The RIASEC and Being Known

This week, as I processed my recent travels to work with students, teachers, coaches, counselors, administrators, and board members, I am reflecting on the power of the RIASEC and dialogic framework to help us engage in career conversations that lead to knowing our students more vividly.

Over the course of four days, I worked with kindergarten, 1st, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 8th, 10th, 11th, and 12th-grade students, including those with special needs. In each case, the RIASEC as language was the vehicle for creating transformative experiences. The common language, deployed through collaborative assessment, diffused barriers and allowed conversations to flow. The language opened the door to vulnerability, excitement, inquiry, participation commentary, praise, joy, and learning.?

Having the opportunity to deploy career-related teaching to a broad range of students provides me a unique lens to this work. Shifting my approach based on the zone of proximal development is, of course, essential. However, as I make that shift and maintain RIASEC, what I recognize across all grade levels is that learners want the same things; to be seen, heard, and known. While there are many things I could have improved during my training, a common language and dialogic always provided a way for each student to feel heard and known. All I have to do is ask good questions and listen carefully to what students have to say.

The best part of the work is seeing it live through teachers in the classroom integrated into their core instruction. On the same day as the training for primary, teachers were already engaging students at their RIASEC posters, and the next day the principal shared, “I could hear kids coming out during dismissal talking about their letters and coming up to me and having conversations about their interests.”

Here's what others had to say:

Teacher Observations:

• Students who often don’t talk in class had their hands up frequently wanting to share their connections to the themes.
• I pride myself on knowing my students, but when these students connected with RIASEC they shared valuable insights about themselves that I never would have known.
• This brought a whole other level of the connections I can make with my students - and they are now able to connect to jobs that they didn’t know existed and how incredible it is to see them think, wow, I can do that.
• After 20 years of teaching it’s a whole other way of looking at things.
• The kids who never connect to the academics we are teaching each day were some of the kids who were so excited to share all the things they want to do when they grow up.
• My 3rd graders were talking about this experience for the entire day.
• I was full of good emotions. I teach 4th grade. They could see themselves in these letters. The kids that struggle were so engaged and raising their hands, and they could see a future, and this was really neat.
• The conversations kept going after the experience. I saw these kids in a whole new light. It was amazing because they saw themselves in it.
• I was not skeptical of doing this in 3rd through 5th grade, but I had questions about how this could look in K-2; but now it’s clear as day that we can do this.
• I can already think of a bazillion ways to integrate this without adding another thing.
• Isn’t it cool we don’t have to take a test; we don’t have to be measured on this; we just get to explore it.
• I think this is going to be a natural part of what we do.
• Let’s give kids choice about how they can continue to explore their preferred themes.
• This is something we are excited about, and I’ve already been inspired to rework my centers in my classroom.
• The kid watching aspect of the experience was invaluable.
• Think about some of the most extreme behaviors in our building, these behaviors were so low level, the students wanted to share and explore.

Working with these amazing teachers and students reminds me of a quote from Arthur Brooks , “Each person is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to get to the bottom of,” and new research on the importance of being known, which can be explored in this paper about the effect on relationship satisfaction.

There are many important components of career-related learning we can focus on, and it is easy to become overly focused on the transactional aspects of career learning; field trips, curriculum, speakers, software, etc.. It’s why I always return to OECD paper 241 , and the reminder of characteristic number one of good practice in career guidance; good practice requires schools to: Provide regular opportunity for young people, from primary education onwards, to reflect on and discuss their prospective futures.

It is impressive for me to see teachers, counselors, coaches, administrators, and board members actively talking to kids about who they are and what future they're excited about. Asking them what are your themes, how you are growing, what are your options, and what classes are you going to take based on your RIASEC letters. These conversations are possible because superintendents and boards want environments where the work is part of an embedded strategy. They want RIASEC and Dialogic because it is integrated, scalable, and sustainable and helps the adults to better know their students. The story here is the conditions under which the strategies flourish and it's made possible because of superintendents who want a culture shift because they understand the long-term value of engaging students in on-going career conversations.?

Thank you to Matthew Friedman, Ed.D QUAKERTOWN COMMUNITY SD and Philip Martell River Valley School District for being part of the journey.

Ed