ASHLAND — Mapleton and Loudonville sixth graders marveled at robots, snakes and more at the Ashland County-West Holmes Career Center during the Gloves & Goggles event on Tuesday.
Career Center students showed sixth graders around the building. The sixth grade students saw samples of all the Career Center’s 14 programs, which range from cosmetology to cybersecurity.
The event attracts about 500 students each year, and runs entirely on donations.
It started in fall of 2016 as “Girls with Goggles,” then started including boys in spring of 2018. During COVID-19, it blossomed into one large virtual event, and the Career Center has made adjustments since.
Mary Bruno, the Career Center’s business services and placement coordinator, said similar visits take place when students are in the eighth grade and tenth grade.
The purpose of it, Bruno said, is career exploration.
“(The hope is to) introduce the students to what a career center has to offer while they are still young and just starting to think about their future,” Bruno said.
According to Rodney Cheyney, the superintendent of the Career Center, those visits are important.
“We need to get kids excited about careers at a younger age,” Cheyney said. “There’s a lot of emphasis on getting kids college ready, but really, I think it should be about getting kids career ready.”
He said the Gloves & Goggles event offers students a good opportunity to understand what career options there are, and to know about them at a younger age.
Building the future
The sixth grade students got hands-on experience with all the school’s programs throughout the morning.
Lenix Crossen, an 11-year-old sixth grader from Mapleton, said he liked trying out drunk goggles and seeing metalworking during the day.
“Y’know how you watch something in a video and you’re like, ‘That’s cool.’ Well then you actually try it, and it’s like, ‘Wow,’” Crossen said.
One day, Crossen hopes to work in the military repairing jets. Having the chance to see what the Career Center does has him thinking about it as a future option.
Cheyney said the event also helps high schoolers stay on their toes and deepen their understanding of their programs, too.
“Teaching a skill helps with your own proficiency,” he said. “Kids will put you on the spot.”
Amasa Maynard, a 17-year-old senior, led one of the groups on their tour at Tuesday’s Gloves & Goggles event. He’s in the Career Center’s mechanical engineering program.
Tour guides are considered program ambassadors. Lab directors nominate them, and they engage with schools throughout the year. Maynard is one of these ambassadors.
He said he didn’t participate in Gloves & Goggles as a sixth grader. But, as a sophomore, he did get to visit the Career Center. That visit helped him settle on attending school there.
“I got to see what it was like and that this was what I wanted to do,” Maynard said.
Now he’s passing that knowledge onto others through his role as a program ambassador now, too.
“It’s cool to get to do this for sixth graders and to see them be interested so young,” Maynard said.
The Gloves & Goggles event will have another showing later this week. Ashland City Schools’ sixth graders will take tours of the Career Center on Wednesday, too.
Below are photos of some students participating in the Career Center’s demonstrations on Tuesday morning.
