Getting Down to Business

Programs give students a taste of the 'real world'
By Lyn Jerde

There are business leaders who contend that certain workplace skills – enthusiasm, clear communication, putting others at ease, inspiring confidence – are not easily taught in a classroom.

Melody Christianson would disagree.

Christianson, an Altoona High School language arts teacher, is conveying these skills to the 11th- and 12th-grade students who take her required one-semester speech class.

But, she said, she couldn’t do it without help from employers in western Wisconsin’s Chippewa Valley – each of whom volunteers time to spend 15 minutes in private, one-on-one mock job interviews with Christianson’s pupils.

Quality feedback
“These business people give our students feedback, from someone who’s not a teacher,” Christianson said. “I’m not the one who might be saying to them that they have poor eye contact, or that their attitude comes off as apathetic – the interviewers are. The students may say, ‘Well, this is just the way I am in school.’ But businesses hire the people whom they like, and this shows students the importance of doing their best to make people feel good about them.”

This partnership between school and community exemplifies one creative approach to the fourth standard of parent-community involvement in schools, as set forth by a Johns Hopkins University study: “Parents are welcome in the school, and their support and assistance are sought.”

Focus on high school
Karen Solberg, community liaison for Altoona High School, said this needs to happen more on the high school level – where it can be a challenge to get adults into the classrooms.

In elementary schools, she said, there are many opportunities for involvement, such as reading to students, or listening to them read aloud.

In high school, community involvement typically happens in specialized activity support groups, such as athletic booster clubs or Music Mothers.

But although the need for community involvement in high school education is crucial, school districts rarely have staff positions like the one held by Solberg, who specializes in community involvement at the upper grade levels.

Liaisons at all schools
Christianson said she was part of the community effort that led the Altoona School District to hire community liaisons for all three of its buildings: Pedersen Elementary School, Altoona Middle School and Altoona High School.

“They talked about having liaisons at just the elementary and middle school levels,” Christianson said. “And I said, ‘Why not for the high school? We need it the most.’ ”

Solberg isn’t sure why adults tend to curtail their involvement in education once students reach high school. Maybe they think their teenage children would be embarrassed to see them in school. Maybe their teens’ increasing independence makes them think the youths don’t need adult involvement anymore.

All Solberg knows is that teens need adults in the schools – such as the business leaders who serve as interviewers in Christianson’s class.

Close relationships
In the approximately eight years Christianson has set up the mock interviews, she has not had a student get interviewed by his or her own parent. But, there have been times when a student got interviewed by someone in the community whom he or she knew well – such as the girl whose interviewer was also her best friend’s father.

Altoona is a 1,500-student public school district, located in a community very close to Eau Claire, where a large number of Christianson’s pupils’ parents work.

Interviewers have included a doctor specializing in sports medicine, a community relations specialist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, a banker, and a department head at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.

Christianson said she found many of her volunteer interviewers with the help of Solberg and guidance counselor Dick Zahorik.

Interpersonal skills
It was Zahorik, Christianson said, who made her aware of the need for this kind of education.

He had attended a conference in which business leaders contended students may leave school with adequate skills to perform a “real world” job, but often lack interpersonal skills required for a successful job interview.

The mock interviews are usually held near the end of each semester – and everyone in the school knows when they’re happening.

“People in the hall see kids coming to school in suits and ties, and they say, ‘It must be interview day in Christianson’s class,’ ” Christianson said.

Yes, dress counts. Christianson advises students to wear clothes that are slightly more dressy than what they would wear on the job for which they are interviewing. If students don’t own businesslike clothes, she advises them that black jeans usually make a better impression than blue jeans, and black sneakers are better than white sneakers.

Students also are expected to have their resumes prepared and polished.

Christianson said she instructs the volunteer interviewers not to emphasize how well the students’ skills fit the job requirements, but how well the students present themselves in the interview.

The interviewers fill out an evaluation that influences the grade a student will get for this exercise. (In grading, Christianson makes the final decision – and she has been known to be tougher on an interviewee’s choice of clothing than the interviewer was.) Sometimes, Christianson is pleasantly surprised at how well the students conduct themselves in the interview.

Learning cardinal rules
Once, an interviewer, who is a close friend of guidance counselor Zahorik, tried to trick the student into disparaging Zahorik. The interviewer made unkind remarks about Zahorik in a friendly, collusive tone that invited the student to join in the gossip.

When the student didn’t do so, the interviewer congratulated the student for following a cardinal rule in job interviewing: Don’t badmouth anyone, ever.

Years after graduation, Christianson said, students tell her how valuable that mock interview experience was, on many levels.

Not only did the experience prepare them for the world of work; it also put them in touch with adults who cared enough about the teens’ education to volunteer their time.

A similar thing happens with another program that Solberg helped set up – job shadowing.

Todd Andrews is senior planner for the Eau Claire County Planning Department, and the father of 15-year-old Michael Andrews, an Altoona High School sophomore. This year, he has had three high school students – two from Memorial High School in Eau Claire and one from Altoona – spend two hours at his office learning about his work.

It’s time well spent, Andrews said.

“The kids today really have a lot on the ball,” he said. “Hopefully, I am there to teach them something useful, but they are edifying for me, too.”

What’s edifying, he said, is the intelligence and information that’s behind the questions students ask him, about issues such as zoning, urban sprawl, and development. For that, he credits the students’ teachers.

Kids know more today
“I’ve been involved in local government for 15 years, but I don’t remember knowing this much about it in high school,” he said. “The kids today know that local taxes pay for things like roads and fire protection.”

Adults in Andrews’ line of work might assert that students are only interested in the kinds of jobs they might see portrayed on TV, such as doctors, lawyers or police officers. But students show intense interest in his work, Andrews said.

As part of his activity in Leadership Eau Claire, a program of the Chamber of Commerce, Andrews has helped to set up a mentor program that pairs business people with teens, so the students can learn about different kinds of jobs from the people who actually do those jobs.

Forming friendships
Solberg is looking to set up a similar mentoring program at Altoona High School – one that emphasizes forming friendships as well as job skills.

Students who are involved in sports, music and other extracurricular activities may have an adult in their lives whom they can approach with their questions and problems. But many students don’t have an adult with whom they feel comfortable discussing personal issues.

In the next few weeks, Solberg will be surveying students to get their ideas about ways such a program can be operated.

“After what happened at Littleton,” Solberg said, “we’re looking for ways to help kids be comfortable approaching adults about what might be bothering them.”

Background
The following partial list is from the Great Schools issue paper on Parent and Family Involvement. The entire paper, and others, can be found on the Great Schools site.

Some ways parents can help their children succeed in school:

• Create a positive attitude toward learning. Support your child’s school and adults in the school who deal with children.
• Talk about what happens in school on a regular basis.
• If your child is employed during the school year, limit work to 15 hours each week.
• Read aloud to your children when they are young. Encourage them to read as they get older. Take your children to the library.
• See that your children do their homework. Set aside a special place for homework (not in front of the television set) and make sure homework is done before recreational activities.
• Establish high expectations for your child. Remind your child that success in school is mostly due to hard work. Success is not a matter of luck or “being born smart.”
• Attend parent-teacher conferences; visit your child’s school; if possible, volunteer to help.
• See to it that your child starts each day with a good breakfast. Make sure that your child arrives at school on time and is never truant.

Posted April 11, 2000