Cloverly School in Temple City celebrates career day

By SHEL SEGAL
If you’re not sure what you want to be when you grow up then maybe you should have attended Cloverly School’s career day on June 11.
With presenters representing a wide range of occupations, sixth grade students at this school in the Temple City Unified School District were given a taste of what they can look forward to in the working world, said Jenny Thai, a counselor at the school for the past seven years.
And come from a wide range they did.
“The goal of it is to build awareness different careers available to (the students),” Thai said. “Today, we have a veterinarian, we have a screen writer, we have a ballet performer, we have tae kwon do masters and we also have the firefighters coming from Temple City to present at our career day.”
Thai said career day was being set up completely with the students’ futures in mind.
“We are doing this to build awareness and to show the students what are some of the things they like, their interests, what their strengths are,” she said. “One of the goals is for the students to see their interests, their strengths and the skills things they learn in school are pertinent because it is going to help them when they look into different careers available to them.”
Thai added career education for students nowadays starts early.
“We start in kindergarten,” she said. “Because then we can build on their interests and the reason why they’re in school. A lot of times kids decide that what’s important in school? Why do I have to learn all these things? Why do I have to manage my time? Why do I have to be responsible?”
She also said the skills learned in school are paramount for working in a career.
“So, those are the skills they learn in school that are going to be useful to them as they grow older and try to figure out the career that they want,” she said. “Those are the skills they are going to need when they are going to be working in the workforce.”
(Shel Segal can be reached at ssegal@beaconmedianews.com. He can be followed via Twitter @segallanded.)

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