Fieldwork Notebook 2 of 4 (Reflecting on Pre-Unit

Survey Above)
During the coming data analysis for my inquiry project, I will be doing a lot of examinations
regarding trends of collected survey answers across the entire class. For this fieldwork notebook,
I think it will be just as useful to dive deeply into one of the, I believe, most interesting
individual student responses to my initial survey.
The student in the attached survey has gotten the highest grade in our class each marking period,
and currently has the highest average for the year. She (C.C.) has, in my estimation, a superb
level of natural ability combined with above average work ethic and parental involvement. Her
answers to my survey are extremely intriguing.
Firstly, while C.C. agreed that she is both satisfied with her current school performance,
motivation, goal-setting and passion-finding, she circled neutral for the questions concerning the
relevance of current schoolwork to both achieving her goals and everyday life. Even more
alarming is the fact that she strongly disagreed with the statement regarding the degree to which
she currently feels prepared for adulthood. This, in my opinion, clearly highlights the current
problem that a vast number of students face: if they do not have goals for after graduation, school
is not helping them develop ideas or plans to discover and form goals; if they do have goals,
school is not giving them the skills necessary to determine what they need to do to reach them or
provide the skills and motivation to do so.
In C.C.s case, she is very self-motivated, and her parents are both very supportive and accepting
of her goals, performance and choices. Her mother has accompanied her as a chaperone on
many school and self-organized trips, and her parents support her unconventional and risky
current career plan of becoming a professional photographer. So, the realms of self and family
are in positive alignment in helping C.C. towards achieving happiness and success in life.
However, the realm of school is the obvious weak link, with the only two life skills C.C.
highlighted as having been learned from school being comfort with peers and public
transportation (both important, but too few in quantity).
Schooling needs to provide direct instruction in the form of dedicated lessons at this most critical
stage (10th grade) of student goal-setting, career searching and plan forming. C.C., and her
peers, need the knowledge and information that (relatively) simple lessons on career readiness
can give them, if teachers are willing to take the time to conduct such lessons and conduct them
well. An English classroom provides the perfect conduit (although by no means the only one)
for doing so, as so much of the world of careers and adult life in general requires a strong amount
of literacy (spoken, written, and read) to navigate. It is my belief and hope that over the next 3
weeks/4 lessons C.C. and other students will gain more skills in this area and therefore express
more comfort in the relevant and supportive nature of their high school education in terms of
preparing for life after graduation.