Reporter: Hello, Professor Pan! After reading your forthcoming monograph "Career Planning in Middle School", I was really inspired. Please tell us the background of your participation in this research.
Pan Hengxi: Before the 1990s, the jobs of China University graduates were assigned by the state. Although many young people complain that they can't freely choose their careers, work units and even lifestyles, they find that when they can choose, they won't choose. After entering the 2 1 century, the vast number of young people have their own independent, independent and personalized development needs, which can be realized conditionally. However, due to the lack of professional guidance, most young students didn't realize that their major was not what they liked and were good at until the university stage, and even found themselves in the wrong line after working for many years. China has entered an era of diversified development of culture, economy and individuals. The sooner teenagers fully understand themselves, the sooner they can fully dissect themselves, and on the basis of objectively understanding their own conditions and related environment, they can conduct a comprehensive self-analysis of their own personality, specialties, interests, IQ, EQ and way of thinking, so as to design their future careers as soon as possible, realize their own values and lead a wonderful life. I have instructed tens of thousands of graduates to work in the university I co-founded. I deeply realize that the middle school stage is the golden age of life, and all aspects have not yet been finalized, which is very malleable. Therefore, we should consciously accept professional guidance and find out what we want to do, what we can do, what we should do, and how to choose a lot of careers. Therefore, I want to make some useful attempts in this research field.
Reporter: It seems that teenagers should think about the future development direction in middle school. What are the specific contents of middle school students' career planning?
Pan Hengxi: Understanding oneself, occupation, the relationship between education and occupation, and learning career decision-making are the important contents of middle school students' career planning. Self-awareness means that middle school students should fully understand their interests, hobbies, personality and values, and establish their own career goals accordingly, and establish the concept that "learning is to realize their career ideals", so as to continuously improve their knowledge, skills and comprehensive quality in long-term study and practice.
Knowing the occupation means that middle school students should know what knowledge and skills they need, what kind of education they need, where they can get the corresponding education, where they can find the corresponding job and so on through the process of exploring and experiencing the occupation. Through the exploration and experience of the profession, I feel whether I really like and adapt to this profession, and exercise my ability to find information, analyze and solve problems, communicate with others, cooperate with others and adapt to society in the process of exploration and experience.
To understand the relationship between education and career is to know how to link the present study with the future career development, and to choose a suitable school or institution to receive education according to one's career goals.
Career decision-making refers to understanding the factors that affect decision-making, knowing the steps of career decision-making, and making scientific decisions according to the relevant information.
Reporter: Is it necessary for teachers, parents and schools to understand the importance of career planning for middle school students?
Pan Hengxi: It's urgent! Teachers can link what they have learned now with the fields where students will work in the future, so that students can closely combine their study and life and truly apply what they have learned. You can also get a comprehensive understanding of students' interests, hobbies, personalities and values through career planning, give targeted guidance to students, and provide powerful help for students to realize their career ideals.
By knowing some professional knowledge of career planning, parents can better communicate with their children, discuss topics of interest with their children, find out their bright spots, provide them with more information in areas of interest, and broaden their horizons and enrich their knowledge. In the process of communicating with their children, parents should guide their children to find corresponding jobs in their fields of interest, guide them to do some exploration, and let them connect what they have learned now with their future career goals, and make some necessary preparations from now on.
Schools play a guiding role in the process of career planning guidance, and experts can be introduced to hold special lectures and seminars, so that school teachers can communicate with experts face to face, thus rapidly improving the guidance level of teachers' career planning. At the same time, schools should actively contact parents, get their cooperation and support, form a two-way interactive relationship, turn parents' doubts into boosting force, and improve the effectiveness of career planning guidance for middle school students.
Reporter: What problems do you think middle school students have in their career planning? Is it too early for middle school students to make career plans?
Pan Hengxi: The first is the simplification of career planning. Most middle school students think that the only task of middle school is to get good grades. Many students have not set their goals in life when they reach the third year of high school, and the only purpose of study is to be admitted to the university. Many students study for their parents and teachers, but they don't consider their own needs and life ideals. On the whole, they learn passively. Secondly, the utility of career planning. This shows that students pay more attention to the popularity of majors and consider the influence of schools and majors on future salary and benefits. Many students' self-knowledge does not match their professional cognition, and they do not unify their long-term development goals with their short-term academic goals; The information source is narrow and there is no future development prospect. As a result, it is impossible to effectively match all resources and make a regrettable decision.
So it is not too early for middle school students to plan their careers. In some developed countries, career planning begins in kindergarten. Especially in the United States, Germany and other countries with very standardized and developed vocational systems, career planning guidance runs through primary schools, middle schools and universities. Through career simulation, watching videos and practical operation, children have a certain understanding of themselves and their careers since childhood, prepare for their career in terms of knowledge, skills and comprehensive quality, and improve their comprehensive quality by participating in various volunteer activities, professional experiences and part-time jobs. And in our country? Often many people don't know what they should do after graduating from college.
Experts from the Ministry of Education believe that whether college students can find suitable jobs should put their jobs first. If there were contents related to career planning in junior and senior high schools, the pressure of our department might not be as great as it is now. Career planning education is an effective means to implement quality education, which is related to the quality of future talents in the country. At present, career guidance in colleges and universities is developing rapidly, but career planning education should focus on the basic education stage.
Reporter: When is the best time for middle school students' career planning? What suggestions do you have for the specific implementation of middle school students' career planning?
Pan Hengxi: The first day is the best. When students reach the junior high school stage, their self-awareness is gradually enhanced, and they begin to have their own thinking ability and independent exploration ability. We can guide them to do something that will help their future career development. Because career planning is a process of continuous exploration and circulation, you can't know your career goals at once. It requires you to do a lot of career exploration and feel whether it is suitable for you in the process of exploration. If it is not suitable, it can be further adjusted, further explored, and so on until.
Until you find a career goal that suits you. Therefore, the earlier you explore and exercise your abilities in all aspects, you can have more time to explore and collect a lot of information, so that when making career decisions, you will have more evidence to choose your favorite and suitable career. If you don't start exploring until the third year of high school, because of the pressure of the exam, you can't have enough time to collect a lot of information, so making decisions will inevitably be biased.
For senior one students, their awareness of education is relatively high, but their awareness of career planning is relatively low, which shows that senior one students naturally trust the knowledge transfer function of school education. They need to cultivate their focus on learning and study habits, form appropriate learning methods, turn attitudes into habits, and turn enthusiasm into methods. While protecting their learning enthusiasm, we can appropriately increase the guidance of career planning, and combine students' personality differences and practical possibilities to form ambitious and feasible goals. However, we should also pay attention to the way and not encourage it, otherwise it will easily advance the choice anxiety of senior two to senior one, which will affect students' learning enthusiasm.
For senior two students, their evaluation of educational value is lower than that of senior one students, which shows that they have not clearly realized the relationship between the knowledge inheritance function and the socialization function of school education. Facing the anxiety of choosing subjects, they increasingly find that they don't understand the social standards of talents and the types of social occupations, and they don't understand the social demand for talents and professional information, so they are easy to fall into depression. At this stage, we can increase the guidance of career selection knowledge, including re-understanding ourselves and school education, deepening our understanding of society, and trying to link the two. In terms of academic planning, senior two is also a key stage. It is necessary to solve the puzzles encountered by high school students in their studies in various ways, help them get out of the learning dilemma and step into the third year of high school with a full attitude.
For senior three students, their awareness of career planning has improved, which proves that senior three students have gradually formed their own career choices and future development direction after experiencing the confusion of senior two. But it is necessary to find out whether the goals set by students are practical and firm. The worst result is that the second year of high school is in a hurry to choose a subject, and the third year of high school is in a hurry to determine the popular major along the direction of choosing a subject, without making a full and serious choice, and drifting with the tide. Therefore, we can provide more guidance in choosing majors and schools. On the one hand, schools can provide psychological support for students with academic difficulties through individual consultation, such as support for learning methods; On the other hand, through group activities or other means to show the various development possibilities of life, students' anxiety can be cooled down, so that they can still find the courage to continue studying life and face life firmly when they encounter failure.
Reporter: As far as China's current education system is concerned, how to effectively combine career planning education with school classroom education?
Pan Hengxi: Career planning education does not conflict with other educational goals. Schools should not only care about students' further education, but also help students fully understand their future careers, help them make plans and gradually realize their career ideals; Through proper vocational guidance, we can link the present study with the future work and guide students to study effectively. Any of our learning activities should be related to students' future career development. I have the following suggestions:
(1) Vigorously carry out comprehensive practical activities. From the new curriculum reform in senior high school in 2007, it can be seen that the state has made a certain determination to improve students' comprehensive quality. The comprehensive practical activities in one academic year include 108 class hours of research study, no less than 5 working days of community service, and participation in 1 week of social practice. We can use this time to input students' career planning ideas and methods, guide students to know themselves and their careers, clarify their career ideals, and further explore their careers through research-based learning and social practice; Career exploration can be regarded as a subject of research-based learning. Students can master some research-based learning methods in the process of exploring their interested careers, and at the same time have a certain understanding of their future careers. The introduction of the concept of career planning can make students' comprehensive practical activities more targeted and research-based learning more practical. We don't study for the sake of research, but do necessary research to solve our urgent problems, which makes it easier to stimulate students' research enthusiasm.
(2) Take career planning as an elective course. The new curriculum is changed into an elective course for students, and we can offer a career planning course on the basis of the current elective course.
(3) Hold career planning lectures regularly. Invite experts to teach in the school and communicate with students face to face, so that students can get systematic professional guidance.
Reporter: Now middle school students have a heavy academic burden. Will offering career planning courses increase their burden?
Pan Hengxi: China's parents can learn English at the age of 6 and Olympiad at the age of 7 for the college entrance examination, but they seldom make even a little preparation for their children's lifelong career. Nowadays, students' academic burden is really heavy, but why do we spend so much time and experience studying? Isn't the ultimate goal to do what you like and are good at? Without the guidance of professional consciousness and the verification of professional exploration, how can you know what you like and what you are good at? Students spend a little time exploring their future careers and finding what they really want to do. With clear goals, their learning initiative will be stronger and their learning effect will be better. Therefore, offering career planning courses is not to increase students' burden, but to increase their future employment competitiveness in the workplace.
Reporter: The situation of middle schools in China is based on the baton of the college entrance examination. If the university fails, is it a waste of time to spend time on career planning?
Pan Hengxi: The ultimate goal of life is happiness, but happiness is not necessarily related to whether you go to college or not. Whether your life can be happy and meaningful depends on whether you have a goal in mind, whether you have a strong motivation to achieve it, and whether you have taken action to achieve it! The career planning of middle school students is to guide students to discover their inner desires, and to realize their inner desires through continuous study and practice, to exercise themselves in study and practice, and to make the best preparation for realizing their career ideals. We should choose appropriate education to realize our career ideals, such as attending secondary schools, higher vocational schools, entering universities, taking entrance exams, taking doctoral exams or studying abroad. These are the ways to realize our professional ideals and should not be our life goals. At present, there are hundreds of thousands of college students in China who can't find jobs after graduation, which has actually proved that it is a real waste of time to go to college without a clear career goal.
Reporter: Will the "specialization" required by career planning conflict with the "all-round development" of students?
Pan Hengxi: This is a misunderstanding. Career planning does not require "specialization", but emphasizes finding your own potential and strengths, setting clear career goals according to your actual situation, and cultivating all the abilities needed to achieve this goal around this goal. This is also "all-round development", which is "all-round development" with personality and purpose. This is a little different from the "all-round development" emphasized in our traditional education. The "all-round development" emphasized in traditional education is based on national standards, regardless of individual characteristics. Such "all-round development" often leads to overall mediocrity, because everyone's time and energy are limited, so you should focus on what you want to do all your life. A scholar said: People only do one thing in their life. Bite more than you can chew, you will have a stomachache. If Qian Xuesen writes novels while studying atomic bombs and Yuan Longping makes movies while studying hybrid rice, can we still hear their resounding names?
Reporter: Will the career planning of middle school students restrict their personality development?
Pan Hengxi: Many students and parents think that career planning is to set a career goal for students very early, so that students can study according to this career goal, so that they are afraid that doing so will limit students' personality development. In fact, career planning is to guide students to know the society and their own careers, which is a process of broadening students' horizons; At the same time, it also guides students to deeply understand their interests and abilities, discover their inner desires and find their real career goals. In the whole process, we respect students' personality differences very much, instead of imposing the will of parents and teachers on students; More importantly, career planning attaches great importance to students' personal practice and experience. In the process of career exploration and career experience, students can be trained to acquire information, analyze and solve problems, communicate with others, have a positive attitude and be proactive. These comprehensive qualities are the core requirements of society for talents.
Reporter: If you don't like your present job in the future, is it a waste to invest so much time in career planning?
Pan Hengxi: The middle school stage is the stage of exploring careers. Any change is normal, and the time you invest will never be wasted. In the process of exploring a career, you can not only judge whether you are suitable for this career, but also learn more related careers and provide yourself with a wider range of career choices. According to the experience of relevant experts, in the middle school stage, a person's hobbies are basically stereotyped, and there will be no changes unrelated to the original hobbies. Even if there are some changes, it must be more or less related to previous hobbies. Therefore, middle school students should try their best to explore the career they are most interested in at present, and extensive exploration can provide more scientific basis for their final career decision.
Because of the limited time, in order to understand the concept and method of middle school students' career planning more systematically and comprehensively, at the request of reporters, Professor Pan showed reporters such monographs as Winning in the Workplace-Employment Guidance for College Students and Career Planning for Middle School Students (the first draft).
Through talking with Professor Pan Hengxi, the reporter deeply realized the importance of middle school students' urgent career planning. The career planning of college students in China has developed rapidly, but the awareness of career planning of middle school students is still very vague. The relevant state departments have carried out research on middle school students' career planning for many years, but they have never formally entered the classroom. Countless facts have proved that if children can understand their interests, hobbies and personalities during middle school, know what occupation they want to engage in in in the future, and conduct some exploration and research on this occupation and related majors, then they will not be blind in choosing majors and occupations, and their career development will be less detoured, and at the same time, our educational resources will not be wasted. I hope this interview can attract the attention of relevant departments.