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Why everyone needs career counseling. More than 80% of working adults plan to go back to school for degrees or certificates, yet 39% of people who’ve attended college have no degree or certificate to show for it. We can help people avoid wasting time and save money by providing career counseling before they embark on higher education — when they have “the flexibility to choose a direction,” Allison Dulin Salisbury writes. Southern New Hampshire University, for instance, does front-end counseling as part of its intake process. “Conversations about interests, values, and skills that go beyond just asking someone what they want to study” is what’s needed, as so many adults really “want help figuring out their path … as soon as possible,” Salisbury writes.
New insights on tutoring. It’s become clear since the pandemic that high-dose tutoring helps students. Education Week shares information on a new study looking at how sustainable that model is and another explaining the importance of parent outreach. Other research covers the importance of compatibility between student and teacher, plus how to score long-term benefits from tutoring.
Where have all the teachers-to-be gone? K-12 schools have more older teachers and fewer younger teachers, and US colleges gave out 19% fewer bachelor’s degrees in education (85,057 ) than in 2019-20, Pew Research indicates. As you might expect “high levels of stress and burnout, low wages that have remained stagnant, and concern about the political and ideological arguments surrounding classroom curriculums” are among the assumptions for the waning interest in the field.
Students are writing the book on sex education. Chicago-area student Irene Sooah Park was stunned to hear a male student at a math and science academy say he doesn’t know what menstruation is. In 2021, Park founded the youth-led Sex Ed Initiative to show others that sex isn’t daunting or scary and is about personal hygiene and healthy relationships as much as intercourse.
Park and two other students researched and wrote “Shattering the Taboo: A Guide to Sexual Health Education,” which is available on Amazon and has left several adults in the field impressed. “A really key element they included was how to get help if you need it. …. It’s great to see young people making and creating resources that are specially designed for other young people,” says Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault, Executive Director Carrie Ward.
Other news in sex education: “Nothing radical about quality sex education” (Alabama) and “District expands decade-old sex education policy” (Pittsburgh).
Additional interesting education takes
- ACE details fellowships, shares links to great information on new equity and inclusion efforts in education. (American Council on Education)
- Ditching the niche: College seeks more students by changing “Baptist” to “Christian” in its name. (American City Business Journals/Houston)
- 1787 letters about Contitutional Convention between Washington, Knox spark student curiosity and Library of Congress input. (Library of Congress)
- Also, meet the two teachers helping the Library of Congress improve accessibility to primary sources and see what’s new on the LOC website for teachers. (Library of Congress)
An educational social media snippet
Diane Benson Harrington is an education writer at SmartBrief. Reach out to her via email, Twitter or LinkedIn.
Opinions expressed by SmartBrief contributors are their own.
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