Recently there have been a spate of posts on Facebook and articles in print media speaking out for more/renewed vocational education in American schools. I wonder if those cries for vocational education are rooted in the heart of our American anti-intellectualism or are just another education fad.
I was a teacher for many years. I have taught in public schools and private schools, elementary, middle, and high schools. I have taught English (high school my favorite), reading, social studies, and once I even pinch hit as a math instructor. I taught when grammar was in vogue, when it was under attack, and when it was sort of in vogue again. I have taught in programs that used sight words as a basis for reading instruction, phonics, and whole language. Over four and a half decades of teaching I have heard of and been “in-serviced” in more pedagogical “styles” than I can remember. I was “the sage on stage” and more recently urged to be “the guide on the side.” I have been wary of technology, embraced technology (I was the first in my department to hook a computer to a tv and try revolutionary things like PowerPoint, and showing in-line edits of essays), and more recently I was told I should have been more techno-savvy.
My point in rambling about myself is to let you know – darn it, I know something about education. I don’t know everything, I mean I try my best to be cognizant of knowing what I don’t know, but if I did know what I don’t know then I guess I’d know everything – and even though some of you might think in a moment of snarkiness that I am a know it all – I beg your humble opinion, there is a great deal I don’t know – but I sure as hecky know schools and education because I spent the better part of six decades as a student and as a teacher… so here I go with an opinion – not speculation or observation.
In the ancient days of black rotary dial phones, metal cowboy lunch boxes, and neighborhood elementary schools that you walked to, I began my educational career. In addition to reading, writing, and arithmetic (yes, that is what it was called) there was a smattering of art and music education and, of course, manual training for boys and home ec and sewing for the girls.
I recall that as a fourth grader, I and the other boys, stayed in class with our teacher as we learned how to measure with a wooden ruler, draw straight lines, cut with scissors on those straight lines and create exotic things like small paper boxes – in fact, for years one of those elementary school boxes sat on my desktop holding things like a rusting ccompass for drawing circles, a plastic protractor, as well as stubby pencils and erasers.
While we boys learned to handle scissors and rulers to measure and to cut paper, the girls were shepherded to sewing class where I guess they learned how to thread a needle and measure bolts of cloth that needed to be cut with pinking shears.
This “vocational / manual” training continued through sixth grade where the boys graduated to woodshop with real tools – crosscut saws, rip saws, claw hammers, planes, rasps, awls, files, sandpaper, shellac, and perhaps paints. The girls graduated to electric sewing machines, I recall.
This carried forth through junior high. In addition to academics, we boys learned how to set type like Ben Franklin, how to wire a lamp like Thomas Edison, as well as how to bend metal in sheet metal shop, and how to make a little shelf in woodworking class. The girls learned more sewing techniques and some cooking.
This training continued in my high school years. I went to what was called Boston Technical – in addition to rigorous academics, I learned more woodworking, machine shop, and drafting. At the local high schools the boys went on to more woodshop, metal shop, and electrical shop in their schools.
These programs were extant in many public high schools into the early 1980s. I know, I worked in public high schools that offered those programs to every boy and eventually opened some of the classes up to girls.
And I can tell you that after six years of shop education, I am probably like most guys, I know my limits. I have made my mistakes, and I prefer to call the pros. No amount of high school vocational training would change that.
Maybe that is where this renewed call for vocational education comes from, guys and girls who realize they cannot do, or do not feel comfortable doing, many of the rudimentary tasks of homeownership – I mean you can always try it, but if you screw up, you know you have to call the pro. So maybe these folks who are calling for vocational education renewal are regretting that sometime in the 1980s those training classes got shunted to the side in favor of computer classes and hands on skills became solely the balliwick of vocational technical high schools.
I think the vocational technical schools are great and do wonderful things. Many of the graduates of those schools are our carpenters, electricians, plumbers, chefs, auto mechanics, etc. (Some of the graduates aren’t.)
And I believe the work of skilled carpenters, plumbers, electricians, chefs, hair stylists, auto mechanics, etc, is dignified work that deserves fair and just compensation. And the practitioners of those trades deserve respect, as do all workers.
However, I can’t help but wonder if the call for renewed vocational training isn’t a new anti-intellectualism, a hatred of the elite, that has sort of seeped into our general consciousness. There was a lot of that this past election cycle, and there was a lot of jabbering that intellectuals are elites who don’t know about everyday lives. So an extension if that might be”let’s drop English lit in favor of some work with tools.” I hope not.
Or maybe, if it is anti-intellectualism it is rooted in anti-intellectualism that is at the core of our national fiber. After all, we are nation who favors the tale of literary heroes like Huck Finn or Holden Caulfield as opposed to the inner turmoil of an Arthur Dimmesdale or the travails of a Silas Latham… We prefer Twain over James, movies over cinema, and sitcoms over drama.
Whatever the cause for the renewed call for vocational training, I hope the educational pendulum does not swing so far back as to cut back on some of the inroads our schools have made in offering challenging work of the mind in favor of work of the hands. And I hope, that when and if changes in education are being made, real educators, that is teachers, will be asked to lead the way.
Pieces of My Mind 