Month: January 2022

Personalizing Clusters, Pathways, Concentrators, and Completers

Say the phrase, “Clusters, Pathways, Concentrators, and Completers,” and your students will look at you with a sort of dazed look. The words mean nothing to them. And yet, if they understand the meaning of this phrase, it can give them a powerful tool to take charge of their education throughout high school. The objectives for this lesson, based on the Utah State standards for Family and Consumer Sciences Exploration are as follows:

  • I can identify the 6 Family and Consumer Science career pathways and the associated clusters. (Strand 1)
  • I can define the difference between career pathways and career clusters and how they are related. (Strand 1, Standard 1)
  • I can define a CTE pathway concentrator and a CTE pathway completer. (Strand 1, Standard 1)

There could be multiple ways to introduce the vocabulary and meet the standards for this lesson, but I find that it is most meaningful to personalize, which means going a little beyond the standards. To start, I explain clusters and pathways. I talk about how clusters are groups of things that go together, just like all the cereals go on the same aisle at the grocery store, even though Grape Nuts and Cap’n Crunch are quite different. For CTE, clusters are groups of jobs or fields that go together, even though they may not seem closely connected.

Then we go to the Utah Clusters and Pathways page so the students can see what I’m talking about. Here’s the link for the USBE website: https://www.schools.utah.gov/cte/pathways

Once students are on the USBE website, it’s important to click on the current school year. Otherwise, they won’t be able to find the information they need. This is January 2022, so the correct school year to pick for this year would be 2021-2022.

After clicking on the correct school year, students will find the “Utah CTE Career Pathways” page. Below is a screen shot of the current year page for illustration, but when you are on the current year page on the actual website, each line is a live link. All the headings in blue are clusters. The pathways are listed in black.

I ask the students to find a pathway they are interested in, and invariably, I have students ask why there is no pathway for pro football. I have learned not to argue about whether they are going to become pro football players. Instead, I point out that this list is a list of career and technical pathways, and they can all choose a pathway from this list, even though their pathway may not be connected to sports. For those who tell me they want to be famous game designers or famous YouTubers, I point out the Broadcasting and Digital Media pathway. Just about every student can find a pathway they are interested in, and from there we can look at the classes in their pathways and learn about concentrators and completers.

Pathways represent lists of courses available in high school for students interested in that field. Generally, concentrators complete 1.5 high school credits in the pathway, and completers finish 3 credits. To find out for certain how to become a concentrator or a completer in a given pathway, students click on the pathway. A page will appear that shows all high-school classes in the pathway and gives specific requirements for concentrator or completer status in that pathway.

What’s the advantage of becoming a completer? Students who complete a pathway get a special cord to wear with their robes at graduation. But more importantly, students who complete a pathway can include their completion status in their resumes. There are some businesses that will hire completers straight out of high school. In fact, some career and technical fields have such high demand that companies will not only hire completers in entry-level positions but will also help pay for college so that students can move up into positions with higher demand and responsibility.

Now that students understand clusters, pathways, concentrators, and completers, the fun part begins. I tell students how much I love Disneyland.

That sounds like it’s way off topic, but there’s a purpose behind it. I absolutely love Disneyland, but I suffer from motion sickness and rides make me sick. What I love in the “Happiest Place on Earth” is the set design—the Imagineering that turns an ordinary spot of ground into a whole new world—that makes something so banal as garbage cans disappear into the background and brings the textures, smells, sights, and sounds of distant and even imaginary places to the forefront.

My students relate to the idea of a favorite vacation spot, and they relate to the idea of having a souvenir that helps you remember something important to you. Once I’ve planted that idea into their minds, I ask them to make a souvenir, somehow connected to a theme park or a favorite vacation, and I ask them to put their pathway on their souvenir. They need to include the classes necessary to become a completer in their pathway. For each student, the chosen list of classes could be different, even if they choose the same pathway. I tell them that I hope they will use their creativity with their souvenir, and I hope they will keep it, so that as they register for 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grades, they can let their counselor know what classes they need to take to finish their chosen pathway. We talk about course options in their high school and in our local technical colleges. Technical colleges, such as Davis Technical College, provide excellent opportunities during high school for moving forward with career and technical education.

My students make all kinds of souvenirs—maps, signs, menus, t-shirt and mug designs, stuffed-animal and bobble-head doll designs. I even got an impressive song! With permission from the student who created it, I’ll include the song here, along with some of the other fun souvenirs I’ve seen.

Students thrive when they can choose to submit work that showcases their own personality.

Building Unity and Inclusion from Day 1 of a Semester

This is a picture of my favorite bulletin board. It changes every time I get new students in my classes as I soon will when we start a new semester. On the day that I greet new students, I tell them this story.

In our family, we all have different favorite flavors of ice cream. My husband’s favorite is Rocky Road, but he’s so kind, if I ask him to buy ice cream, he’ll buy everyone else’s favorite flavor. My kids like Cookies ‘n’ Cream, Cookie Dough, or Mint Chocolate Chip. I used to practically live on chocolate—at least until I was diagnosed with an ulcer a few years back. My doctor told me that for some people, chocolate is a reflux trigger. I was in a lot of pain, and I decided to give up all the trigger foods in my diet. I didn’t think I could give up chocolate, but I did it! And even better, the pain is gone! As much as I love chocolate (and can still enjoy the smell) I haven’t eaten chocolate in a few years and don’t want to go back. When I want a frozen treat for myself, I buy fat-free vanilla frozen yogurt, and I’ve learned to love it.

If we have 10 people in a room, we might find 10 different favorite flavors of ice cream. Whether you like all those flavors or not, you can’t say that there’s a bad flavor of ice cream. There is a flavor I don’t like. I think it’s called Bordeaux Cherry—the one with little frozen cherry chunks in it. I think that flavor is gross, but some people must like it, or it wouldn’t be available at the store. There just isn’t a bad flavor of ice cream.

People are kind of like ice cream. I let my students know that you’ll find different backgrounds, skin colors, ethnicities, religious preferences, gender identity, lifestyles, mannerisms, social skills, abilities, humor, language, etc. And you might not like every flavor, but there just isn’t a bad flavor of person. In my classroom, I expect every student to treat every other student as worthy of respect. I expect all my students to honor each other’s differences and make my classroom a safe and welcome place to be.

The first day of a semester always requires time explaining policy and procedure. Rather than expecting my students to sit still and listen through all that (they won’t), I give them something productive to do with their hands while I talk. I tell them they can make one of these people for my “Every Flavor” bulletin board. I provide the figures as well as colored pencils and scissors. They get to work and I can teach what I need to teach.

If you want to replicate my bulletin board, you can find outlines for people online. Look for free croquis (figures for fashion drawing). I tell my students that I want them to draw a figure that shows their personality. I point out that I’ve got a lot of variety on my board—sports figures, TV and movie characters, students from a variety of cultures, etc. Students may draw what they want on their figure, as long as it is school appropriate. I tell them that if it’s not school appropriate, it won’t end up on my board, but it will end up being a conversation with the office and their parents. They don’t push me on that, so I really haven’t had problems. I add in that I won’t put up figures dripping blood or with anything coming out of their nose or mouth. These are some of the things you have to explain to 7th and 8th graders, so you get what you want. I also tell them I don’t care which gender figure they choose, keeping in mind that their finished drawing must be school appropriate. Once or twice, I’ve had boys draw female figures that looked demeaning toward women. When I asked the boys to tell me about their drawings, they quickly threw those figures away. In contrast I’ve had a few students make high-quality, respectful drawings of non-binary figures.

Once the figures go on the board, I often see kids standing in front of the board just looking and pointing to their own person or pointing out what they notice. Students seem proud of the cohesiveness that comes from this diverse collection. I’m proud of the diversity they are willing to share because I see it as evidence that they feel that my classroom is a safe place to be.