On Tuesday November 3oth Student Career Alternatives Program(SCAP) was invited to spend a lunch period with students at Tri Cities High School to discuss and explore the many under promoted post high school options.
We've been invited to a lot of schools this year for lunch room tabling or career/resource fairs. We usually have students attention for about 60 seconds and we're competing with their lunch or with dozens of other exhibits. We often leave questioning how much information we were able to really transmit to students.
The Tri Cities Counseling staff does it different. They promoted our visit ahead of time and gave students an opportunity to sign up to spend 30 minutes with us. We were given the opportunity to really talk about how and why SCAP started, and ways in which the prison and military industrial complexes impact our bodies, minds, and communities.
It was great to be able to really spend time explaining to kids how some of the more popular post high school options we promote like Americorps, WWOOF, and apprenticing work. We also got to promote our upcoming art contest(One of our winners from last year, Lisa Bi, was @ the session!) and offer kids a free membership to WonderRoot Community Art Center!
Feedback from students who came out was great. It was clear that many of the students present were hearing about options that had not been presented to them in the past, and they were hearing an alternative perspective on the benefits of military service. I know that when I was in high school most of my peers reached out to that which seemed in the realm of possibility. That realm was often filled with the options that were being presented in school, in my community, and on tv. Sadly for many of my peers options were limited to the military, college, minimum wage, or criminal activity.
Opening new doors of possibility is what SCAP aims to do, and this past Tuesday, we did it well:)
When I got back to my e-mail at the office today I got an Email from the Counselor that set up our session, Anne Davis. Anne wrote up a little feature on our visit for the Tri Cities Website!
Check it out:
https://sites.google.com/a/tricitieshigh.org/www/administration/counseling-news/considersocialjusticeserviceasapostsecondaryoption
Big Thanks To Anne Davis! We are really pumped about going back to Tri Cities!!
For those interested in our updated, "It's My Life" alternative career resource visit:
http://scapatl.org/page1/page1.html
Tim Franzen
American Friends Service Committee
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