California Career Resource Network (CalCRN)

What Teachers, Counselors, and Facilitators Say About The Real Game Series Transcript

(Music playing...)

Lisa Guillen (Career/School Counselor, Crossroads Employment Services)
I think from a career counseling perspective, this set of curriculum is extremely valuable and, in fact, it can be used in many of the schools and can be integrated into mainstream curriculum because it is consistent with the state educational standards.

Nancy Carlton (Career Development Professor, CSU Sacramento)
Career development is a basic component of the human development process and it cannot be separated from personal, social and academic development. In fact, career development needs personal, social and academic development in order for it to move forward successfully within individuals.

Michael Gangitano (School Counselor, Lee Junior High School)
Whatever subject matter they are teaching. It fits in very nicely and it can be used to emphasize many different life skills that they need to learn in either math, language arts, social studies, even science, so it can fit anywhere...very well

Rowland Rebuyon (Life Skills Instructor, Lemon Hill Career Center)
The feedback we've been getting from our students is that it is helping them achieve their goals, whether it's going to be an educational goal or an employment goal, they are learning a lot of valuable information that they can use later on in their life.

Michael B. Stevens (Principal, Lee Junior High School)
...the school climate has gotten better, our academic performance has gotten better and I think it all relates to us providing a connection for kids to the school

George Montgomery (Career Counselor, Laguna Creek High School)
We are trying to educate young people to the fullest of their potential and that is both socially, academically and in career and The Real Game provides students with a lot of the foundation necessary to promote their ability to do well in the work place

The way we can tell positive results are happening in the classroom is that kids are working together, kids are making progress, kids are learning about the link between the things they are learning in school now and the things they're going to use later in work.

They get very excited about who they are, what they're learning about, the potential that they may have.

A lot of kids have a great idea or think they have an idea about what they may want to do, but until they get into the activities of the Real Game do they actually see how it can be put together.

Adrienne Bahn (Home Economics Teacher, Lee Junior High School)
You don't have to work at getting them involved. They really build up their own enthusiasm with the jobs and cheering each other on and it's kind of a snowball effect. In the Real Game Series the team members become a community. The community element means to me working together, learning how to make group decisions, learning how to contribute to your own community and your neighborhood and kids get to learn that through The Real Game. I believe that students who are gaining a greater insight into who they are as people and their value system and of course their interests and abilities

George
It helps them to begin to take their work more seriously in school their subject matter becomes more relevant to them .

Jan Hill (Teacher, Redwood Middle School)
The materials are very easy to use .You can really pick and choose to make it suit your curriculum and the time you have to spend on it. And my feeling is that any of it is better than none of it. It's just a tremendously self-guiding, self-tutorial game

Nathaniel Hawthorne (Job Developer, Crossroads Employment Services)
I think some of the kids also find that maybe not every kids going to go to a four-year college. They may find that to get what they want they need to go to technical school, or they need to obtain some kind of training or on the job training and these are things that I think they'll get out of the program

Jan
Attendance is almost perfect during The Real Game. I find that attendance goes up when we are playing The Real Game. If a child is absent I actually get a phone message on my voice mail service that says, "What did I miss? Please have it ready for my parents to pick up in the front office" They don't want to miss.

Adrienne
Anything that can get the children involved in a program, you grab onto it. It's a wonderful feeling for a teacher to have a program that the children get into so easily

Tatiana Solimena (Youth Worker, Crossroads Employment Services)
I feel that I do something real because I try to help them, they have a dream and the kids' dreams are very important for me.

Jan
If you're not participating in The Real Game, you need to do it.
It's just a great time for teachers and students alike.

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7/22/04 11:19 AM