Becoming an Englishian

If you're good at Maths, you aspire to become a mathematician. If you enjoy History, become a historian! 

If you're good at English, you could become a writer. (Okay, I made up the word 'Englishian' in the title, and yes it makes me cringe, too).

Does it frustrate you when students take a narrow view on which subjects are used by what occupations? As adults we sometimes do it, too. 

Let's think: 

• How often do medical professionals need to communicate clearly, with important consequences if they don't?
• Is maths important to sport? (Yes! Its everywhere - in game statistics, player nutrition and performance data.)
• Without the arts, where does the content everyone watches / reads / listens to comes from? (And no, AI was not used to write this blog post...)
  
  

The Heart of the Future, our new short course for all educators, provides teachers with an engaging, practical approach that helps expand students' awareness of career opportunities.

This can have a big impact on students' aspirations, optimism, and their willingness to invest effort in their learning right now. (As the OECD's global indicators of career readiness remind us, having a conversation with an adult at school about your ideas for the future is a vital step towards career readiness.)

It can also support efforts by career leaders in the school by widening the adults available to model career curiosity to students of all ages.

The subtle art of surprise

One of the powerful but very simple things all teachers can do is to talk about careers that use the knowledge and skills in their subject, every day. 

If these careers surprise students, even better.

Because surprise is a useful jolt to help any individual step beyond old patterns of thinking. Such as Maths = Mathematician, History = Historian, English = Writer.  Or 'people like me don't do jobs like X'.

Bias, stereotype and narrow thinking can be quietly dislodged by a well-aimed kick from a surprising statement.

These short examples in the video are examples and real contributions from teachers to The Heart of the Future course and show how everyone gets inspired - educators AND students - when we start showcasing the relevance of our learning area. 

What would you surprise your students with - jobs that use topics or units you teach?

Dynamic learning for educators

Heart of the Future is BECOME's short course designed for all educators. It unpacks how, when and why to boost career exploration with practical tips and activities for teachers of all subject areas in years 5-11. 

Get a quick curated overview of the context, the evidence and a best practice approach to explore the future in ways that unlock student engagement and confidence today.