Garrettsville – Students in Garfield Middle School and some Sixth Graders at Garfield Elementary got a chance to peer into the future and look back at the past in two very interesting events recently. On May 19, community members visited the James A. Garfield Middle School for a wide-ranging Career Day, showcasing everything from community banking to Cleveland Metroparks, insurance & investing, to aspects of medicine, web development to social work. The military was represented as well as police & fire departments and EMS. A web developer and an attorney, a landscaper and an auto service tech, an engineer and a social worker, an entrepreneur and a human resources professional, a teacher and an HVAC instructor, more than one manufacturer (of more than one kind of manufacturing), a culinary arts professional, a professional in the relatively new field of robotics, representatives of the Portage County Department of Developmental Disabilities. An equipment operator/truck driver, a rehabilitation specialist…they all appeared to give the students some insights as to the demands, satisfactions and requirements of their occupations.
Questions were asked…and answered…many with the proviso that jobs and job markets are always evolving, so the best course is to remain flexible and well-informed on a range of employment opportunities. Pursuing one’s passion requires an understanding of the field itself as well as the education and regulations which apply. Motivation a major issue too, paired with practical considerations, such as finance, it can make a career path much more negotiable.
Whether pursuing a vocational path or a college track, or a career in the military, preparation and hard work can make it possible to achieve dreams or come up with new ones that better conform with one’s view of what a successful life is all about.
Many students likely got a whole new set of thoughts about futures which they might like to pursue, maybe better understanding of their current dreams, maybe renewed interest in their place in the world of work and how to make it the place they want it to be.
On May 24, at the James A Garfield Elementary School, sixth grade students in Ms Summer Wasko’s class went looking the other way–into the past.
The Freedom Township Historical Society “came to town”, so to speak, to acquaint these elementary school students with how things used to be in school and in life outside of the classroom “back in the day.” Some eighteen “Antique and Active” Freedomites attended and were paired up individually, with students who had all devised their own set of questions (none were exactly the same but all covered the bases of the information they wished to uncover.)Some of the senior interviewees brought pictures or documents or yearbooks, all brought memories of their time in Freedom Township, even before it became part of the James A. Garfield Local School District. This was altogether fitting, as the Freedom Historical Society is headquartered in a former one-room school, which has been–and is being–updated for community use. The questions asked went both ways, as the students grasped the big differences between “then” and “now” and so did the interviewees. Family stories were floated about–how Grandpa changed his name after the war, grandkids sledding in the winter(down the nearest, smallest hill, which was made of manure in the barnyard–it was frozen), working on the farm, walking miles to school. Kids told their stories too; everybody learned something. One child told of her trips alone on airplanes. Some heard for the first time about consolidation of township schools into local school districts; a copy of the Portage County schools yearbook–The Speedometer–was of considerable interest (at all age levels). The stories were fascinating, the kids were great, the doughnuts were popular. There was even an author among the crowd. G.H. Ashenfelter has written a book, titled Memories from a Farm in Freedom, which she presented a copy of to the school, to be enjoyed later. The senior participants all got commemorative bookmarks.
