I was recently invited by a former colleague to attend her school’s “dream job” day. The premise was simple; representatives from various differing careers would set up stall in the school hall with paraphernalia from their job, and the children would visit, one class at a time, to look at our exhibits, guess our job and ask questions to learn about what we do. Other careers included an airline hostess, an orthopaedic consultant surgeon, an engineering designer, a graphic designer, a teacher, a pastor and a parkour instructor.
Obviously, it would not have been practical for me to bring a bus on this occasion, any more than the hostess could have brought a plane, but we all managed to bring something to show the children – a skeleton, plastercasts, 3D printer, globe, and in my case, a ticket machine liberated from the firm’s training school.
This was a primary school with ages ranging from 4 to 11, and we were visited by all but the very youngest. The youngest ones had the most trouble guessing what we did as you would expect, but the most fun playing with the things we brought. The ticket machine went down a storm, and I think almost every child in the school went away with a ticket they had printed themselves. On several occasions a child was pointed out to me by a teacher for having a particular love of buses, and I had a supply of bus postcards, cut and make models and even timetable booklets to give out.
As you can imagine, it took the whole day to get through the whole school, and by the end I was exhausted – I had forgotten just how relentless children are! What surprised me a little was that it was the younger children who were more able to take for granted that a lady would be a bus driver – it was the older boys who would raise an eyebrow and question whether I was an actual bus driver, actually driving the bus.
I hope that my presence that day helped to break down those stereotypes a little bit. Certainly several of the girls said they were going to be bus drivers now, and not a pop star or a princess or a unicorn (honestly). I don’t know whether to be proud that I steered them away from “female” jobs or sorry that I distracted them from much more lofty ambitions…
thenovicebusdriver 