(Radio Iowa) – Iowa’s 2025 Teacher of the Year recently talked with the state Board of Education about her travels throughout the state. Melisa Bloom of Sioux Rapids says she learned there needs to be more done to educate students on the careers available to them. She would ask students about careers and says the majority could tell her what their parents do.
“Maybe a neighbor or a friend or relatives, right? They could tell me about teaching because they work with teachers every day. And they could tell me about people associated with athletics. That was kind of the limit to the number of careers that most students could tell me about, and I think maybe we can do better in that area,” she says. Bloom her findings among Iowa students are typical of students nationally.
“In global studies, the average student’s typically only aware of about six to ten different career options. Bottom line is giving students opportunities to explore different pathways and build transferable skills can help them experience success in multiple career pathways,” she says. “We know that many of our students today will be working in career areas that do not exist today, or that they will change careers several times throughout their adult life.” Bloom says schools can do a better job of helping students look to the future.
“Improving career-connected and work-based learning programming will help districts put better programming into place for students to gain more experience and to gain more knowledge about careers that are available to them instead of waiting until they get into college or graduated from college before they make a decision about what they want to do when they grow up,” she says. Bloom is an agriculture teacher in the Sioux Central Community School District, and says she often talks to people who don’t know you can take classes about agriculture in high school.
“It shocks me that there are so many people in our state who still don’t know that career and technical education programming exists in Iowa. That includes agriculture, industrial tech, technology, family consumer sciences, business education, health occupations, and so many other service areas,” Bloom says. Bloom says she believes every teacher can be a career-connected educator with a little training.
