 Hi everybody, my name is Jason Klein. I'm Director of P20 Initiatives at Northern Illinois University, and we're excited to bring more students to you today. We've got a group of students as well as one educator from Ridgewood High School. And so we're going to jump right into learning about what they're learning in school and how it's helping them with their career planning process and their post-secondary planning process. As we do, we're going to have them introduce themselves. So for each of you, I'm going to have you mention your first name, your year in school, and right now at this point in your life, what you're thinking your post-secondary and long-term career plans are. So David, can I have you kick us off please? Yeah, my name is David. I'm a senior at Ridgewood High School, and my post-secondary plans are to major in education and then hopefully become a high school English teacher. Awesome. Eza. Hi, my name is Eza. I'm a senior at Ridgewood High School, and my plans are most likely to finish my education with Triton after high school and then later on go to another college and get more education for autos and eventually open my own shop. Cool. Josh. Hi, my name is Josh. I go to Ridgewood High School. I'm a freshman, and I want to do my four years in high school and do like good college later on. And for college, are you thinking that's a college that you'll go to for four years or to your college like Triton or both? A four-year college. Okay, and do you have any idea what you want to do career-wise when you're done with college? I want to go to like business and start my own business. Cool. Well, we'll talk more about that in one second. So tell us each of you and maybe we'll stick with the same order for a moment at least, but how and when, maybe even why, if there's a story we'd love to hear it. Can you become interested in your specific career areas and becoming an English teacher or in autos or starting your own business? Tell us those backstories, if you will. So I became interested in education because my mom and my cousin were both teachers growing up. And so my mom taught preschool and she was my preschool teacher. And when my cousin was in high school going into college, she did her pre-hours observing my mother. So teaching is always kind of running the family, so I thought might as well join the family plan. Okay, what interests you about teaching, David? What makes you think you want to be a teacher? What interests me is the fact that just even the smallest little bit in education, whether it's teaching a student how to do something correctly or even just being there to talk to them when they're down, really, really makes me think that I can really impact a young person's life with just the smallest amount of care or thought. That's true. You are right about that. So awesome. I'm glad you found that passion for that. Iza, tell us about your path with autos and maybe wanting to open your own shop in the future. And particularly interested to hear about the idea of Triton and then going to another school and what you would want to major in at another school and learn about potentially and then opening your own auto shop. So growing up in Poland, my dad was very much into motorcycles. So I was kind of always around mechanics and around stuff like that. So I was very much raised around it. So my whole life, that's what I was interested in. And then coming here to America and figuring out that I can do this while I'm in high school really, really got me excited. So I ended up doing it. And so what I want to do as in like college wise, I want to finish the classes and try and go to another college to do diesel. So then I can do regular mechanics and diesel in my shop. So it's not just a single kind of car. I want to really spread out to do everything I want to do electrical diesel and regular cars. So that's kind of the plan for the future. Easy. Can you talk about how your high school experience was before you took the automotive classes compared to how it is after? Yes. So when I came into high school, I wasn't very good at school. I'm not really good at like sitting down and doing my work and stuff like that. I'm very much hands on and doing things. So when I went into high school, I struggled a lot with my grades. It was very, very bad. And then I got introduced to doing my classes online and doing try and which then really just boosted my grades and now I've been getting really good grades ever since I did search and do to the online classes because it really helps me learn because it kind of, I can focus on school a little bit and then focus mainly on autos, which then kind of gives me the power to really go fully into autos without having to hold back because I have to do school work also. So then it kind of allows me to do it all together without really struggling. And it's been really, really good ever since I started autos. So Eza, I'm going to come right back to you in a minute. We'll hear from Josh and then I want to share with all of you guys about a direct message I got on Twitter from a person that has a job very much like Mr. Lasky's in another school district who sent me a message I think on Sunday. And I want to share that and ask Eza to use specifically some follow up questions that and maybe David and Josh. But Josh, first of all, tell us about your backstory for how and when you became interested in this idea of opening your business. And if you have an idea of what kind of business you want to open, like we know Eza wants to open an auto shop, I want to open a chocolate store but my family tells me that would be a terrible idea because I wouldn't have anything to sell and I'd have a lot of health problems. Josh, go ahead and tell us what you're thinking. Oh, so my mom owns a business right now. So that's like, like the fact that why I want to. She owns like integrated demolition, which is pretty cool and fascinating. Why I want to start a business is because when she started business, it was like, like hard, and I want to put that work into it. So my business can like profit later on. And when I have a business, I want to like be my own boss and have like have no one like tell me what to do because like, I feel like I would work better like that. And having my own business would give me more opportunities later on life to like show my skills. That's awesome. That's awesome. Thanks for all that for all that background and we'll come back in a second and talk about how you expect your experiences at Ridgewood and obviously we're all having a little bit of an unusual year this year but how you expect your experiences at Ridgewood you think over the next three years will will help you get there so easy. Let's pop back to you real quickly. And the direct message I got on Twitter from this. This colleague really of Mr. Lasky's in mind. She wrote about as, as we see the end in sight to coven and with the with the vaccine starting to be rolled out and we can think about what what school will look like in the future. And we have students who are having a lot of success with remote learning, and how she and her district that they're multiple high schools they need to figure out which students are help students figure out which of them that will be most successful that they build that in to kind of what they do moving forward. My question for you that it made me kind of connect the dots between what you said is, it sounds like all of the work you're doing in school is going better. As a result of, of how you're doing in automotive is that true would you say you're, you're learning more in classes that are not directly related to this time you're spending in automotives to. That's because I feel more driven to do good in those classes so that I am able to take my trying classes. So very much I'm much more driven to do better in my classes that I have at Ridgewood now that I have something to like, you know, I'm doing those things to work towards being able to do good because if I have bad grades I can't do autos. So I want to bop that will bop to David next, but before I do that, easy. Can you give us a little idea of what your day or week looks like right now I want to make sure that I have an idea because I know things about how things work for different students at Ridgewood but I want to make sure anybody watching this has an idea of kind of what your day and week looks like as a senior at Ridgewood pursuing autos. Well, right now we don't have any autos programs for me, because I'm a lot more further like, I've learned all the things that all of the juniors that are going into the class now learned. So there's not a specific class for me to do autos. So I just do regular online classes that everybody else does at Ridgewood. Okay. Go ahead Mr. Lasky. I was going to say, why don't you tell them what your schedule was last year then that might be good. Okay, so before COVID I would go into school and have first period which was Jim that was a regular class that I did with all my other students. Then I would do math, which I also did, we do math half online and half, like not online. So it's kind of also different than regular math, because we do it all on a computer but we still have a teacher in class that's helping us and everything. So then I did English and history and all those other classes completely online. So I would just sit in the library for like two hours and just be working online and just taking my test answering the questions and doing everything. Then I would actually leave Ridgewood at around 1130 to get to try in at 12. We would have one class from 12 to one, which will study hall. We would just kind of sit and do extra work that we have for either schools. And then at one until around three o'clock we started our actual class from one to three, and we had a lab usually from two to three, and then we had a classroom from one to two. So it was kind of all all over the place. Cool. But that became normal for you and you learned to be successful with all that independent time, didn't you? Yeah, once you really get into a schedule of doing it, it's very, very easy and simple and it's just, you know, everyday school. Cool. So David, tell us about how in your case, Ridgewood is helping you prepare to be a successful teacher. I mean, we certainly have a teacher shortage in general. And so I want to hear more about how that's working for you and what you're doing at school that's helping you along that pathway. Yeah, so I'm, I'm lucky enough to have, last year I had two teachers that taught the Ridgewood that taught the course at Ridgewood. This year I have one, but both of them were amazing teachers and I also have the support and help of Mr. Lasky and all the teachers at Ridgewood. And I did the past two years I've been taking courses at Northeastern University for teaching and this year I just finished our introduction to urban urbanized cities. And so basically just being able to sit and learn not only from teachers at my high school but to be able to sit in a college class and learn from college professors and not be blown away that, oh my God, but seeing you're sitting in with a bunch of with a cup with a bunch of college students that I could actually compete and show them and show my education smart. So I've got a few follow up questions for you there first of all. So what are some of the courses you've taken you talked about the course of courses at Ridgewood, and then the courses at Northeastern what are you remember the names of any of those classes that you've taken. So one of the courses at North at Northeastern was like I said inner city studies this semester. And then last year I took, I forget the technical name of it but basically it was, it was learned learning the backs, the backstory of education education and the history of it. And then at Ridgewood the courses I take are basically just observe observing other teachers at our school so last year during my seventh and eighth period. I would do tutoring so I would help tutor with another team with teacher from Ridgewood, and I would sit and seventh seventh period I would help tutor freshman freshman and sophomores and then my eighth period would be tutoring juniors and seniors. Cool. And did you get feedback on the tutoring you were doing from the Ridgewood teachers. Did they provide you any feedback as well as to how you were doing as a tutor. So I was I wasn't the only one tutoring I had help from two teachers in seventh period and then a period. It was me and another teacher but every day after a period we spent about maybe five to 10 minutes after saying, Okay, this is this is how we did today. This is what these kids have to work on tomorrow. And we got to make sure that these kids are going to their if they need help with tutoring and they teachers are open during eighth period and they need to go take a test we need to make sure that they're going to go take their test so basically it was more of after every class period at the end of the day. We would talk and we regroup and say okay we did this really well today. Tomorrow we need to make sure that person a and person B are working because they have a test on Friday. So you were really part of that teacher team doing that debriefing at the end of the day. Yes. That's cool. That's cool well Josh, you are only really one eighth of the way through high school a little bit, a little bit beyond that if you if you go for a full four years we're just going to assume that this example. What are the things you anticipate being able to do or hoping you'll be able to do at Ridgewood to help prepare you to be an entrepreneur to own your own business. At some point and to go to you said you want to go to four year university to be able to do that. What are some of the things you think are going to happen or that you've learned about already at Ridgewood to help you do that in between now and when you graduate from high school. So right now it's like career planning. So I want to have my career set. So like I'm going to take like marketing and like finance. So to help me for a feature on for my business, because I need all that information for my business to grow later on in the future. And may have mentioned this maybe I'm forgetting with all the questions I'm asking but do you have a specific idea for exactly what kind of business you want to own. No, I don't right now, but I think eventually it will. So let's dive into my next question we'll start with Josh on this one. What kinds of extracurricular activities, work might you do or other things do you think you might do at school and for David is that this might be that it will have you already done to help you figure out in your case Josh what kind of business you might want to own. Well, for my eighth period in class with Mr. specific I coding and coding like right now we're coding a video game about cars. But hopefully like that coding can help me with my business and I can put two together to like have coding business and like, I don't know financial and management to make my business grow. Yeah, I mean coding could be your business and it could be writing software that helps other kinds of businesses, for example, and you and if you're owning your own business. No matter what it is whether it's eases auto shop or, or a bicycle store or a clothing store, you have to know finance and there's a lot of laws you're going to have to learn and be able to get support with as a business owner as well Mr. Lasky. I was going to ask you to tell me about what are you guys doing currently in your English class that is helping you with your prayers. So right now for English, it's Zello and for Zello this like my test for us to like help us for our future. And recently, like the ones I'm interested on are like the coding and business ones. But I think right now richwood, I can have a better understanding from that yellow and preparing for a career. I was going to say what what do you have to do for that project what's involved in your project what are the steps and things you have to do. So, first, we had to like have 17 choices of what you would want to do like agriculture or business. And I'm more interested in business instead of agriculture so obviously I chose business and we had to have like one and one like we had to compare it. So we had to put business and we had to get another one that we're interested in so I put business and finance. So we had to compare on like why you like it. And I like business because like I said before I want to own my own business and be my own boss and finance I chose because they can help me with my business and help me later on in the future. Yeah, and so then thinking about activities and work and jobs that you might have later in high school. I think those are going to be the kinds of things where you're going to want to look at how those can also help you, for example, working at a small business versus for like an international company might give you a better idea of what what a business owner has to do and finding participating in extracurricular activities around coding, for example, could be could be great. So with that said, David, what are the activities you've been involved with at Ridgewood or work experiences that you've had while you've been in high school, or any other activities to really help you kind of zero in on your next steps. So for for me, it was it was obviously we did, we would do observation hours so we would observe teachers from our neighboring elementary schools like Giles and Lee. And we even went out to Pinora and then we saw how high schools taught at Main East so basically basically just being able to see not only how from all the way from little kids being taught to how high schoolers are taught and seeing the difference and like hey so you know when you go into college, you can you can choose your grade level what what subject you want to teach and everything, we're going to give you these experiences so you know what know what you're preparing for. That's amazing. Let me just say, I mean, I had those experiences first. My last year on campus in college, and I was sure I was going to be a high school teacher and had to observe at Urbana Middle School and was with in this just incredible teachers classroom. I still thought when I student taught at a high school, I still thought I'm going to be a high school teacher, but having that experience made me, maybe be open to working in a middle school, which is where I ended up teaching and kind of falling in love with that experience as well. So that you have had those experiences, literally three to five years earlier than I had them. What a what an awesome experience and thanks for calling out all those, all those schools you got to have those experiences with. What about you? What were your experiences besides the classes that kind of got you to where you are today? Well, for me it started off I worked at a diesel shop through somewhere a while ago, and that's what really really got me excited about it and then in Ridgewood what really helped me is the support of the teachers, because they really supported me through transitioning so being half the time in Ridgewood and half the time in college. That's what really just helped me is them being there for me being able to like talk to those teachers about the issues I'm having with transitioning and stuff like that. So that's really what they helped me with and being able to like give me a route that I can do still classes at Ridgewood but still mainly focus on trying and that's that's really what Ridgewood helped me with a lot. I'm going to pull out a really challenging question that it almost might be unfair because I'm asking you to think about other people's experiences and not your own. Earlier in this conversation is that you talked about your dad and his love for motorcycles. David you talked about your mom being a teacher, Josh you talked about your mom owning her own business. You've all had parents who whose their personal occupations or interests have impacted kind of what you want to do and you've been lucky enough to see up close with their experiences have been like. One of the things that's really important for people like Mr Lasky and myself and schools across Illinois is making sure that all students have the opportunity to be exposed to a wide range of careers so in in case they don't have a parent who can show them their career or they're not interested in what their parents doing. When you think about if you didn't have and your parents doing that what are some ways that at schools whether at Ridgewood or at any other middle school or high school what are some ways you think schools can help give students those kind of experiences to get them excited about a potential career that they might not even know exist you guys have any ideas for us about that. He's a go ahead and then David. Okay, so I think Ridgewood what they did a really good job with doing is having presentations and having people from trying to come in and talk about it and openly sit there and say hey we have this and this and this that you can do. And for me, it was a lot different because my dad didn't want me to do autos, because he wanted me to go to something completely different, and he was not very like supportive of it. So, I think Ridgewood did a really really good job really convincing me that I can do this even though I'm being told at home. I shouldn't it's a bad idea I'm not going to be successful but Ridgewood really helped me with being like okay I can do this. If I really put my head to this I can be good at this. Easy before I go on to David that is a very common experience. My parents were both teachers, and they don't want me to become teachers and actually on Friday morning last week I let a workshop, and one of the scenarios we looked at was a was a student who wanted to pursue a career that was one of their careers, and their parents didn't want them to pursue that career so that is also I'm really glad you brought that up it's not something we talk about very often allowed, and that's a pretty common experience that lots of us have had so thank you for bringing it up. David what ideas do you have that either Ridgewood is doing for students or that you think schools at Ridgewood and elsewhere can do to help students be exposed to careers. So I think Ridgewood does a really good job and just and telling kids in general that hey, any career that you that you want to continue in is possible. There are classes, especially at Ridgewood that you can take and clubs you can join to get to the pathway that you want to continue in the future. And I think just talking to my other friends that want to be teachers and listening to them saying man I really wish I once originally just because we really don't have an education program where where hey I want to become a teacher. No one really talks to me about what the steps I have to do. I feel like just being I feel like other schools surrounding us and even around the country just telling kids not being like if you want to become an educator and educator. You don't just have to be a teacher you can you can be a counselor. You can do many other careers in education other than being a teacher that will help that I hope kids. Great. Josh, you've got most of high school still in front of you. You, we've already heard about how you're using Zello specifically in English class right now and exploring that. What kinds of things do you either know of or hope that Ridgewood will do for you or they would you want any high school. You are our other ninth graders currently are at to be able to do for them to expose you to careers or like in your future to help you figure out what might be the kind of business that we in our community need, and that you can be most successful then in in launching in your future. So, so like, if I was like, um, if I was like to pick. For business, it would have to be for coding because Ridgewood has those programs and has those classes to teach you more about coding and and more about like, what you want to do and what you stick with because what you like. So, if I would have to pick. I'll pick business but for for like, for the planning, like, if, like Richard's such a good school to do that, but like, they would have, if I would have told another classmate, I would be like, do something that you would like to do, like, stick with it. Like, if you would, if you want to go to business and you don't like it and go to something else you'd like to do, because you still have a lot, a long time to think about it. So, let's, let's finish up with these last two questions. First of all, for each of you, what's, what's the most important thing to you in selecting and preparing for the career that you think you're going to do what is what is driving that decision for you. So, what's what's driving the decision for me to go into education is, is once again the fact that like, with teachers are the job is we need teachers and not everyone wants to become a teacher so the fact that it's a demanding job and it's even if it's not thankful, thanked all the time and it's overlooked. I think just being able to help kids even in the smallest bit whether it's teaching them how to do a subject correctly so they can go on and have a great career, or even just being being there when they're in the dumps to say hey, Mr. Mr. Barry I need someone to talk to or hey I need to teach you to talk to about this situation real quick. Is that what about for you. Um, for me. The main thing is like we need female mechanics, because there's not a lot of us and females don't feel comfortable going into a male mechanic, a lot of the times because they feel like they're going to take their money they're going to get scanned all this stuff so I feel like a female on shop is definitely needed here, because there isn't one so I feel like it would really help females around this area to, you know, kind of learn to feel comfortable in that kind of environment just because we're always, it's such a manly thing to do, be around cars and work around cars that having a female would kind of be refreshing and I feel like female seeing other female do that they might pursue welding or they might pursue doing something that they also wanted to try but they never had that like they never saw anyone actually be successful in that as a female so so what for me it is just empowering other women to do what they want to do even if it is manly or it is dirty. Well, and the other thing you brought up that's important to point out is, at one point, a few decades ago cars really under the hood we're all pretty similar they all, they all operated the same way and you know you brought up being able to work on gas powered diesel powered and electric cars, and cars, and given the computer backbone of most cars it become incredibly complex, so our need for mechanics generally. Even if we start limiting our need for cars because of other forms of transportation and remote work. We're going to need mechanics for the cars and trucks we do have as they get ever more complex so you seem to have a very good plan there and. I want to start to bring my car, whatever it is at that time into your shop so thanks for sharing that Josh, what about you what's most important to you as you think about selecting and preparing for a career. So, for business, I want my business to grow and be helpful, like later on like, let's just say Twitter, or Facebook like that house people, and I want to have people go wow I want to start my own business to. My business is successful. I want to teach people like what I did to get to that business standpoint and teach people how to become more successful by starting their own business. Well, last question. What advice do you guys have for for teachers like Mr laski and myself and all of your teachers to help us best prepare other middle school and high school students for college and career success. So, if, if, even if you if you sense that a kid or a student wants to go into something and you see that they're, they're really interested in this one subject if they don't want to talk to you about it maybe try going up to them and say hey look. I can, I can tell in your grades and just in your passion that you're really interested in this. You know there are ways that you can make this into your job and into your future and be successful in that plan. David, either for me I think it's being consistent because for me it took a lot of convincing for me to actually do autos my teacher had to really, you know, tell me you should do this you really should it's a good idea keep doing it just try it just try and being open to kids trying and like trying out classes and then you know they might not be successful in it so we can try something else. And I think that's the most important thing is don't give up on them, just because no matter how bad they're doing, there's only you can only go up from there. So just really try everything and just be open minded to what kids want to do and what they want to be in. Great advice, Josh. Basically what Isa said but have like more opportunities to learn like if you want to do something else, and another key wants to do something else have that show for you to like be stuck with it like what you want to do and be stuck with it and just want to change it or not be stuck with it. So allow students to kind of pursue their own interests in in class assignments and things like that. Yes. Yeah. That's, that's great advice. Mr. Lasky before we wrap up do you have anything you want to share. I think it was great that these guys shared I know Josh being a freshman we've got a lot to offer him as he moves forward a lot to do all credit, a lot of experiences that will help them discern which direction he wants to go a little bit more with his business. So it's just good to hear, you know, sometimes we don't always get to hear as much but from here from ease and David about some of their past as well and see where how they got there so this was great hearing for them as well so thank you so much Jason for taking the time to talk to the students. Absolutely well thank you Mr. Lasky for your help setting this up and ease that David Josh thank you guys so much for participating to all the educators watching. Thank you for watching. Now, we would love to engage with your students we know that after watching something like this you'll want to ask your students question, but don't hesitate to reach out to me into the Illinois P 20 network for us to feature your students. You can follow us on Twitter at P 20 that's at P to zero network, and you can connect with us at our website P 20 network that niu.edu. So thanks again to our students and Mr. Lasky great work to all of you and to Ridgewood High School. We're looking forward to bringing everybody watching future episodes from students perspectives.