Filling in the vocational hole in the educational track

If students had to take a vocational class as part of their high school curriculum, they would get the chance to experience hands-on activities that might spark an interest in manufacturing or, at the very least, give them an appreciation for people that work in the trades.

On a trip to Rapid City, S.D., last fall, I had the chance to visit with Chance Cunningham and James Krause, two college friends that launched Black Hills Metal Fabrications together in 2013 and just recently launched The Shop, which sells memberships to people who want to use the company’s metal- and woodworking tools. (You can read more about this new endeavor in “The fabricators welcome the makers” in the January 2018 issue of The FABRICATOR.) The duo was excited about the new business opportunity, and they are enjoying some good buzz from local media about the opening.

The original target audience for The Shop were people that might have some extra time: retirees, students, and the military from nearby Ellsworth Air Force Base. The opening months saw a slightly different mix of people signing up for memberships, Krauss said, with more women and groups of students signing up.

“The home-schooled are a big part of the mix because they don’t have anywhere to go for this type of stuff,” Cunningham said. He estimated that the area has about 1,700 homes-chooled kids.

That led to more conversation about the lack of vocational educational opportunities, such as metal- and woodworking, that are offered in schools. So many school districts dropped these classes over the past several decades in cost-cutting moves that, even as new interest builds in vocational education and investments are made to modernize labs that feature the latest equipment, U.S. schools likely will always be behind the curve when trying to keep up with the country’s vocational training needs. That’s a real shame because the U.S. would be much better off with students being exposed, even if for just a couple of semesters, to a trades class.

Ask anyone over the age of 60, and they probably will tell you that they had to participate in some sort of vocational class, even if they never intended to follow that career path. (Students in Chicago and nearby areas also were forced to swim au naturel during physical education classes, so let’s not think everything was better back then.) They might even have a souvenir from the class, if their parents had a habit of holding onto everything with sentimental value.

That type of exposure is great because it might have sparked some interest in a trade and influenced a student to pursue a career that offered fulfillment and a payday, something most of us still seek. These classes also provide young people with an understanding of and an appreciation for people who excel at this type of work.

This past summer my wife and I were chatting with a friend about the learning curve we had when we first became pontoon boat owners. Maintaining a boat motor is not the same thing as prepping a lawn mower motor for the cutting season. Our friend, a doctor, mentioned how her son was great with motors and even had a desire to take a shop class in high school, but that his current load of advanced-placement and honors courses prevented that from happening. Her kid couldn’t nurse an inherent talent because the college prep curriculum didn’t allow it.

That’s one example of many where students, even those who have an interest, won’t have the chance to find out whether they have a talent for working with their hands. We all know the push to get these kids into four-year universities is real. Parents, administrators, counselors, teachers, and even elected officials play a part in perpetuating this belief that success in life is tied to a four-year college degree.

How do you change that thinking? You need time. The backlash against the exorbitant costs of a college education is building, and more people are recognizing that two-year community colleges provide a more cost-effective springboard into careers that actually pay well. Without the burden of student loans, graduates of technical and vocational schools enter the economy with robust spending capacity that isn’t matched by the underemployed liberal arts major who’s $75,000 in debt.

School districts also should consider making classes such as metal- and wood-working mandatory, if even just for a semester. If a liberal arts education is about teaching students the basic skills—such as reading, math, writing, critical thinking, debate, and teamwork--necessary to function in the world, doesn’t it make sense that it include exposure to some sort of vocational education? After all, the Latin word liberalis means “appropriate for free men,” and knowing how to do something is the ultimate freedom. Fabricators waiting on parts to get back from the machine shop or the powder coating facility down the street know this to be a fact.

In Illinois, a student is required to take four years of physical education to obtain a high school diploma. Maybe that time in Illinois and elsewhere can be better utilized educating students in the fullest sense—in the shop and in the classroom.