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It takes real courage for an eighth grader to walk into a room of 34 community and industry professionals, approach one, shake hands and start a conversation. Yet that’s exactly what all 80 eighth-graders from Aromas-San Juan Unified School District did on March 3 at Anzar High School.
It was the inaugural “Anzar Shake,” the first of what is planned as an annual event. The program is intended to introduce seventh- and eighth-graders to professional job interview skills while giving them an early look at Anzar High School, where many enroll as freshmen.
The event is an outgrowth of the district’s career and college readiness system, according to Director of Curriculum and Instruction Jivan Dhaliwal.
“We knew we had to make sure that we included middle school students in this process,” she said. “And this is a great way for industry partners to engage with middle school kids.”
The gym was filled with representatives of community-facing organizations and businesses, including Willis Construction founder Larry Willis, Lori Arnold from Community Solutions, El Teatro Campesino veteran Phil Esparza, San Benito County Sheriff’s Deputy Desi Villanueva, Graniterock Director of Marketing Keith Severson and three members of the Youth Alliance.
Each of those partners sat at their own table, waiting for students to approach and introduce themselves. This reporter was among them, representing BenitoLink at Table 30.
The students entered in four groups, timed 30 minutes apart: 23 eighth-grade students from San Juan School first, followed by 22 eighth-graders from the same school. 17 seventh-graders from Aromas School were next, concluding the event with the remaining 18 Aromas School eighth-graders.
The process was simple: each student was to introduce themselves, shake hands, sit down and begin a three-minute conversation. Each community representative was given a score sheet with the student’s name to evaluate the interaction on four criteria, making assessments on a 1-10 scale.
The scoring rubric was based on:
- Handshake: from “limp, unfeeling and quick” to “medium” or “bone-crushing firmness” to “about 3-4 seconds with good eye contact.”
- Body Language: from “nervous and fidgety” to “looks down” or “average use of gestures” to “exceptional gestures and expressions.”
- Conversational and Questioning Skills: from “speaks in an unclear manner” to “lack of engaging questions” to “speaks clearly with appropriate grammar and volume.”
- Presence and Politeness: “student interrupts or hurries the adult” to “obligatory thank you” to “pleasant attitude and appropriately demur.”
According to Dhaliwal, the students had gone through extensive practice sessions among themselves to prepare, working on their handshakes and questions together. She said she hoped that those making the evaluations would take into account the natural nervousness inherent in the situation.
And, having sat at one of the tables, one would have to be totally without empathy to grade any of the students on the lowest end of the scale.
Some were less prepared than others, not knowing how to keep a three-minute conversation engaged, and some worked from lists of prepared questions. Others exuded a level of confidence and presence that made them seem very ready for that first job interview.
The overriding impression, however, was of students acquitting themselves very well in a type of challenge they had very likely never faced before, and of industry partners being very impressed with what they saw.
Zooey Diggory, representing the Santa Clara Valley Water District, said that, as an extrovert, she might have been able to handle a similar challenge at that age, but she respected the students’ readiness and willingness to participate.
“My expectations for their abilities and friendliness have been totally surpassed,” she said. “I don’t know a lot of eighth graders who would be very interested or excited about doing something like this.”
Diggory also said she was equally impressed by the effort the district’s teachers and staff put into the event.
“I have really been enjoying talking to these young people,” she said. “Everyone has done a great job of preparing them for what they were going to be walking into. They really seemed to be overall on it and very ready to talk to us.”
Dhaliwal credited the community and industry partners with their willingness to participate in the event.
“They are important to the education of our students,” she said, “and without them we wouldn’t know all the different skills that are necessary for students to practice. I’m really confident about the people who engaged with us and how much they care about our kids.”
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