Through the power of social media, I had the pleasure to “meet” the Principal of Jefferson Elementary School in Plainfield (follow along on Twitter @JES_Principal). As such, Principal Burkholder included me on an email for his school’s Career Day. They were looking for a few more presenters, and were wondering if some of us from Netherwood Heights Neighbors might be able to fill a few of the spots. Both Queen Stewart and I were able to attend.
Although I wasn’t able to spend the entire Career Day there, I had the opportunity to visit three classrooms filled with amazing students, teachers and teacher assistants.
Working at TV Guide Magazine, I figured, “how hard can it be to talk to kids about television?” There are a lot of different ways to watch TV these days, so I brought in both an iPhone and iPad as props. Then, of course, I had some issues of the magazine to pass around, too. In my first classroom, the teacher made sure she took the copy with “Scandal” on the cover!
When the kids were able to answer my trivia questions at the end of the presentation, I even had TV Word Search puzzle books for those who could answer correctly.
During my last classroom visit, one of the little girls asked me if she and her classmates could make their own magazine. “Well, sure, why not?” I answered. I hope that if I was able to inspire any of them, and this class is able to follow through with making their own print publication, then I, too, certainly learned something at Career Day… it is good to give back to the community, and great to work with and listen to young minds.
I wish all of these school kids the very best. With Principal Burkholder leading the charge, I am confident they will do great things!
Participants received the following note later in the day, and along with the children, we now know we’re an international sensation! Be sure to check out their blog for yourself!
Here’s a snippet from the email we received: The Career Day photos have already been shared with our sister school in Tainan, Taiwan. We have a live video conference coming up with them this Thursday where students from 10,000 miles apart will share great stories of recent work and also share projects introducing each other’s government. So … by way of your participation at our school you are now a global career presenter as we will start receiving comments from the other side of the world shortly on this (they are 13 hours ahead). Feel free to read the blog, share it with friends, or leave a comment yourself for our kids or those in Taiwan. Earlier this week a visitor from the United Arab Emirates made our little project visible in its 26th country and that visitor was the 7,000th to the site. Our kids and teachers do tremendous things … but how cool is it that their bulletin board work and your presentations are not only on the school wall, but digital across the globe?
See for yourself what is going on with students here at there by visiting thenm at http://tainanjefferson.wordpress.com/
Also, click CAREER DAY if you would like to see some of the pictures with the students and presenters.
Enjoy!
Jenn Popper