“How much money do you make?” “Do you strike people out?” “How long do you have to work every day?”
Sixth graders in the Hazelwood School District asked these questions and more of the adults they met during the district’s annual Sixth Grade Career Fair at Florissant Valley Community College. The students spent two recent mornings at the college listening to different employees explain what they do and seeing the different career paths they could take.
First, the students filed into the theatre, where they listened to a guest speaker. Every year, Dr. Ruth Shafer, practical arts coordinator, chooses a Hazelwood graduate so the students can see that someone who went to some of the same schools they did has become successful. This year, Kyle McClellan, a right-handed pitcher from the St. Louis Cardinals’ farm team in the Quad Cities, Iowa took the podium. He graduated from Hazelwood West in 2002.
“The biggest thing is that everything starts in the classroom,” McClellan said. “Sports, theatre, cheerleading, they’re privileges that can all be taken away without good grades in the classroom.”
After listening to McClellan describe his near-lifelong love for baseball and that he plays for one of the Cardinals’ teams, the students then headed out to some of the nearby campus buildings where they divided into groups and went into various classrooms. There, they learned about computer graphics engineering, nursing, business, Web site development and many other career fields.
“The therapy class sounds interesting because I love big dogs, any type of dogs,” said Jana student Danielle Hughes after she exited the room with Special School District social worker Sarah Murphy and Nick, the Labrador from Jamestown Elementary’s CORE classroom.
“I liked hearing what different people do for a living. Normally you don’t get to meet or see what people do like that,” Hughes said.
Danielle Sutherland, who attends Russell Elementary, said she wants to be a physical therapist.
“My brothers have cerebral palsy and I go to therapy with them and I have learned so much about it,” she said. “Before, I wanted to be a nurse. Now I want to be a therapist because I love kids.”
