our Career Curriculum. Currently the 8th grade students are involved with a career unit that lasts about a week. We are looking at possibly expanding that curriculum, if possible, into the 7th grade.

If you have any questions please give Mr. Weatherholt a call at the middle school. You can also go to the Hyperlink "https://www.strengthsexplorer.com" to learn more about the program.

EXPLORE TEST

In October the 8th graders took the Explore Test. This was the first step in our 8th grade Career Exploration unit. The Explore Test is a test that is provided by ACT and is similar to both the ACT test itself and the PLAN test, which our students will take their sophomore year in high school. It has four curricular areas that it assesses: English, Math, Reading, and Science. ACT also provides a lot of career exploration information with the results of the test. It gives the students an idea of what areas they need to work on before they actually take the ACT. There is also an interest inventory that the students take, which matches their interests with interests of people in many career fields. This should give them some ideas of career fields they may want to investigate.

8TH GRADE CAREER UNIT/NEBRASKA CAREER CONNECTIONS

The second step of our 8th grade Career Exploration unit involves me spending some time in Mrs. Dietsch's technology class in December. One of the things I will be doing is going over all of the 8th graders results from their Explore Test. We will also spend some time talking about career choices and relate the results of their interest inventory to careers that they may be interested in.

Nebraska Career Connections Hyperlink,
"http://www.nebraskacareerconnections.org/", is something that we are going to also rely on heavily to get career information out to the students. According to their web-site, Nebraska Career Connections is a collaborative effort of several state agencies and nonprofit organizations to coordinate resources and services through efficient and effective online access for all Nebraskans. This site will be continually developed and expanded as a resource to assist students and adults with career exploration and planning, educational planning and preparation, job seeking, and skill development. These services provide strong support for Nebraska's workforce and economic development priorities. We will be using this Nebraska Career Connections web-site to guide the students through career searches.

All of our 8th grade students now have an account with Nebraska Career Connections. As they begin high school their counselors will have them use this account. They will be able to access their account at any time and use it as a tool for career and college planning as they go through high school and college.

Another part of the Career Exploration at SMS is to spend some time discussing transition to Seward High School. The 8th graders will be entering a whole new environment next year at Seward High and we want them to be somewhat prepared for that. Some of the things we will be going over are graduation requirements, scheduling classes, and high school expectations. We also plan to use their Nebraska Career Connections account to come up with and save a schedule for their freshmen year and even start to organize a plan for all four years which will be referred to as their Personal Learning Plan. We will also spend a little time talking about college admission standards and requirements. This should make a difference in the classes that they start to think about taking at the High School.

Nebraska Career Connections has a wealth of information that can be accessed by our students at any time. They will take a skills assessment and an interest inventory and save that information to their portfolio. They can also search careers, explore options after high school, and even learn how to write a resume. Information about colleges and financial aid is also easy to access using this web-site. We are very excited to offer this to our students at Seward Middle School. We believe that they will benefit greatly from this and hopefully it will make a difference in their future education and career endeavors.