A high school that has practical skills programs

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I have posted before about how education defunding has caused many school districts to drop classes that programs like “No Child Left Behind” do not test for.

There was a piece on the local news tonight, about the high school in my little township in the Detroit 'burbs, that does have classes outside of what the Federal government requires. They do it by using scale. My high school, back when HS was three grades, had less than 2000 students, and about 550 in my graduating class. Canton’s approach has been to consolidate it’s school system with the neighboring city of Plymouth. The result is three high school buildings, built on one parcel, with over 6000 students.

film at 11:00

Steve

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Brooklyn Technical School in New York City has 6,000 students, but it’s a competitive exam based entry, high school for STEM.

intercst

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Specialized schools in the NYC area have a huge population to draw from. The neat thing about the high school complex in the report is it is the high school for residents of the city of Plymouth, Plymouth Township, Canton Township, Salem Township, and parts of Superior Township and Northville Township. It’s the default choice for Prole spawn like me.

Steve

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My father and brother graduated from Brooklyn Tech, as did my brother’s son posthumously (he garnered enough credits to graduate but tragically died of muscular dystrophy just before graduation). I would have attended but they didn’t admit girls until 1970, the year that I graduated from high school.
Wendy

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Eureka High School (Missouri) just announced a renovated metals shop. Seems to have excellent equipment. I hope more high schools will do likewise.

https://www.myleaderpaper.com/news/eureka-high-metal-shop-renovation/article_cf0bf6c4-812f-4c18-a383-66940b466e3d.html?utm_source=westcountypulse.com&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=local-officers-honored-for-safety-efforts&_bhlid=8f08c1a926d6ca997446c88b759a27c5f51aef5e

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The “news” a couple nights ago, announced that 27 states have increased funding for vocational education, over the last ten years. Searching for which states those 27 were, I discovered that that “news”, was from a report published two years ago. Never found a list of those 27 states.

Of course, now the musical question is, with the Dept of Ed shut down, and the federal money, and accountability, ended, will education budgets in the Shinier states be cut even farther?

Steve

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I wonder how much vocational training is mandated much less funded by states.

Eureka is in Rockwood school district in St Louis County. Its in the affluent suburb where voters support their schools. Great to hear they have resources to fund vocational training. I wonder how vocational training does in less affluent districts.

In rural districts welding might be highly valued. Might get better support.

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When I was in high school, all the vocational ed classes were electives, as were “home economics” and “home and family living”. Driver’s ed was universal, everyone took it. Now, many school districts in the state have dropped those classes, so, clearly, the state only mandates the classes the Federal Dept of Ed requires to qualify for funding.

Steve

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Here in NorCal, we had it all, from Auto Shop to Wood Shop, Metal Shop, as well as the rest… They tried to drop them in the recent history, but the outcry forced changes and most were kept, no longer an Auto Shop, but the rest survived… Two of our Granddaughters did take a Wood Shop in a neighboring district, loved it, but the other 3 GKs, guys, never had an interest, video games, computers overcame it all. I didn’t take Autoi Shop, but worked at a gas station, repair shop where I helped create some fun rides… But all the skills fell into place later on at WeCo, a variety of challenging electronic, mechanical, data and radio systems kept me busy for 40 years… I can’t guess where the kids of today will land, hopefully, where they enjoy their work life…

So I have a shop full of tools, not of interest to most young folk… Donate, somewhere…

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I think someone would covet your old tools. There are makers, tradesmen, and artisan craft makers still active out there, thank goodness.

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I’ve written before, but a quick recap:

My high school had four 9-week segments. Most regular classes were just all four invisibly strung back to back, but there were periods/courses which were split.

“Freshman Arts” had 4 distinct “courses”, and every boy and girl had to take all of them. Further, each 9 weeks was cut into 2 more segments, like so:

A: Arts (Painting / sculpture)
B: Shop (Woodworking/Metal)
C: Home Ec (Cooking/Sewing)
D: Theater/Music (Drama/[Band or Chorus]

Now you are not going to learn “sculpture” in 4 1/2 weeks, nor Band, nor metal work, but you will learn how to drill a hole, hold a wrench, see/use a table saw in the two shop segments. Girls seemed afraid going in, notsomuch coming out.

Boys laughed when going into the Home Ec weeks, but we learned to run a stove, mix ingredients, sew on a button, even make a pillow.

Exposure to the arts, actually holding a brush and mixing paints, or throwing a clay cup on a potter’s wheel, all were good for 13-14 year olds to get. None of this was “book learning”, this was all “hands on”.

We had driver’s ed, required for every student. Don’t remember how many weeks, but we were excused from gym class twice a week to take it.

In my view those should be bare minimum for schools, and frankly I’d add a few: household finance, beginning investing, sex education, ballroom dancing. OK, just kidding about that last one, but there are things young humans should know to get along in society as well as math, language, science, and which General fought in which war in the Civil War.

I now realize how lucky I was; my system offered Spanish starting in 6th grade, and we had AP physics, chemistry, and calculus back in the 60’s, before most other schools anywhere. (This was NJ, BTW).

Students were put on a track: high, medium, low, however they graded it. There was a path for gearheads to work in the shop and on cars during and after school. There were lots of off-ramps for both college bound and not, and while there were dropouts I don’t remember that being as big a deal as it became in the years that followed. (To be fair, this was a middle-class, largely homogeneous, mostly white school district in a growing exburb of Newark and New York. Home of Bell Labs, for one; Sandoz Pharma for another.)

Anyway, I’m a big fan of book learning, but a little “street” would be a big improvement for everyone, and huge for those for whom “book learning” isn’t the end game.

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