There is another consideration. Buzz-word for this is contextualization or putting the things you are trying to teach in some sort of "real" context, rather than as some abstract concept. Much of the high school math and other logical concepts is very well contextualized by hands-on manufacturing and agricultural programs. After all, only a tiny fraction of our students will become professional athletes, and we maintain expensive sports programs to contextualize "teamwork," etc. without a second thought.
How about a specific list of objective testable skills?
In the few years before I retired, I spent a considerable amount of time trying to get exactly this from our local employers. Like pulling teeth out of a chicken.
I didnt say it was the fault of educators and employees.. They are a seperate factor in the overall equation
Gunner
"The importance of morality is that people behave themselves even if nobody's watching. There are not enough cops and laws to replace personal morality as a means to produce a civilized society. Indeed, the police and criminal justice system are the last desperate line of defense for a civilized society. Unfortunately, too many of us see police, laws and the criminal justice system as society's first line of defense." --Walter Williams
We have that in Missouri. We call it trade school, or Vocational School. I took a two year course that was a 1/2 day, 5 days a week my junior and senior year in high school for school credit. It was also available as a full day 2 year course. It was not part of a small college. That program is still alive. In fact, that's where I get my apprentices from when I need one.
Right. I meant to say, "this is how it's being done in many places, anyway..." but I hurried too much.
In fact, that's the general model for my area. We have vo-tech high schools, where kids can go as an option. But, for the most part, the local general high schools have scaled back their vo-tech education. I think it's largely because of the increase in state-required courses.
Anyway, I think it's a better model for the 21st century. One of the things that upsets me is thinking about what some manufacturing people face when their jobs dry up. They're left pretty flat without more basic education. My hope is that the next generation will be better equipped to adapt to change.
======================= I reject "out-of-hand" that it is impossible to produce "minimally equipped" citizens in 12 years of schooling. It is indeed impossible if the wrong things are being taught, and/or the required topics have been "pushed out" by the new multi-culturial/PC BS, but even 16 years of education is becoming inadequate when these are included. I think that with the proper course content and methodology, it should be possible to have 80% or so of the students intellectually ready to assume their adult rolls in 10 years of schooling or about 16. The physical/mental maturation process does indicate that it would be better if they remained in school until 18 however.
The first step is to define education, what education is intended to accomplish and what things the "minimally equipped" citizen needs to know. Studies to date have been useless because the content was determined by the academic "subject matter experts," rather than by the actual functional adults.
I suggest we "back into" determining the required knowledge and skills by testing a representative samples of functional and dis functional [e.g. incarcerated] adults. If there is no correlation between functionality and a particular knowledge item/skill then it is not really required, regardless of what the SCANS [Secretaries Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills] report indicates. See
formatting link
For example, one item the academic subject matter experts determined to be critical was an understanding of the "Northwest Ordinance." Other than one history buff, I have never encountered anyone other than an American history teachers that knew what this was. Free, public and compulsory education was intended to provide functional citizens, not substitute for or compete with the elite prep schools and latin academies. More power to those that wish to go this route, however we are in the situation where we are desigining and operating our public education to meet the needs (or more exactly the wants and wishes) of about 10% of the population.
Shmaryahu b. Chanoch wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
Hmm, according to some, all service sector jobs are low paying. A good auto mechanic working flat rate can make $85k+ per year. That's with minimal overtime.
"Ed Huntress" wrote in news:9Z1hf.19006$ snipped-for-privacy@fe08.lga:
And a worthy 2 cents it is. I think George hit the mail on the head Ed, and I think that your solution is excellent. Local businesses would be more apt to help fund the programs as well. Once a person is enrolled in a two year post high school program, you know they are more serious than someone who made an uninformed decision in the eighth grade. If they incorporated some sort of OJT experience into the program, businesses could end up with decently trained workers.
Just a little data point. Near me, we have a large, excellent community college, I heard that it was the biggest in the US. It has all kinds of programs to prepare tradesmen, and I was in particular interested in their welding program, around September.
I inquired about a week after classes started. They were all full.
This college has several (like 5, IIRC) welding classes, so it is preparing a lot of welders and there is demand.
Not everyone wants to be a lawyer or a therapist. Some people want to get into trades. Many skilled trades jobs are not exportable, for example plumbing or construction or repair.
F. George McDuffee wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
My experience is that few of the employers or their employees have all of the skills they need. Read the thread about how to measure a cone for a glimpse. How many companies out there have annual training budgets? Hell, fewer and fewer companies will even consider sending employees to off- site training classes. People can bitch all they want about a lack of skilled employees. Do they offer apprenticeship programs? Tuition reimbursement? Do they send people off for factory training on equipment and software? The answer is no. They want the employee to show up trained, skilled and willing to work for less money than the industry average.
Employees in general aren't much better IMO. I recently had a conversation with a 24 year old guy, a shipping clerk at a decent size company. He informed me that I had it much easier in my day than he does today. Huh?
He went on to complain that he couldn't earn enough to get his own place, yada, yada, yada. So, I asked hime some questions. What kind of car does he have? Does the company offer dental, medical, 401k, Tuition reinbursment, etc?
Turns out he's driving a two year old car that he bought (financed) new for $28k. Then sunk another $5k into for a sound system, wheels and tires. I asked him where he was going after work. He was going to go shoot pool and have a few beers.
The company offered all of the above benefits, yet he was not taking advantage of a single one. I told him he should give himself a raise by going to see the dentist, get a check-up and enroll in some night classes, not to mention max out his 401k contribution.
He told me that he couldn't afford to contribute to his 401k nor could he come up with the up front money for night classes. Then I told him you need a part time job and you need to sell your car and by a crasher. He says, "I shouldn't have to do that." "Well" I told him, "I had it easy (according to him) and those are the things I did." I worked two jobs until I got on my feet and then I went to school at night.
I then asked him why he felt entitled to own a new car while he was living at home sucking off his parent's teat. He got pissed and walked away.
If I were in his shoes, I'd be busting my ass trying to get into the machine shop and learn a trade. I would also be taking advantage of the tuition program. But what do I know? I had it easy.
Hmm. What are the multi-cultural/PC BS things they're teaching in your schools? Here's my son's curriculum for this year (he's a senior in public high school):
Advanced English Honors/AP European History Honors/AP Physical Education Calculus 2/3 Honors/AP Biology 2 Honors/AP Writer's Workshop Portfolio Art Honors/AP
Which ones are the "multi-cultural/PC BS" courses? Except for the honors/AP stuff, that's a pretty typical college-prep curriculum.
As for packing it into 10 years, if you have a plan, a lot of people would be interested. The point, though, is not what might be possible, but rather
*what is actually being learned*. If you start packing serious hands-on vo-tech in there, even less academic material gets taught.
Although my son's curriculum is quite a lofty one, I think it's about the minimum required, if one isn't going to college. It's also useful as preparation for college. But, if you think about it, it's the one who is
*not* going who needs this chance to get what he or she can of a well-rounded education.
Many people won't need the equivalent of 2nd/3rd-term calculus, but my son never learned any statistics to speak of, beyond basic descriptive. The minimum should include descriptive statistics and at least one term of inferential -- or you're either going to be a career cynic because you can't handle the numbers, or you're going to be some propagandist's hockey puck for the rest of your life.
It's a higher standard than we had to face 50 years ago, George. And the crisis of what to do with displaced manufacturing people, many of whom went for the minimum high school requirements and who are now locked into a limited set of things they can do to make a decent income, grows deeper as we speak. They need more education early in life so they're more flexible and have more options as the world economy changes.
So, what do you think education is intended to accomplish?
That's a good report. The list of competencies and basic skills is a good recommendation for spending more time learning writing, math, data analysis, and other academic skills. The report says that fewer than half of American workers have these skills. They need more.
But that's just workplace requirements. Those are essential things but they aren't everything. There's also the matter of knowing enough to avoid being a political victim and a social and economic naif. They emphasize "learning how to learn." Doing that requires a lot of learning. All in all, it says "get more general education."
Which "academic subject matter experts"? Speaking in what context?
And what is a "functional citizen" today? As a point of departure, you could read a few letters to the editor in a small-town paper, written by older people. A startling number of them are semi-literate and generally incompetent to make fact-based critical judgments. What we need is for the next generation not to wind up like that.
I don't think that's the case, George. It would be useful to know what you think is being taught, and what part of that is required versus the part that is elective.
The graduation requirements here, on paper, look like a good response to those competencies and basic skills that the report you cited above says are required. In practice, I don't think we're as demanding as we should be that they are things actually learned. But the courses themselves look good.
Public education today, however, is much better than it was than when I was in school. Most of the people who say it isn't haven't gotten close enough to a school in a very long time.
What kids need, IMO, is more of it, with higher expectations that they will learn what is taught. Vocational education should come later, just like college and much technical training comes later for those who continue their educations. If we continue to try to cram both academic and vocational education into the high school curriculum, we'll continue to fall behind the broader education skills required by a global economy, with a workforce that is inadequately educated to adjust to change.
A lot of good points, but I want to take potential issue with this order-of-operations recommendation. In many cases, I think it may actually work out better to get heavily into the applications side of education in the middle teens, and then as the students mature, go back and cover more general and philosophical issues with the benefit of that increased perspective. A few specific arguments why:
- The common 'when are we going to use this in life' question in math class. Go design and set up some fairly complicated parts in shop class... then when you meet the geometry teacher later on he is seen as an ally not an enemy.
- Unless you change the laws, people can drop out at any point after age 16 or so. Do practical first, so that there are some usefull skills imparted by that age, instead of half of an attempt at a broader education that probably didn't make any sense to the person anyway.
- Personal observation that I would have been much better off if I'd been at engineering school during my high school years, and *then* at a more broadly focused liberal arts college (what high school was an under-appreciated junior version of) during the time I actually was at the engineering school.
Where's the objective testable [with criteria] skills list?
When the education community went through this the last two times [outcomes based education in the 60s/70s and then compentency based education in the 90s/90s] the result was that we would send a dozen or more candidates to the companies with openings who had specified the skills/knowledge required they required and the criteria to be used to evaluate. These candidates scored at the top of the objective evlauations . In only a very few cases were any of these people hired. They were [pick one] too tall, too short, too old, too young, married, single, too dark, too light, male, female, etc. etc. etc.
Lack of trained/skilled/educated people [and by extension the educational system] is simply another in a long line of excuses by overpaid management unable to cut it in a results-oriented manufacturing environment, i.e. getting the product out the door, on time, under budget, to the customer's satisfaction, and at a profit.
Oh, I don't disagree with that at all. Like you, I would have done better if I'd worked a couple of years before college, just to scare some discipline into me.
As a practical matter, I don't know how many would go back after working for a while. But they'd be much better motivated and probably more disciplined if they did.
I had been thinking more along the lines of school work in applications areas rather than actual workplace experience for the middle teen years, but it could be workplace experience/training if it was only part time - enough ongoing school work to keep up the necessary habits for onging education, including the possibility of a return to fulltime studies.
The report George pointed to (very much worth reading, IMO) emphasizes something that most of us know from experience and that has been pointed out in this thread: we learn better when we learn in context. That's an argument for hands-on vocational training in schools, and I don't disagree with the point you make, which is the same thing that the report says.
My problem with this issue is that vo-tech training in schools tends to downplay the academic subjects that are required to be broadly competent, flexible enough to deal with change, and so on, and the vocational emphasis becomes a substitute for broader academic study. The contextual learning is a good thing. De-emphasizing broader educational knowledge is a bad thing, made worse by the nature of today's economy and international competition.
I don't know of a solution that doesn't include a couple more years of school; thus, my thoughts about delaying the vocational training until after high school graduation. Mixing it up probably is better.
It happens that I don't have much trouble sticking to an abstract subject for very long periods, without any contextual perspective. That's probably a learned response on my part, and a reflection of my personal way of learning things. It's probably not the most common response and it's likely not the best, if we can have an educational system that can accomodate contextual learning with more thorough academic teaching.
In other words, I guess the ideal, from my POV, would be a system that included hands-on (contextual) learning with more academic education: a total system that went on for another two years, combining abstract and hands-on learning as necessary, not neglecting either the need for more academic learning or the benefits of contextual learning. This is the same amount of time that a traditional high school education plus 2 years of community college education requires, anyway.
Or, we could apply George's pedagogical methods and cram it all into 12 years. I'm not being dismissive about his point, but I'm deeply skeptical that it's either probable or desirable. Hell, why should we be in a rush to do our own grocery shopping and pay taxes?...
I think some gains would have to be made in efficiency. A lot of school time is wasted - a good portion of the class had it figured out in the first five minutes, and a good portion still isn't going to get it at the end of the hour, yet everyone is scheduled to spend precisely that hour on it.
Hopefully contextual learning could provide some gains in this area. Not just by holding interest and improving actual learnability, but by introducing the learning to learn idea. Technical people know all about going and reading up on a branch of study because we need to solve a problem in that area, contextual learning might do well if sometimes the teacher does not present the solution, but guides the students towards finding it on their own.
It does raise the question of how to cover subjects of less [readily apparent] short term economic survival impact. Take history/government for example... would be easy to leave that out. But, you could cover the rough structure essentially as moderately enteraining stories in elementary school, and then go back and look at things in depth as young adults are starting to care about questions like "why is the government taking so much of my check?"
PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.