Holistic Strategies for Elementary Career Development

1. Career Counseling: A Holistic Approach Vernon G. Zunker Chapter 15

2. Career-Related Programs for Career Development in Elementary Schools • Building support for career-related programs • Strategies for helping children learn • Influences of family interaction on career development • Counseling culturally different children • Types of developmental disorders • Role of elementary school counselors • Strategies for integrating career development concepts

3. Career Related Programs • Essential in the educational process for all students • Comprehensive career related programs that are currently in vogue are intentional and sequential • They begin in Pre-Kindergarten with the assumption that career development is a lifelong process • Should include experiential activities

4. Building Support • Requires counselors to justify program content and materials • Requires a sophisticated approach to justify time and effort in an already crowded curriculum • Requires an academic foundation • Collectively, parents, counselors and teachers should unite their efforts to foster the development of a sense of life purpose that is embraced by a significant work role in the future

5. Cognitive Development and Learning • Jean Piaget was a noted expert in the field of cognitive development • Through concrete experiences, children learn to make consistent generalizations • Information-Processing Strategies for Learning • Suggest that human thinking is driven by mental hardware and mental software • The combinations of the two provide children and adults with the ability to accomplish tasks

6. Learning by Observation • Observation is a contributing element to early cognitive development • Children are particularly prone to adopting the behavior models they observe • Bandura was considered an expert in observational learning

7. Self Concept Development • Individuals have constellations of self concepts that denote sets of traits • Elementary students formulate self concepts as they focus on class requirements • Gottfredson focuses on the development of self images and occupational aspirations in four stages • Self concept is an ongoing process

8. Development by Stages and Tasks • Stage theorists have concentrated on developmental patterns of accomplishments, events and physiological and sociological changes in human development • This perspective suggests a foundation for building effective career related programs • Differences in growth and physiological changes between girls and boys in elementary school greatly influence social relationships and emerging self perceptions

9. The Family As a System • Family is a social system • Any system comprises interdependent elements that have interrelated functions and share common goals • Families are viewed as a composite of many factors • Family is a developing organism of roles and relationships that occur over the family life cycle

10. Culturally Diverse Families • Counselors must be sensitive to the values and traditions of culturally diverse families • A historical continuity of unique roles by ethnic groups shape family identities • The roles and rules of family may differ from culture to culture and family to family • Counselors must evaluate the client’s level of acculturation when determining how counseling will proceed

11. Influence of Family Interactions on Career Development • The elementary school counselor is challenged with the responsibility of developing and promoting very pervasive career development programs that include specific competencies • In the process, students discover the relationship between education and work roles, and learn more about themselves and the interrelationships of all life roles