Half Way Point

I am at the half way point here at the company and my time here as been very beneficial on two levels. One way is that I have further developed my science skills in the area of chemistry by learning the current methods they are using here at the company. I could incorporate these current practices into the my curriculum. For example, HPLC is a method that is used quite frequently here at the company to indentify compounds and I could use a similiar type of chromotography in my classroom.

Another way my time has been very beneficial here is that I have learned a tremendous amount about the corporate aspect of science and how to prepare students for it. For example, there are more aspects to the corporate science field than lab work. Most students think that if you have a career in science then you work in a lab. The employees working in the lab are not the employees dealing with science. There are lawyers who write patents for the company , management provides direction on projects, vice presidents giving presentations on their products, and marketing and sales employees selling the chemical products to other companies. All of these preceding employees are not working in the lab but they have to have a science background in order to do their jobs. They have to have a science background to communicate with lab employees so that they communicate to the people they need to as part of their work.

As you can see, the corporate science world is a very diverse work place and they want diverse well skilled employees. Potential employees are not focusing on becoming diverse well skilled employees because the current education system is not properly preparing students. The current education system does not educate students on all the career options and what is happening in the evolving career fields. Careers are changing due to various reasons (environmental changes, economic challenges, technological advances) and for these reasons employers want and need well skilled diverse employees so the education system needs to help prepare students for this. Teachers need teach students practices that are occurring in the job field or at least make them aware of them so student interest can be sparked. This just isn't happening as much as it should. For example, I have had conversations with current employees here at the company who work in the lab with me. They told me that when they first started here that they were not well prepared for the type of work that they needed to do. Simple lab procedures that they do everyday now took them awhile to get used to because they had never done them before. They said it would have been a huge benefit to have focused more on lab methods during their education because that is what they do in the lab field. They said that colleges should do a better job of preparing students for the work place. Colleges and high schools alike should be keeping up on their research by knowing what practices are taking place in the job fields so that they can be taught in the education system. Isn't that the point of the education system anyway? To prepare their students for the job field.

My fellow lab workers also said that the education system does a poor job of educating students on potential jobs. I told them about the IMSEP program that I am working with this summer and how its goal is educate teachers about the current job field so they can better prepare their students. I continued to tell them that this will be done by teachers learning about all the various career options and learning about employbility skills that businesses are looking for and having the teachers teach these types of ideas and skills in the classroom. They thought this was a great idea and they wish this would have been done while they were in the classroom.

Thus far, I am at the half way point of my experience and it has been tremendously beneficial to me as teacher. I can't wait to get back into the classroom and use the knowledge that I have learned this summer in my curriculum. This experience will help me do my part as an educator in helping prepare students for the real world and I look forward to learning much more in my next three weeks at the company.