"Why do I have to go to school?"

That's the question every child in kindergarten asks. There are different opinions as to what the answer should be. However, many would agree that schools are expected to prepare children for their inevitable entrance into the adult world -- the world of work.

As such, school instruction is focusing more frequently on career education. Educators are taking kids on field trips to the workplace, doing special classroom projects and hosting visits from professionals.

But when should schools start preparing students for the working world?

It may seem a little early or extreme to begin shaping a five-year-old for the world of work. But according to findings of school-to-work programs, when students see and understand that their education is relevant to the real world, they become more focused in their studies and more motivated in working toward a goal. Earlier may be better, some educators believe. Others are saying just let kids be kids.

Michelle Dowdy is a coordinator of guidance services in Virginia. It is generally understood that there are three components of career development, she says. They are awareness, exploration and preparation. Awareness can begin very early and is needed, she says, so children understand why they are in school in the first place.

"As children enter formal education, beginning with kindergarten, it is appropriate to connect the academic world to the world of work so that children can begin to engage in an understanding of the connection between the information that they are learning in school and the manner in which they will be able to use that information as adults in their future employment," Dowdy says.

For example, she says, if children watch the work of carpenters, they will immediately understand the purpose of accurate measurements in math.

Dowdy has had visitors from the workplace come in and talk to the children. "We have brought the fire and rescue workers to school, and they have allowed the children to put on the jackets and climb into the trucks."

In some instances, the classroom itself transforms into an office of sorts. The discussion afterwards becomes the career education. "There is a second grade class here in our system in which each student has a job," says Dowdy.

"Some are management positions, like room manager, that oversee the watering of plants and feeding the fish. Others are laborer positions, like actually watering the plants and feeding the fish. Students take turns trying out different positions. They discuss the pros and cons of being the manager and being the worker."

Some may learn that they are not so keen on being responsible for other people's actions, or that they prefer to actually do the hands-on work.

Children should be exposed to a wide range of activities, says David Corneal, because it stimulates their curiosity. But by the same token, he believes some parents and teachers take it to the extreme. Corneal is the president and director of the Institute for Child Development.

For starters, young children are not psychologically ready to handle career decisions. Therefore, specific career choices should not be part of the program.

"Children at the early elementary years are too young to be able to make a sound decision about what type of career they would like to pursue," he says. "Their brains and minds are still very immature and may not fully understand all the elements of a job, even though they may see it in action or in a role-play situation."

Also, they should be free of stress and just enjoy being a kid. If society were to promote early career development, some parents already known to be too demanding of their young children in terms of school and sports could become overzealous, Corneal says.

"We may look to Japan for some insight on what early career training may involve," he says. "What we see there is that many children are spending all day and all night studying, so they can get into private schools, which will then enable them to obtain the better career paths. Many of these children feel great pressure from their parents and are not actually enjoying the kind of playful and joyous childhood we usually expect."

Further, it may be the pot calling the kettle black to ask children to make specific career choices at an early age. Adults themselves are, on average, making three to eight career changes in a working lifetime, Corneal points out.

"I would argue that until the intellectual capacities of the child have developed substantially [junior high school], this type of curriculum should be taken with a grain of salt."

Richard Young is a professor of counseling psychology. He defines careers in two different ways. One is our occupation. If we use this definition, then career development, he says, should start quite late in high school.

However, he prefers to think of careers as encompassing a whole set of goals, beliefs and accomplishments -- what shapes us and motivates us as a person, so to speak.

"It is an idea that people use to account for effort, plans, goals and consequences, and to help us make sense of some of our thoughts and emotions. Career has a lot of meaning both at the individual and social level," Young says.

And this type of career development can start quite early. "It is never too early to be engaged in actions and projects that involve plans and goals and their realization," he says. "[These activities are] all absolutely fundamental components to the person linking his or her actions together into a pattern and direction that will become his or her career."

Activities that realize a goal include camping with the family or repairing a fence. These actions can teach young kids a lot about who they are and what they may like, how they feel about being stumped or challenged. They go through self-assessment. And that may enable them to make better career decisions later.

With a changing workplace -- global, technological and competitive -- schools are finding that career education is needed more than ever.

There is a long list of skills to be learned and knowledge to be applied. When educators introduce these skills into the classroom early, there will be time to fit a lifetime of learning into the curriculum. Also, learning becomes more relevant to the student and the subject matter may be of higher quality for them -- something usable after graduation.

Net Sites

Teachnet.com

A model for career development, including strategies for different grade levels and sample lesson plans

http://www.teachnet.com/lesson/real/career4all/model.html

How to Do Life/Work Planning

Some advice about career and life planning

http://www.jobhuntersbible.com/library/counselors/lwplan001.php

Institute for Child Development

Lesson plans and research related to the psychological and emotional development of kids

http://www.kiddsmart.com/