Career Guidance for 21st century Children with Specific Learning Disability

The Helikx Blog

Dec 27, 20163 min read

Written by: P. V. Ananthalakshmi Principal, Helikx Open School

The need for change

A simple question to ask is, ‘How has the world of a child changed in the last 150 years?’ And the answer is, ‘It is hard to imagine any way in which it hasn’t changed.’ Children know more about what is going on in the world today than their teachers, often because of media environment they grow up in. They’re immersed in a media environment of all kinds of information that was unheard of 150 years ago, and yet if you look at school today versus 100 years ago, they are more similar than dissimilar. — Peter Senge, senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Education for Career/Employability

Employability is the set of attributes that makes a student worth employing: how well a student’s learning matches with the employer needs. Market transformation is redefining the supply and demand for talent nowadays. This transformation also requires a repositioning of employee skill sets, across all levels of employment. The four broad areas where skills will be in greatest demand include:

Digital skills
Agile thinking
Interpersonal & Communication skills
Global operating skills

The new HR dimensions on this aspect are talent segmentation, talent optimisation and talent management. Educational institutions should listen to the needs of business and government in monitoring talent gaps and anticipating where future shortages may arise. Changing classrooms as digital and technology enabled will help each child to identify their own talents and strength (Skills & competencies). They are equipped to understand and analyse the resources available in the field they prefer. The development of self-confidence enables them for taking action in one’s career. A school should provide a course which enhances their career and personal development. These courses will help the children to develop the transition skills of continuously developing one’s competencies in the phase of adversity and opportunity. This helps them to obtain information (gathering information) and transferring them in to skills into opportunities which engage them in continuous learning. The child’s core strength (based on his Multiple Intelligence profile) has to be analysed.

1. Career Readiness or Preparedness 2. Skill versus Competencies 3. Need & Capacity

The 21st century core skills & competencies

• New Literacies: cultural, visual, digital, social-emotional, global, civic, scientific, information, media

• Working Cooperatively: with peers, coworkers, subject matter experts, coaches, mentors, partners, agencies

• Sharing Ideas: reading, writing, speaking, listening, editing, document publishing, web conferencing, social networking and symposium

• Creativity: seeing, imagining, envisioning, describing, drawing, designing, innovating, inventing, producing

• Predicting Outcomes: identifying patterns, gaps, deficits disconnects, weaknesses, challenges, opportunities

• Generating Solutions: critical thinking, heuristics, solutions, capacity building, value creation, contributing new knowledge

• Virtual Productivity: manipulating objects, digital probes and adaptive technologies, navigating environments, building models, testing attributes

• Data Fluency: aggregation and disaggregation, application, analysis, classification, categorisation, hierarchisation, digital curation (Digital curation is the selection, preservation, maintenance, collection and archiving of digital assets).

• Professional Capital: self-awareness, self-regulation, self-evaluation, values, standards, empathy, tenacity, grit, resilience, expertise

These distinct intelligences are:

• Linguistic: expression through the spoken and written word. • Logical: problem solving through reasoning. • Visual: having the ability to see, envision and imagine. • Kinesthetics: interacting with one’s environment. • Interpersonal: interacting with others. • Intrapersonal: affective learning, values, and attitudes. • Rhythmic: identifying and extending patterns. • Naturalist: classifying and categorising data. • Existential: using contexts and connections to prior understanding.

21st century skills & Multiple Intelligence:

- 21st Century Skill Intelligence Work Competency - Working Cooperatively/ Team Interpersonal Collaborate - Sharing ideas Linguistic Communication - Creativity Visual Design - Predicting outcomes / generating solutions and looking for alternatives

Logical/Musical Problem solving/ Decision making/ Critical thinking - Data fluency Naturalistic Categorize - Professional capital Intrapersonal Evaluate - Virtual productivity Bodily kinesthetics Manipulate - New literacy Existential Contextualise

• The Analytic Domain targeting the processing and application of information: the logical, rhythmic, and naturalist intelligences.

• The Interactive Domain focusing on interaction with others and with the environment: the linguistic, kinesthetics, and interpersonal intelligences.

• The Introspective Domain promoting the affective components of learning and working: the visual, intrapersonal, and existential intelligences.

The top 10 skills for the 21st century worker:

(via 10 Essential Skills for The 21st Century Worker/ Learner)

Critical thinking
Leadership
Communication
Collaboration
Adaptability
Innovation
Global citizenship
Productivity and accountability
Entrepreneurialism
Accessing and synthesising information

Career Options:

Under current labor market conditions, finding the best fit at job entry is an important ingredient of success. The other key ingredient is constantly being adaptive to the changing demands of the workplace.

Film maker
Entrepreneur
Counselor
News anchor
Radio jockey
Video jockey
Occupation therapist
Physiotherapist
Physical educator
Cosmetologist
Computer animator
Electrician
Welding
Automobile
Medical laboratory technician
Carpentry
Performing arts
Drafting
Design/ illustration/ photography
Music production
Paralegal services
Software developers/ web designers
Marketing & marketing research
Medical administration

References: - UNESCO.1987. A Framework for Improvement of Educational and Vocational Guidance Services for Girls and Women in Asia and the Pacific. Bangkok, UNESCO Principal Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific.

https://www.oxfordeconomics.com/Media/Default/Thought%20Leadership/global-talent-2021.pdf