Raw Story: Vocation-only schooling is a trap on many levels

[DemocracyMouse]

This got my attention. Raw Story cites a podcast which correlates narrow-focus vocational colleges with tighter control over peasantry. Conservatives extol the virtues of such narrow schooling because "it's practical." But the real reason is that it keeps youth from thinking broadly like wisemen/women who would start to question why the USA has become so debased, so 3rd world, since Kennedy and Johnson.

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/02/conservatives-destroying-education-whittling-job-training-theyre-purpose/

[secondwind]

1. Bookmarked for later reading. Thanks for posting.

[world wide wally]

2. Above all!

Destroy public education!

[Puzzler]

3. Good article/link!

Thanks,

-Puzzler

[not fooled]

4. Of course

no broad worldview, no critical thinking skills.

That's what the feudalists want.

[aka-chmeee]

5. Gee! I attended a Tech school in 1968 and 1969. Didn't realize

I was so narrow minded, shallow etc.. I think the whole premise is BS. These schools teach one "How to DO things".As a technician I've had the pleasure to shepherd several fresh college grad engineers into their first jobs. I have never found that their educations had imbued them with any extraordinarily broad world view or philosophical depth.

[DemocracyMouse]

8. The point is to teach both "how" and "why".

Schools that teach only "how" are not motivating students to look beyond their job and to consider themselves to be citizens, aesthetic beings, philosophers, etc.

Furthermore, technical training is only good for a few years. Students need to know the theory behind the technique so they're employable for a lifetime.

[X_Digger]

13. "technical training is only good for a few years" -- that's what continuing ed is for.

I don't care if you're a cardiac care nurse, a welder, or a php developer- everyone has to continue to learn.

Many technical schools offer continuing ed classes to keep up with the latest trends in technical / semi-technical fields.

Is that not widely known?

[mythology]

15. That's generally a reflection of the teacher's approach

And the student's curiosity. I had plenty of college professors who accepted that some students only cared about passing the test but would spend hours talking about the subject during office hours. I expect the same would be true at any school, even vocational.

[bluecollar2]

23. My Technical Training to be an aircraft mechanic

served me well enough for 31 years. I learned my trade in the Navy and got my Airframe and Powerplant Licenses through a combination of on-the-job training and classroom/instructor training from Alameda County Junior College.

It got me a Union Job at a major carrier where I earned well above the median wage and earned a pension which I began drawing at age 60.

I have been approached several times since I retired a year ago to work on a part time basis, both as a Mechanic and as a Quality Control/Assurance inspector.

You might want to reconsider your statement,"Furthermore, technical training is only good for a few years. Students need to know the theory behind the technique so they're employable for a lifetime."

[Adrahil]

9. This isn't about your individual experience....

It's about educational programs that seek to divide "workers" from "professionals" from "executives." Workers do indeed learn how to DO things. Professionals are taught rather how to meet a broader objective, and given a tool box to accomplish that (and many fresh outta school do not have these skills well-developed, to be sure), and executives are there to make decisions. There is some mixing between all those, of course. And individual capability does matter. I have known technicians who could barely solder a wire, and I've known technicians who should be running the company (or acting as Chief Engineer). And I've known "engineers" I wouldn't trust to design a paperclip, but were good with money, etc.

But the point stands... our education system seeks to sort people into the classes the capitalist system finds useful.

[aka-chmeee]

17. You're entitled to your opinion.....

as I am to mine. And mine still stands, as well. While I really like the movie "Rollerball" I don't see it as the secret pattern for American education. Conspiracy theories aside, not every student is college material. Whether their own fault, their choice, or just difficulty learning. Should they settle for slinging 'burgers or try to find something else?

[Adrahil]

19. You're entirely missing the point...

It's not about sending everyone to college. We still need those technical skills. But they should not be removed from the context of their work.

For example... in traditional engineering processes, technicians do not have much of a say up front in the requirements and design stage. You know what that leads to.... systems that are hard to maintain, or more prone to failures. By involving technicians in the process, and giving them a stake in the decision-making process, including all the critical thinking associated with that, we work together better, and with less artificial separation. Our education for technicians doesn't provide any training in that (that I've seen), and from an engineering point of view, it has been haphazard and sporadic at best.

[aka-chmeee]

20. Generally speaking I have no problem with the content of your answer.

We were not involved with consumer systems; rather control and measurement systems for use in a manufacturing facility. Our (technicians) familiarity with conditions and knowledge of what constituted practical procedure on the factory floor was not disregarded by engineering staff and we were always involved in new in-house developed equipment.
But this is not what you were talking about; particularly in the firsst sentence of your last post.

[bluecollar2]

24. Not involving technicians in the design process

is a management failure.

American management styles perpetuate the myth that there is an educated management "class" that is inherently superior to the "Labor" class.

I can tell you from personal experience that any project that involves the individuals who actually touch the process during its inception, will always have a higher rate of success than those which are designed without involvement.

[Adrahil]

31. I completely agree.

And that's what our education system must see skilled labor as being an essential part of the process, beginning to end, not just as the people who "Do" stuff, but as thinkers and intellectual contributors.

[backtoblue]

6. Knr

Very good read

[ck4829]

7. In the end, this is just another attempt to polarize and create class difference

How many Ethan Couch and Robert H. Richards-type people do you think will be attending trade schools?

[Adrahil]

10. I'm a first generation college graduate....

My mother was pretty insistent that I go to college from when I was young. She was convinced by her mother's view of me that I was a genius Not quite...). My dad? It took some convincing. He did "all right" without college and thought it was kind of snooty. But I went (Mom ALWAYS won those kind of arguments).

It was surprising to me how even at a State University, I was surrounded by people who family had been college graduates for generations. They had certain expectations about their positions in life, and most would have NEVER considered attending a trade school. I was more or less welcomed as a "scholarship kid." But there were some other guys there in their mid-20's who have gone in the military or local trade schools and started their careers as techs before deciding to get the BS (this was an engineering program). They were outsiders, at least at first. It was kind of weird how their technician skills were sorted looked down upon as "low class," even though they came in EXTREMELY handy in our projects later.... though by the time we graduated, they were "one of us," at least those who made it through.

I admit.... I've raised my daughter with the expectation she will go to college, whatever her career choice.

[highplainsdem]

11. Exactly. Keep them ignorant and at least somewhat content with class differences.

[X_Digger]

12. My dad, a home builder of 45 years, just retired last year.

A big part of the reason he retired early is because he couldn't get competent tradesmen.

The only guys he could count on were a handful of those over 50, who had all started with votec, and worked their way up through apprenticeship, journeyman, to master.

The tradesmen he had were all trying to find competent apprentices and journeymen, folks they could train and eventually sell their business to- none of them were having much luck.

He hired a young kid who'd just graduated with a bachelor's in construction management / project management (something like that) and the kid was next to useless. Couldn't work up a materials list from a set of plans, couldn't work out a cut list to minimize waste, couldn't keep subcontractors from stepping on top of each other w/ scheduling.

College isn't for everyone, and we still need tradesmen. Mike Holmes and Mike Rowe are both active proponents of more education in the trades.

[csziggy]

14. When I was in high school in the late 1960s vo-tec students mixed with everyone else

Yes, they had their own classes, but even though I was in a track headed to college there were vo-tec students in nearly all my classes - geometry, English, art, Spanish, and others.

They were not segregated exclusively to vocational education tracks, whether they were studying agricultural, mechanical, or other specialties. Even as a teenager I enjoyed and valued the diverse attitudes students from the other tracks contributed to the classes we shared. Of course, being in a small town with a single high school, most of us knew each, many from elementary school, but it would have been detrimental to us all to severe our experiences completely.

[aikoaiko]

16. I'm almost ready to declare RawStory a fake news site

They take legitimate information and shade it into more inflammatory positions.

As a person who has worked at a university for the last 18 years, we should not be making enemies of technical schools/colleges.

It's true that they often don't provide the general education background of a baccalaureate degree, but they do a lot of educating that leads to jobs that lead to more education for the tech student grad or his/her children.

I don't think I would have graduated with a baccalaureate degree had I had to work 3 part-time jobs at fast food places.

[DemocracyMouse]

21. The point is never to settle

The new for-profit university mentality leads us inexorably away from wisdom – which reflects a rich mix of values. No one wants to limit access to jobs and skills, but if we move the entire juggernaut of education further into the profit culture ("selling" a college to students based on a job "payoff" ) we have surely begun our descent as a society. Sure, teach skills, but also open the student up to the social-ecological context for life on Earth. Raise up all our children.

Also, college should be made affordable to all. The fact that millions of students cannot afford higher education guarantees that we lock in a class system. We shouldn't settle for remaining a 3rd world country. It's shameful and unenlightened. Abd that's not being elitist, it's a fight for equality.

And as for Raw Story: until all Americans get an Oxford University level education, it can't hurt to draw readers in with that journal's pithy approach. And some of their stories are actually quite informative – like this one:

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/02/two-simple-laws-solve-americas-epidemic-violence/

[sarah FAILIN]

18. I recently met a fellow that had a Philosophy degree

A friend said that he would be a good person for my daughter to meet. I said no because I'd rather she not get saddled with someone that far in debt that couldn't find a job which he could not.
There is HUGE money in learning a skilled trade. I need a plumber to come out and swap my hot water heater for one I bought. I have an estimate of $200 labor if I have everything ready, the old tank drained, and nothing extra is required. The AC repairman is $75/hr labor alone. There is nothing wrong with being a skilled tradesman. Going to ethics and psychology classes is not the only way to be an intelligent person.

[DemocracyMouse]

22. It's not skills VS context!

It should be skills AND context. Philosophy is context. History is context. Psychology is context. Biology and physics is context. Context enriches everyone and makes us all better citizens, better voters.

[sarah FAILIN]

25. Skills makes the money

I see nothing wrong with choosing a trade that will support your family and no reason to spend money on classes outside your major.

[DemocracyMouse]

34. Why stop at making money?

Why settle? Why not educate BRILLIANT citizens in addition to money-makers? By settling we also fall back as a country, one uninformed and wisdom-challenged voter at a time.

[sarah FAILIN]

36. I think you can educate yourself without taking extra classes

My kids decided they want to learn other languages so they bought books and a course for Korean. They watch Korean shows to help learn pronunciation and go to a town with a "little Korea " section to practice.
My son watches documentaries all the time just to learn new things.
Taking a class in biology teaches you basic biology. If you want do that, fine with me. I just don't feel like someone stops learning when they leave school and they aren't less educated in the world because they got a degree they can make good money at instead of some other degrees I'm not going to name to keep from stirring up a hornets nest. Really it seems pretty pretentious to put down a skilled trade degree as not as good as a BS in something less marketable.

[rzemanfl]

26. At first glance I misread this as-

"Vacation-only schooling...."

[Merlot]

27. Now there's an idea...

[rzemanfl]

29. Pretty much what I tried for through college and two post-graduate degrees. n/t

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

32. Trump University?

What's your major? Golf? Partying?

[rzemanfl]

33. No, real schools:

Sociology, Law, History. I had an attendance aversion. I won't embarrass the schools who awarded me the degrees.

Different times.

[SWBTATTReg]

28. This is harking back to the days when as a student entering college for the first time, I

didn't know what trade to get into. Finally picked accounting (auditing), finance (macro and minor), and data processing (1 year (back in 1975)). The data processing degree was the one thing I loved, and am very glad I pursued. Had a very successful career w/ the data processing degree as I participated in many different careers within the phone company in the development of many different kinds of systems, billing (online, software and hardware), network, technical analysis, etc., a whole lot more than an accounting job would have led me to. Of course it helped a lot when I got in on the ground floor, when this technology was being brought into the phone company, and the possibilities were endless, and the knowledge I knew of accounting and economic systems helped a lot.

Don't knock any profession, trade school or 4 year college, you'll never know the path that life takes you, so how can you really truly know what's in store for you and your career? In addition, many companies know that technology evolves so much, that they constantly send their folks out again for more and yet more training (on new techniques, etc.).

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

30. I'm calling bullshit on that notion.

If the vocation only schooling started at age 12 (as it used to in Great Britain) then I'd be concerned. But considering that specific training for well paying jobs is a very good thing, and that NOTHING is standing in the way of inquisitive adults taking additional classes or (gasp!) reading books on their own. The real problem has been a combination of assuming that all young people need a four year degree (how many jobs are there in anthropology?) and removing the vocational track from high schools.

The reason you hear of so many college graduates driving taxis or delivering pizza is that they got a degree for which there are no jobs.

[DemocracyMouse]

35. Why stop at making money? How dumb.

Why settle?
Why not educate BRILLIANT citizens in addition to money-makers?

By settling we also fall back as a country, one uninformed and wisdom-challenged voter at a time.

So many comments above seem to suggest that it's OK to live for money and that practical skills to obtain it, is enough. Is America that shallow? Have we stopped to reach for that City on a Hill?