Dressed for the Future

Next week is a spirit week at school. Friday's theme is "dress like what you want to be when you grow up."

When I was in elementary school, you would have seen fire helmets and police hats, scrubs, camouflage, and a suit and tie (because "business man" covers a wide array of jobs we didn’t understand or couldn’t define.) There would have been a hard hat or a toolbelt, a nasa t-shirt and an apron or chef’s hat; maybe a lab coat, and couple of jerseys.

I’m likely to still see many of those things Friday, but in 2022 so many of the jobs people hold didn’t exist–or hadn’t even been thought of when I was their age, and it has me thinking. What might these students dress as? What does a career aspiration look like?

The number of careers that my students could pursue in the future that don't exist right now means they don't even know the possibilities.

Furthermore, think of all the careers in massive and growing fields like technology that don’t have a visible uniform, combined with the prevalence of remote jobs, and I find myself asking, what does the workforce of the 21st century look like?

Knowing my students, I’ll also be curious to see how they’ll figure out dressing like a gamer or youtuber. Headsets? VR goggles?
What would you dress as of you were transitioning into a new career or picturing your future?