The two teenagers, their hands looking like they had been fingerprinted, celebrated.
They had been working several minutes tightening a bolt on a scooter and figured it out. A high-five displayed their joy.
Luis Teran and Josh Lockman, both 14, were among a half-dozen students fixing the scooter’s engine earlier this week in a Gwinnett County high school. What made that unusual is they are not in high school. All of the students are either in or just graduated from middle school.
Georgia has started requiring middle schools to offer courses about various careers, but Gwinnett has taken that emphasis further.
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Gwinnett has two camps to give middle schoolers hands-on experience they would not otherwise have until their junior year in high school. One camp was this week, the other is next week. Gwinnett is also working with Junior Achievement to open a Discovery Center in the county by 2015 that will allow middle school students to run a business and learn about financial literacy. There are 25 such centers nationwide. The Gwinnett center is expected to serve 25,000 students annually.
“When they get into high school, they’d be a little bit more familiar with what does (a particular career) look like and what does it mean to me,” explained Debbie Daniel, who is working with Junior Achievement on the center and is director of Gwinnett’s social studies program.
But is middle school too early for students to consider careers?
Some students concede they feel pressure to make these adult decisions.
“Everyone already knows what college they want to go to,” said Aliana Stehr, 14, who is spending her third consecutive year attending a Gwinnett culinary camp. “It’s a little bit of pressure, but I’m kind of glad to think about what I want to be when I grow up.”
Teachers, administrators and state officials say middle school is the right time to start the conversation. Some note that other nations prepare their children for careers much earlier than the United States.
“It kills me to see our (high school) seniors say ‘I don’t know what I want to do,’ ” said Dr. Jade Gillespie, who is teaching health care classes at one of the Gwinnett camps.
Luis, who wants to open his own automotive shop one day, attended this week’s camp at Maxwell High School of Technology to gain some hands-on experience. Some family members suggested he experience more traditional teenage summertime exploits.
“I had my grandma tell me ‘You’re too young (to think about a career). Have fun,’ ” he said.
Luis, though, said he believed the camp could open new opportunities for him and said it is doing so. He’s thinking about the future.
“I want to help my family,” said Luis, who attended Lilburn Middle School.
The 2013-14 school year was the first one when Georgia high school students were required to choose what’s called a career cluster or pathway. The 17 pathways include architecture and construction, hospitality and tourism, information technology, marketing and science, technology, engineering and math. The state has a College and Career Ready Performance Index that measures graduation rates, student performance on standardized tests to measure each school’s performance.
State officials hope the pathways initiative better prepares students for the workforce and results in higher graduation rates. Students can change their pathway, but may have to take extra courses or stay an additional semester or two in high school.
It’s not necessarily a bad thing if a student changes his or her pathway, officials say. “One of the best outcomes is students find out what they don’t want to do,” said state education department spokesman Matt Cardoza.
About 200 of the district’s 40,000 middle school students attended the camp at Maxwell, 60 more than last year. On a recent sunny morning, one group of middle school students slapped drywall inside a shed that will become part of a local church. Inside a giant kitchen, students including Aliana baked crescent rolls and prepared pasta.
Junior Achievement spokeswoman Callie Majors said the organization wanted middle school students to be involved in the Discovery Centers because studies show this is the time in their lives where disengagement with academics can begin. Majors said the organization wanted to partner with Gwinnett because it is Georgia’s largest school district and because it has shown a willingness to consider innovative approaches to education.
Rising eighth-grader Jordyn Wilson, 13, signed up for the camp because she’s thinking of becoming a doctor. She had second thoughts about the camp on Day One.
“I had to wake up early,” Wilson said. “But when I got here, I said ‘Whoa, this is really cool.’ “
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