Career skills and assessment tests for kids in kindergarten?
I’m trying to remember what I wanted to be when I was in kindergarten. I think it was likely an ever-changing goal consisting of career options such as knight, cowboy and superhero. There also seemed to be a lot more wanna-be ballerinas and astronauts in the class than I think the employment prospects for those particular roles could likely handle.
Should we stop wasting so much time and start choosing our real career paths in kindergarten and targeting all of our educational choices accordingly? It sure would cut down on time lost by switching gears and starting over later in life.
This comes to mind because the AP is reporting this week that a new digital academic and career skills test will soon be available for use on children starting in kindergarten.
The test is aimed to analyse the kids’ interest and career goals, and then track their progress through school to determine how ready they are becoming to actually successfully achieve that goal.
ACT, the company best known for their ACT college-entrance exam, says that they will begin testing this new tool in the fall with the goal of early on identifying and addressing gaps in skills needed for college and the workforce.
My own son isn’t in kindergarten yet, but it’s easy to see that the skills he lacks for the workforce and college so far are numerous: staying awake, reading and writing, not eating things that aren’t even remotely food-related.
I hope he loves to learn and to explore and finds what he’s passionate about doing with his life through trying many different things along the way.
Tell us what do you think. Are life-long standardized assessment tests a good idea? When did you know what you wanted to be when you grew up?
