What do you want to be when you grow up? A builder, a baker, or museum curator? An accountant, a barber, or brave fire fighter? How about a doctor, a researcher, or fabulous teacher?
Every year, on the Friday of the first full week of school, Canyons District celebrates Kindergarten College-Readiness Day, a time for our youngest studen
ts to share their dreams and begin to think about how they might achieve them. Each classroom finds its own way to celebrate. Some invite students to come to school dressed in the fashion of their career of choice. Others host a career-oriented show-and-tell. All students this year received blue bracelets bearing the words, “I will be college-ready. Class of 2030.”
As Canyon View kindergarten teacher Carolyn Armstrong remarked to her class, “It’s OK to be undecided, to want to do lots of things, or to change your mind.” But even at the age 5, she says, it’s important for students to begin to understand the pivotal role that education will play in getting them where they want to go.
In Armstrong’s class, students’ aspirations are limited only by their imaginations. There are a few fire fighters, policemen, teachers, doctors and veterinarians, a future chemist, rockstar, and robotics engineer. And there’s Jonathan, who wants to be an inventor so he can invent a star grabber that grabs stars.
“We need all these jobs which is why it’s so great that you all want to do different things,” Armstrong said.
