[CALIBK12] HIT: Career-related controversial issues

[Waddle, Victoria]

Sarah,

I was thinking about the job description itself-for example, my son is majoring in biotechnology, hoping to save a hungry world. But he is finding out that there is A LOT of controversy about methods of producing food-genetically engineered food, etc. Would this kind of thing fit the project? There is so much going on now with genetics. A genetics counselor could be a controversial job-arguments about ridding ourselves of 'imperfect' people, etc.

Sorry I'm so late on weighing in.

Victoria Waddle
Colony High
Ontario

-----Original Message-----
From: calibk12-bounces at lists.sjsu.edu [mailto:calibk12-bounces at lists.sjsu.edu] On Behalf Of Daydream Queen
Sent: Wednesday, October 01, 2008 7:39 PM
To: CALIBk12
Subject: [CALIBK12] HIT: Career-related controversial issues

Thanks to everyone who responded. I feel I have a better grip on this. I'm looking forward to helping the kids out with this even though I can tell it will be a challenge. It has the feel of a non-bird-unit research project to me, especially when the kids get to tie in how they would handle the issue personally on the job. I got lots of great responses on my post about career-related controversial issues. Here are the responses thus far.
Original Question: Does anyone have any idea where I would find information on controversial issues realted to careers? I have lot of Opposing Viewpoints books and tons of career books but I don't see much overlap. I imagine this will be a great challege for seniors but I'd like to provide some ideas of how to approach this. A teacher has assigned this as a research topic.
 Responses:
The first thing that occurs is professional vs. para or clerk
How many careers struggle with that?
also, school vs. career......with all the emphasis on college, does vocational still pay?

This is a shot in the dark but would looking at Controversial Issues websites and tying it into future careers, i.e., censorship and librarian or abortion and doctor, be of any help.  I've sent the links I use with our Econ and Government classes when they research controversy.
http://www.policyalmanac.org/
http://www.multcolib.org/homework/sochc.html
http://www.globalissues.org/

Seems like this would be one of those higher level thinking skills tasks that will keep kids away from "bird reports".  Wouldn't you need to consider jobs where people are faced with ethical or moral dilemmas.  How about librarians and their responsibility for book selection vs censorship? Or medical personnel being asked to perform controversial procedures, people in industries where ethical treatment of animals is an issue, jobs in the legal/judicial area, or dozens more.  A book like the Macmillan Compendium of Social Issues could give you many more ideas.  Hard work, but I like it!

I tried the Opposing Viewpoints database with the search "jobs".  The articles tended to be about outsourcing.  Then I tried googling an occupation/field and the word controversy (e.g. teaching controversy) and got many ideas that might work.

For example,
teaching, controversy = teaching safe sex/health ed, teaching evolution
trucking, controversy = Mexican trucks bringing goods into US
airlines, controversy = breast feeding on board, terrorism/profiling

Some are not "careers" directly, but they are still ideas of controversial happening in an industry that may affect one's job situation.

Job discrimination?
Unions-- beneficial or not?
Dress codes at work?
Health benefits or not?
Merit Pay?

Most of these are generic, I think you need to begin with a more global, generic approach.

Next, I would ask each  "special area" teacher in my school willing to help me for a list of two or three issues specific to the field in which he teaches. (Ag, Career Ed, Health, Music, Art, etc...)

General topics:  glass ceiling, life-work balance, affirmative action, contract work vs. employee status, personal religious conscious issues (such as for medical personnel in regard to abortion, withholding of nutrition), gays in the military, role of women in the military, dating co-workers, sexual harassment in the workplace, workplace dresscodes, good/bad aspects of unions & issues with big non-union employees, need for lots of immigrants to take the nasty jobs "Americans" don't want, outsourcing of work to other countries, new generation regularly changing both jobs and careers often (much more than we middle aged folks did or at least expected to do)
I don't have any idea about where to find the information but some suggested topics might be Geologists working for oil companies, Nuclear scientist, product testing by research scientist, ecological impact of the fishing industry. The automotive industry ie Hybred cars, electric cars.  The ethics of import/export businesses.  Sounds like an interesting report project.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Daydream Queen <daydream.queen at gmail.com<mailto:daydream.queen at gmail.com>>
Date: Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 10:14 AM
Subject: Career-related controversial issues
To: CALIBk12 <calibk12 at listproc.sjsu.edu<mailto:calibk12 at listproc.sjsu.edu>>

Does anyone have any idea where I would find information on controversial issues realted to careers? I have lot of Opposing Viewpoints books and tons of career books but I don't see much overlap. I imagine this will be a great challege for seniors but I'd like to provide some ideas of how to approach this. A teacher has assigned this as a research topic.

--
Sarah Bosler, Teacher Librarian
Montclair High School
Chaffey Joint Union High School District
http://mohigh.com

"Well-behaved women rarely make history" - Laurel Thatcher Ulrich



--
Sarah Bosler, Teacher Librarian
Montclair High School
Chaffey Joint Union High School District
http://mohigh.com

"Well-behaved women rarely make history" - Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
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