Careering Along



The only careers advice I received as a teenager was to be a teacher or a nurse.

“But I can’t stand the sight of blood!” I squealed.

“Well, you can still be a teacher,” said the bored careers woman. And that was that. I was tempted to suggest that maybe she would have been better suited to being a cleaner, cook or cockle-gatherer, anything rather than a careers advisor but, uncharacteristically, I held my tongue.

Teaching and nursing are vocations,(i.e. a “calling”), something more noble than a half-formed idea that it might be something you could possibly do.

It transpired that nearly all the girls were advised to be teachers, nurses, secretaries or sales assistants. Yet the options for the boys covered the full spectrum of professions, from marine biologist to meteorologist and policeman to pilot.

This was just as bad for the boys as it was for the girls. There was never a suggestion that a young lad might be suited for a caring profession – they were advised to aim for the high-flying “manly ” jobs.




Confession time: I trained to be a teacher but after applying for dozens of jobs and not even getting an interview, I started a holiday job copytaking in my local newspaper – and realised that a newspaper office was exactly where I wanted to be. This means that generations of children have had a lucky escape.

My careers advice, which I should never have listened to, was over 40 years ago so I assumed times had changed.  I was, therefore, surprised to read that according to the OECD,  the international economics think tank, by  the age of SEVEN, children are already facing limits on their future aspirations in work because of ingrained stereotyping about social background, gender and race.

I was at a grammar school so at least my careers advice was for something aspirational. According to the OECD findings, girls in primary school from deprived backgrounds are expecting to go into hairdressing or shop work while boys from wealthier homes are more likely to expect to become lawyers or managers. Not that there's anything at all wrong with hairdressing or shop work, but young children should at least be aware that there are other occupations available.



The OECD says too often young people consider only the jobs that are already familiar to them, from friends and family.

"You can't be what you can't see. We're not saying seven-year-olds have to choose their careers now but we must fight to keep their horizons open," says Andreas Schleicher, the OECD's director of education and skills.

The OECD has announced plans to double to 100,000 the network of people who go into schools and talk about their jobs and career paths. At present there are more than 50,000 volunteers, representing jobs from "app designers to zoologists".

I wish the OECD had come into my school. Who knows I might now be the Prime Minister of Great Britain and none of our present political problems would exist. You never know...

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14 comments:

  1. I had the same experience in college. It was the times we lived in and thankfully, girls now can go into other fields than nursing and teaching. I didn't fight for what I truly wanted to study but that, too, was the times we were in. Most of us didn't stand up to the powers that be.

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    1. So true. Thankfully, I ended up doing a fulfilling job in the end

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  2. They spend a bit more time on other career paths nowadays, although many kiddos are still nudged in the stereotypical pathways.

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    1. I'm glad things are improving. Certainly better than they were in my day, in the dim and distant past!

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  3. I went to school to become a teacher too and ended up being a tutor. I do better one on one, but I honestly had no idea what to become.

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    1. Both my sisters were teachers but I'm not sure I had the patience! One-on-one sounds preferable.

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  4. I remember a careers person coming to our high school and the girls were encouraged to be, as you've said, teachers or nurses, but also one option given was to become air hostesses. We could travel the world! While serving drinks to high flyers I suppose. I did notice that the boys and girls were spoken to separately so I never learned what the boys choices were.

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    1. Travelling the world sounds wonderful although I'm sure being an air hostess is hard work too.

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    2. Yet somehow I ended up in a factory wrapping 40 pound blocks of cheese. Took a break to have and raise children, then wound up in another factory slipping insoles and laces into newly made shoes.

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    3. I did holiday jobs working in factories and although I hated the work at least I was with great groups of people with whom I could have a good laugh!

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  5. I'm so glad you found the newspaper! Be well, my dear.

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  6. First time visiting your blog and commenting :) I graduated high school in 1975. My school counselor encouraged me to go to college. I didn't want to. I wanted to be a secretary, LOL, and in all fairness I was talented in typing, shorthand at the time, etc. I do remember working for a group of cardiac surgeons and there was a female surgeon. She was very petite. She said when she was in medical school the "older" doctors made her wear a sign on her back that said "I'm not a nurse" because she kept being mistaken for one. Those days if you were a female doctor you were more than likely a pediatrician or an obstetrician. Nowadays women are in all specialties. Seems like you did find your niche in the newspaper! I ended up being a secretary, then a mom, LOL, now a medical transcriptionist coming close to retiring.

    betty

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    1. Thanks for commenting, Betty. That I'm Not A Nurse sign would be hilarious if it wasn't such an awful 'sign of the times', back in the day! I'm semi-retired now. I no longer work on newspapers but write for various magazines - and loving every minute!

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