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Preparing to Be Competitive
in the Workforce of the Future
by Colin Armstrong, in the Robesonian
(November 3, 2005)
In an article published last month in the Robesonian,
Colin Armstrong, the superintendent of public schools in Robeson
County, North Carolina, considers how educational choices
made in high school can affect students' future careers.
Making the right choices, however, can be difficult because
"most of us are poorly informed about the range of possible
employment that actually exists," because "most
of us end up in jobs we probably didn't plan for in
high school," and because "as the world changes,
there are likely to be many jobs and even more job skill sets
that don't currently exist."
Despite these difficulties, Armstrong
argues that parents can help their children make good educational
decisions by becoming involved in the course-selection process.
"Course selection is always a matter of balancing personal
interests and required courses," he writes--and
parents can help their children choose classes that fulfill
requirements as well as classes that are personally fulfilling.
Parents also should make sure that their children are taking
classes at the right level of difficulty, he says. Finally,
while parents should consider the skills their children will
need to be competitive in the workforce, they should also
take into account the other aims of education: "personal
growth and development, intellectual stimulation, citizenship,
and a sound liberal education are equally important purposes
of public education," writes Armstrong.
The full
text of Colin Armstrong's article is available on the
Robesonian's Web site.
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