From the Inquirer
Philly-area program moves students to workforce
RACHEL CANELLI
The Associated Press Posted on Sat, Sep. 27, 2008
NEWTOWN, Pa. - As Max Clamper sat waiting for the interviewer to call his name, he lightly patted his hands against his legs in an anxious rhythm.
"Don't be nervous," he told himself as he took a deep breath to relax, and comforted himself with words of wisdom. "Speak with confidence. Give a firm handshake; otherwise it'll be like a dead fish. Sit up straight and try not to repeat yourself."
To 20-year-old Max, the meeting wasn't just about a post, or a paycheck. It was about self-sufficiency.
"I'm praying I get the job," said Max as his dark, wide eyes smiled through his thin glasses. That's why he's been getting some extra help to prepare for the working world.
A former Council Rock High School South student, Max is one of several teens and young adults enrolled in the Council Rock Educational Center's office skills training program.
Located in an office building in Newtown Township, the course is run by the Bucks County Intermediate Unit No. 22. It's a transition for participants who've moved beyond their respective school or district's special education program, administrators said.
"This is about more than just getting a job , it's about keeping one," said lead teacher Christopher Polzer. "School is much different than work. That's why we emphasize social aspects like team-building, working together, and realizing their strengths and weaknesses."
Several districts, including Council Rock, Neshaminy, Pennsbury and Bristol Borough, feed into the program, which serves 18- to 21-year-olds, Polzer added.
Besides practicing interviewing skills, the students learn about dress codes, making eye contact, hooking up computers to the Internet and phrases like "rolling with the punches" and "tooting your own horn."
"They're good workers," said Joyce Mosticchio, job developer and trainer. "It's all about gaining independence."
The men and women also receive work experience from various training sites around the county like the I.U., Mosticchio said.
"This program is fabulous because it gets you out there and ready for the outside world," said Clamper. "I'm a very knowledgeable kid, but my goal is to live on my own. And maybe drive a car in the next 10 years."
While Max was rehearsing questions to ask his interviewers, he found out that he's now one step closer to those goals , he got a job with the I.U.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
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1 comment:
Michael Palin: Ahh.. Very passable, this, very passable.
Graham Chapman: Nothing like a good glass of Chateau de Chassilier wine,
ay Gessiah?
Terry Gilliam: You're right there Obediah.
Eric Idle: Who'd a thought thirty years ago we'd all be sittin'
here drinking Chateau de Chassilier wine?
MP: Aye. In them days, we'd a' been glad to have the price of a cup
o' tea.
GC: A cup ' COLD tea.
EI: Without milk or sugar.
TG: OR tea!
MP: In a filthy, cracked cup.
EI: We never used to have a cup. We used to have to drink out of a
rolled up newspaper.
GC: The best WE could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.
TG: But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.
MP: Aye. BECAUSE we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, "Money
doesn't buy you happiness."
EI: 'E was right. I was happier then and I had NOTHIN'. We used to
live in this tiiiny old house, with greaaaaat big holes in the roof.
GC: House? You were lucky to have a HOUSE! We used to live in one
room, all hundred and twenty-six of us, no furniture. Half the
floor was missing; we were all huddled together in one corner for
fear of FALLING!
TG: You were lucky to have a ROOM! *We* used to have to live in a
corridor!
MP: Ohhhh we used to DREAM of livin' in a corridor! Woulda' been a
palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish
tip. We got woken up every morning by having a load of rotting
fish dumped all over us! House!? Hmph.
EI: Well when I say "house" it was only a hole in the ground covered
by a piece of tarpolin, but it was a house to US.
GC: We were evicted from *our* hole in the ground; we had to go and
live in a lake!
TG: You were lucky to have a LAKE! There were a hundred and sixty
of us living in a small shoebox in the middle of the road.
MP: Cardboard box?
TG: Aye.
MP: You were lucky. We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in
a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six o'clock in the
morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down
mill for fourteen hours a day week in-week out. When we got home,
out Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt!
GC: Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at three o'clock in
the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to
work at the mill every day for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad
would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we
were LUCKY!
TG: Well we had it tough. We used to have to get up out of the shoebox
at twelve o'clock at night, and LICK the road clean with our tongues.
We had half a handful of freezing cold gravel, worked twenty-four
hours a day at the mill for fourpence every six years, and when we
got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife.
EI: Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night,
half an hour before I went to bed, (pause for laughter), eat a lump
of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill
owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home,
our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves
singing "Hallelujah."
MP: But you try and tell the young people today that... and they won't
believe ya'.
ALL: Nope, nope..
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