The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics ranks the medical technologist and technician professions as consistently likely to provide opportunity for employment into the near future, with the demand for cardiovascular technicians and technologists alone expected to rise 24% by the year 2018. While it’s not particularly ethical to be advocating serious thought about particular careers to impressionable youth, with growing uncertainty regarding the long-term fate of our nation’s unemployment rate, there’s certainly no shame in wanting your students to appreciate practical professional pursuits as early as possible.
If you teach a science lesson or lead a science classroom, then fields of science and the details within – the careers and knowledge most anticipated to be in perpetual demand into the foreseeable future – should be concepts your students are well acquainted with.
Most of the lessons involved are certainly an established part of the curriculum: human anatomy, cellular construct, the nature of infectious disease, et cetera. But in order to enlighten young minds on the relationship between patient and caretaker, ailment and cure, you should take the time to find some good places online where your students can find interactive ways to learn about the human body. A quick search will undoubtedly net dozens, like Innerbody.com. There your students will be able to see each of the body’s individual systems perform their functions, as well as have access to dozens of links to further interactive medical and health information.
You more than likely plan your lessons with the vision your students will be one-day enrollees in Harvard Medical, and that’s a terrific way to look at orchestrating your classroom. But there’s nothing wrong with the idea that they could be headed to sonography schools instead. In fact it could do much to instill confidence in students who love health sciences but otherwise find the idea of becoming an M.D. intimidating. Even if your students project certainty that they will grow up to become brain surgeons, by encouraging such an extraordinarily difficult accomplishment you may be contributing to an eventual collapse of dedication when they realize they aren’t cut out to be specialists and feel that medical technician jobs would be a disappointment to friends and relatives.
A civics lesson wouldn’t hurt too. The high demand for medical technicians and technologists into the foreseeable future is only due to the rising demand for better medical care for the citizenry, and more of it. Are your students aware that by 2020 nearly 20% of the American population will be elderly? Select 20% of your classroom at random and bring them to the front of the class. Tell one his legs don’t work, another she can’t see past her noses, and so on, and demonstrate how many other students it takes to assist the ones with “ailments”.
Finish by saying this is the future, their future. You don’t have to make it sound so depressing, but you get the idea. Sometimes the only way we get kids to think about the future is if we find a way for them to somehow interact with it.
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