American Airlines And CR Smith Museum Partner On New Program For Students

American Airlines is partnering with its CR Smith Museum on a new Aviation Career Pathways program for middle and high school students to provide access to aviation STEM education and exposure to industry career opportunities. The Aviation Career Pathways program will start with Dallas Independent School District students and then scale up.

Connecting with underserved communities

For American Airlines, the concept is to take the aviation museum – usually a center for teaching Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) education – to classrooms in Texas communities. As per an American Airlines October 27 statement, Marie Eve Poirier-Harris, Education Director at the CR Smith Museum, explained the logic of the Aviation Careers Pathways as follows;

“The challenges we see in research and hear from school leaders are threefold. First, one touchpoint isn’t enough. Second, opportunities need to be more than a presentation. And finally, transportation at schools in underserved communities is limited,

“Aviation Career Pathways brings the programming to the classroom, provides multiple touch points that include hands-on experiences, and goes beyond presentations to creating connections with professionals,”

Yes, multiple “touch points” or engagement opportunities between the CR Smith Museum and students, from classroom visits by American Airlines employees to trips to the CR Smith Museum. The idea is to help students visualize themselves as future employees in aviation – and not just as pilots.

As you can see above, American Airlines needs ground crew, gate agents, flight attendants, and baggage handlers to operate flights. That’s just for starters – engineers, schedulers, and human resources personnel are also needed.

American Airlines employees serving as role models

For Karon Washington, an engineer with American Airlines, participation in the program is about being a role model. As Washington explains,

Having a volunteer enter a classroom and make students understand the opportunities before them can serve as a gateway to an aviation career. Aviation Careers Pathways serves as the vehicle for creating role models from American Airlines.

CR Smith Museum helps inspire future aviation employees

The CR Smith Museum has several permanent exhibits to tell American Airlines’ story. One is “Your Voice, Your Story,” which requests employees to video why they joined the aviation industry. The answers are then played for museum guests.

Additionally, there is “We are American Airlines,” which, according to the CR Smith Museum, shows the many jobs required to make an airline go. The learning comes with static placards, artifacts, and video.

Loading baggage in the suitable space on the clock is also a CR Smith Museum exhibit. Bags in the exhibit must be in the correct hold or left behind. One can also go down the evacuation slide:

Additionally, part of the CR Smith Museum is the Airline Command Center. Attendees of all ages can deal with routing flights around inclement weather like a dispatcher would.

Finally, there is an Aviation Exploration Zone for youngsters to create a take-home souvenir and also play a tactile game to learn a bit about aviation. The Embraer Flight Simulators complement but are only open a few hours on Saturdays, where an instructor at the simulator might change the weather on the students flying with a facsimile small aircraft yoke and throttle.

Bringing the museum and potential employees together

One of the reasons for the Aviation Career Pathways program is to connect under-resourced schools with the resources of the CR Smith Museum. As Poiner-Harris shared in American Airlines’ statement,

“With a focus on equity, inclusion, and belonging in our organizations, serving these students and providing them with the resources they may not otherwise have access to is something that can be life-changing for this generation and their families,”

Most schools that will participate are Title 1 schools that receive US federal assistance for being in low-income neighborhoods. Hence, Aviation Career Pathways allows students to find employment that can keep youngsters out of trouble and on a path toward a career.

Do you support airlines providing educational opportunities in schools? Would you want such a program for your child? Please share with civility in the comments.