The Staffing Exercise: A Lesson Cluster for Civics
By: Dr. Milburn Stone
The
Presidential Memo || The Secretary of Defense Memo || Job Descriptions
STANDARD:
- All students will be able to identify career areas which are non-traditional for their
gender.
- All students will be able to recognize gender bias, stereotyping and discrimination in
school materials, activities, and classroom instruction.
- All students will be able to identify federal laws and regulations dealing with gender
bias, stereotyping, and discrimination.
GRADE LEVEL: This set of lessons can be adapted for learners in Civics or
American Government classes in grades 7- 12.
OBJECTIVES:
- Students will learn, through application and practice, the use of resumes, vitas, cover
letters and other job related communication.
- Students will clarify and defend their value choices related to employment decisions,
and then critique these decisions.
- Students will develop a sense of empathy for the complexity of employment decisions.
- Students will be able to apply, in conversation, the following terms:
Political Appointee
Commissioned Officer
Civilian Control of the Military |
Civil Servant
Glass ceiling
Career path/stepping stone positions |
TIME: This lesson will take all or part
of several classroom periods to complete. The lesson lends itself to integration with
English classes which are developing student’s skills in writing and oral argument.
MATERIALS: A large "bank" of qualification
"descriptors" as described below must be prepared prior to the class. Students
should also have prepared copies of the attached communications:
The
Presidential Memo || The Secretary of Defense Memo || Job Descriptions
PROCEDURES:
- The teacher should begin by reviewing the appointment process. What is a civil servant?
A political appointee? Why is this distinction important? What is the role of the cabinet?
The President? The Senate? In the appointment process?
- The teacher sets the scene. A new President is in office. S/he is making his/her
political appointments in each of the major departments. S/he has appointed his/her
Secretary of Defense. The Secretary of Defense has appointed a small committee to make
recommendations for the following positions:
- Under Secretary of Defense for Personal Policy.
- Under Secretary of Defense for Strategic Planning & Intelligence.
- Under Secretary of Defense for Public and Congressional Relations.
- Under Secretary of Defense for Procurement and Technical Planning.
- Under Secretary of Defense for International Coordination.
- Under Secretary of Defense for Management & Budget.
- The teacher introduces the job descriptions for each of these positions. Students read
and discuss. Which jobs actually deal with the war-fighting role of the defense
department? Which deal with services and support? Which are the most important? Which
might lead to higher advancement? Which kind of jobs might a person seek after serving in
each of these positions?
- The teacher organizes the role playing activity. Each student in the class will become a
candidate for one of the positions above. Students will draw "personal
descriptors" which give them their background qualifications. Some of the students
will be randomly assigned as female candidates, others male. They can select their own
names for their candidates.
- Discussion of how a person presents him/herself for a position. What is a resume? What
is a cover letter or letter of application or candidacy? What kind of material should be
in each of these documents?
- Students prepare the resumes and cover letters for each of the people they are playing
in the exercise. Students critique, proofread, etc. the cover letters, vitas of their
fellow students. Students rewrite vitas and cover letters.
- The teacher organizes the class into selection committees. Five person committees are
formed to review applications. All of the applications should be presented to each
committee except that each committee should not review the files which they have prepared.
(Therefore: in a 25 member class, there will be 5 committees and each committee will be
reviewing 20 files.)
- Students review the candidates, make their selections, and prepare the rationales for
their choices. Members of committees are allowed to place applicants in positions for
which they have not applied.
- Student committees present and defend their decisions in panel format.
- The teacher leads a discussion of the project. Were the objectives of the President and
the Secretary of Defense achieved? Why? Why not? Are these objectives clear and
consistent? What are the conflicts inherent in this process? What about the future of
these appointees? Was anyone really treated unfairly here? Any candidates rejected that
should not have been? Was their consistency between the groups? Did they all agree on who
the most qualified applicants were?
HINTS:
- This lesson works best if there is collaboration with the English faculty on the writing
phases of the project.
- The lesson is presented in its’ most complex form. It can be made simpler by
shortening the list of jobs to be filled and simplifying the memos from President and
Secretary of Defense.
- Vocabulary development is the key to this lesson in the initial phases.
- The writing process can be reduced or eliminated by simply giving students an already
prepared set of resumes and cover letters.
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