THE SHADOW
By: Sylvia Blanda

The overall objective of this lesson/unit in relation to infusing equity by gender is to provide students with opportunities for discovering their interests based in matching intellectual proclivities to career/job/work areas, and then having opportunities to explore their chosen careers by engaging their families in the process of developing community-business connections to the world-of-work; interviewing and shadowing people actively working in the career area/job; and then reflecting upon the experience and, ultimately accepting that which may seem non-traditional for gender at this time.

STANDARD: All students will be able to identify career areas which are nontraditional for their gender.

 GRADE LEVEL: Middle school, grades six through eight, Guidance

 OBJECTIVE(S):

• Students will consider jobs which are based on knowledge and skill rather than gender.
• Students will consider jobs based on matching the type of intelligence required for a particular job to their own predominant type of intelligence and interests.
• Students will be able to identify the changing demographic of the workplace related to gender and diversity.
• Students will be able to recognize and acknowledge their personal interest and values including those which may be nontraditional for their gender.
• Students will interview and shadow a person from a selected career area and write a summary of, and a reflection about this experience.

TIME: Three to four instructional periods; students will need a window of time to schedule and complete the out-of-school component.

MATERIALS:

1. Recent Sunday editions of the Providence Journal, Boston Globe, New York Times, Washington Post, and the Chicago Tribune.
2. Multiple Intelligence survey instrument.
3. On-line career services, if available.

1. A network of people to work as mentors for students is advisable, but may not be necessary depending on your situation.
2. A network of people who are available for shadowing to be developed through "family connections".

PROCEDURES:

1. Begin with a discussion about careers. Have students brainstorm a list of careers individually, then generate a list of all known careers. Using the classified section of local and regional newspapers, have students find occupations not listed and add these to the class list.
2. Give students a self-assessment survey type instrument that indicates the primary type of intelligence as based on the Multiple Intelligence Theory (Howard Gardner).
3. If students are familiar with multiple intelligences, they should match careers with the intelligences that they think would be dominant in these professions.
4. Each student should select a career from the brainstormed list and sketch the way the person who holds this job looks. Have all students staple or tape their sketch to the board or wall.

1. Classify by sex.
2. Elicit from students why they those the gender they did to portray the career they selected.
3. Direct the discussion back to multiple intelligences as the criteria for career selection.
5. Students will interview family and friends for the purpose of generating a list of "safe" people whose occupations they know and whom they may want to interview to learn more about their respective work/career/jobs.
6. Matching this list with their own multiple intelligence, they will choose careers that they would like to know more about.
7. Students will contact their "safe" person(s) and request scheduling both an interview and an opportunity to shadow that person at work for three to four hours. Prior to the shadowing experience students will write interview questions and develop their goals/purposes for shadowing. A review of appropriate shadowing behavior should also be done. After the shadowing experience, students will write a summary of their shadowing experience. The summary should include not only whether they accomplished their goals for shadowing, but also what tasks they saw accomplished, and the nature of the workplace. In addition, they will write a reflection to examine their thoughts about this job. They will need to identify what was interesting and what seemed tedious. Mostly, they will need to write about this job, how compatible it is with their multiple intelligence, and how their reflection may have been influenced by family or social norms.
8. Students will write thank you letters to those whom they interviewed and shadowed
9. Schedule a day for discussion about the experience.

 HINTS:

The parent component is essential. Parents need to sign off on student plans to shadow. If your administration will agree, this is a perfect use of the community as a classroom; therefore, students shadowing experience my be an individual "field trip’ and count as part of the regular school day.

Persons selected for shadowing should be oriented to the goals and expected performance outcomes of the experience for students. They may be asked to assess the experience from their point of view.

Parents may also be asked to work to:

1. Set up the shadowing experience.
2. Discuss the experience with their child.
3. Receive feedback from the person shadowed, and,
4. Be a part of evaluation of the overall experience via dialogue during a parent’s symposium (with students present) for this purpose.

Students may be requested to read their summaries to their parents and receive feedback from their parents.

ASSESSMENTS:

1. Students generation of a list of jobs in which they may have interest, using recognized sources of job listings.
2. How well they understand multiple intelligence is demonstrated in how they match characteristics of respective types of intelligence to jobs on their lists.
3. Job sketch and discussion.
4. Development and use of Interview questions.
5. Establishment of grade for the shadowing experience.
6. Written summary and reflection on the shadowing experience.
7. Assessment of use of critical thinking determining job selection, and review of job reality (from shadowing experience).

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