Working in my internship was an eye opening experience in many ways. After starting back on the workdays as a teacher, I was already starting to see how transformative of an experience my internship time was. We began talking about how Amazon is going to have a grocery store completely different than any that we have now. We looked at how an 18-wheeler truck company is making self-driving trucks. This spurred the conversation of how we teach our students. Many teachers shared how these new jobs scared them in a way.
After my time with LORD I began to see how we are preparing our students for jobs that we don’t even know exist yet, but that’s okay! At LORD they’re making thermally conductive batteries and adhesives that are better for the environment. The things they’re doing today were not products or ideas 100 years ago when the company was first started. Technology has always changed things. The thing about education is that we have to be adaptable. If we build a strong foundation and love of STEM, reading, etc, then we are preparing our students to succeed no matter what career they may choose. Even if it doesn’t yet exist!