Talent Focus Has Steadily Growing Impact on Employment Prospects

By Ed Finkel

Gifted and talented programming maximizes young people’s strengths and nurtures their talents over time in ways that help to prepare them more comprehensively to enter the labor market, whatever it looks like when they are finished with school.

While the impact of such programming becomes more resounding (and more intuitive) in the later grades, the habits students build as early as kindergarten begin to hold sway on what they end up doing with their lives long term, says Denise Mytko, associate director at CTD, who researches how schools can best prepare students for the working world.

In early childhood, parents and educators should be encouraging “awareness in children so that they can start building their identities and understanding their strengths early,” she says. “We’re going to have to know our own value, and values, in an ever-changing labor market. When kids are young, we don’t know what they’ll be doing as adults, but we can support them to have the agency that they will need to navigate the world.”

In addition, parents should pay close attention to how students’ interests and abilities develop over time, particularly focusing on the common threads, Mytko says. “For the youngest ones, I don’t recommend that parents start looking at the labor market formally, but they can start observing their child’s habits and aptitudes,” she says. “Observing what they’re naturally good at and what piques their interest can help to recognize and identify a range of talents across the trajectory of K-12 and beyond.”

While there are high-quality programs and tools aimed at young children interested in exploring the world of work, Mytko doesn’t feel that career exploration needs to be quite so formalized in the early elementary years. Helping children observe how different people spend their time helping others can be a good first step, she says. For example, elementary-aged students could observe familiar adults and show interest in what they do, considering questions like, “What do you think this person does? Why is the work important? What do you think it would be like to do that job?”

By the time children reach middle school, it makes more sense for parents to start learning more about what the labor market looks like, Mytko says. “Because parents will be guiding their students as they make their post-secondary choices,” she says, “having things like an informal record of observed interests over time, possibly a portfolio of projects that they have been proud of or other artifacts like that, can be really helpful tools for students as they make those decisions later in life. This can include artistic work, certifications, diplomas, leadership roles, assignments, essays or articles, awards, or even report cards,” in printed or electronic form and starting at any age.

“Having things like an informal record of observed interests over time, possibly a portfolio of projects that they have been proud of or other artifacts like that, can be really helpful tools for students as they make those decisions later in life. This can include artistic work, certifications, diplomas, leadership roles, assignments, essays or articles, awards, or even report cards,” - Denise Mytko

Families also might consider accelerated programming for students who are ready for that challenge in their schools or through a program at CTD, since leveraging observed talent in children can help them thrive and advocate for themselves later in life, Mytko says. “Early access to spaces where students can stretch their abilities increases students' perspective of what pathways are available for them to pursue, especially as they grow older and begin to identify long-term life goals,” she says.

As students start thinking about their eventual career, parents should play the role of sharing information, but they should let their child lead the discussion, Mytko says. “Or else, it’s not going to go anywhere,” she says, adding, “Middle school is a great time to start having informational interviews with people. That could be done with people that the children and the family know, and is sometimes part of formal school activities.” 

Putting students temporarily in the spaces they may later enter also can help develop college- and career-readiness, Mytko says. This could include simply walking around a college campus as a high schooler, or attending high-school competitions when they’re in middle school. “It is good for students to see themselves in that next step,” she says. Those who perhaps want to join a “high-school debate team, or high-school robotics class, they can go see it, and maybe even meet some people there who could build their network.”

Mytko sees value in students having access to “near-peer” experiences with students who are a few years older than they are. “And if they’re seeing what it looks like to be successful in their area of interest five years ahead of where they are, by the time they’re in high school and making larger life decisions, they’ll be making good, solid judgments about where to go after high school or college,” she says.

Local colleges might or might not let high school students sit in their classes, she adds, “but often times, there’ll be performances, competitions, that students can attend and start really seeing themselves in those accelerated spaces.”

Both middle- and high-school students can benefit from job shadowing, internships, part-time jobs or volunteering in the industry they think they might be for them, which ideally they should do as early as possible, Mytko believes. 

“I used to run high-school technical internships, and it was not uncommon that a student was really academically advanced in an area, and when they spent time doing that work, it was not a fit for them,” she says. “And the earlier they know that, the better, before they invest a tremendous amount of money and time in education or training, just to find out that their area of training is not a fit for them. And that goes back to them being able to ground themselves in what they’re interested in, what they like, what they naturally align to.”

To that end, parents and educators should ensure that students truly know what they are interested in and are not only responding only to external validation of their aptitudes, Mytko says. “If students are told, ‘You’re doing amazing,’ then they’ll do more of that thing, for reasons  outside of what they actually are interested in,” she says. “I try not to have students go on a path of what they might be good at, or what they might be getting praised for, if they don’t like doing it. Because sometimes that can become very difficult, when they get five, seven years into a career in that area and realize that they are unhappy.”

Mytko believes that CTD courses and others like them can provide experiences similar to those of an internship. “Because if they’re really interested in, say, rockets, they can learn about what that means in the world, at CTD,” she says. “Even if it isn’t in CTD classes, learning what kind of work is done in the area of their interest and what is necessary to thrive in that work can be very helpful for any aged student.”