Posted on 05/06/2017 5:24:11 AM PDT by IBD editorial writer
Don’t knock the vo-tech courses, since they can be readily applicable to the STEM program. I learn quite a bit from metal shop and mechanical drafting (AutoCAD did not exist in the early 70’s), and I went on to get an engineering degree.
Agree. Plumbers and electricians make more than many degree carrying white collar workers.
My .02, take the college credit class option over the AP class. With the AP, your high school teacher may not teach what will be on the test so your time and money are wasted when you fail. Taking the college credit class, you have a much better chance of passing the final exam and you have actual college hours.
IIRC, only 45% pass the US History AP test.
I’d had enough cooking and sewing at home so was the first girl who demanded to take Ag instead of Home Ec at my HS. Sadly, the male Ag teachers thought it unseemly for a girl to weld on the project trailer but I was worthy enough to teach the boys how to weld.
Today’s Home Ec is called life skills. Snort, little to no cooking or sewing or such. They usually do nothing all year outside a little team trust catching your classmate as he falls. I doubt if any of the kitchen stations here have been touch in 20 years aside from the teacher warming her microwave lunch. My spec ed students were taught to thread a needle and cook their own dinners on the stove so were better prepared. Wish there had been a building trades for them.
The absolute idiocy of the educational establishment has destroyed much hope of learning for the majority of students.
Newsflash teachers-Not every kid is destined for college. In reality, most are not, so quit teaching like they are.
I’ve got four kids. Oldest has an associates degree and is a department manager at a bookstore. She loves sharing her love of books with the kids who come in.
Number two also has an associates degree and is working toward a bachelors hoping to be a book editor. Both literature and theatre lovers.
The brains of the outfit is finishing his junior year in astronautical engineering.
Number four graduates this week, has zero intention of college and is looking at the trades. He’s meeting with a locksmith next week to explore that.
All homeschooled and given free rein to follow their personal dreams.
Most of my friends kids who are graduated or in late high school are exploring skilled trades rather than college. I love seeing that.
I recall seeing a story where millenials would not make a bowl of cereal b/c it was too much work! Maybe it was fake, but the point stands, our youth are ill prepared for cooking, sewing, home-front management. How can we call it "life skills" without these fundamentals? Oh brother.
PS: I see many young ladies in the Ag programs of 4-H and FFA these days. There are still boys, but many seem to find other interests in the latter years of high school.
Very good point you bring up.
BTW, the CLEP & DSST college survey exams are a Very affordable way to earn real Regionally accredited college recognized course credits.
A BSBA can be earned in less than one year for under $8K.
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While CLEP is sponsored by the College Board, only colleges may grant credit toward a degree. Not all colleges have the same CLEP policies—some colleges accept credit for a few exams, while others accept credit for all of them. A college often grants the same amount of credit to a student who earns satisfactory scores on a CLEP examination as it does for a student who successfully completes the related course.
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That’s like the Liberty Mutual Insurance commercial with the teens boys not knowing what a lug wrench is. But, hey, the insurance company is there to help. Sure, let your kids hang out on some dark deserted road hoping the repair guy shows up before the thugs instead of teaching your kid how to change a flat.
We had a young friend living with us the summer after she graduated from HS who’s car was falling apart. Her parents sent her out into the world with zero skills. Mr. b got tired of waiting for her parents to step up so he had to teach her to do the basics.
So true. Guys my age (and older) grew up doing most (if not all) of the work on their cars. I remember how they always talked about cars back then.
Nowadays, most young guys show very little interest in cars, engines, etc.
But, according to what I've heard from older guys, the cars nowadays are more difficult to work on because you need special equipment. The older model cars were more straightforward.
With that said, still, it's good to know how to do the simple things, at the very least, like checking the oil.
I got a flat tire the other day. It was incredible what happened.
Sitting by side of the road changing the tire. Highway Patrol shows up. Loudspeaker ‘what are you doing ‘
Me walking up to Cop ‘I’m changing the tire want to help ?’
Cop ‘ let me call a service to do it for you’
Me ‘I’m almost done’
Cop orders me to comply
Service comes ( at taxpayer expense ). The young guy is flabbergasted that I’d even try to change the tire.
and you wonder why this country is in the state its in
shaking head...
Note who is doing the farm labor.
They and their kids are getting the ‘education’ you and I got.
Their generation is on the track to be what ours was.
No, High School is not the problem.
The problem is the children who arrive there never having been taught the basics in Elementary school.
Kindergarten through fourth grade is where reform is needed.
Part of it comes from poor quality teachers. The idea seems to be that it is easy to teach the younger children so they can survive teachers who can not read, can not spell and can not do basic math. But that is exactly the time when you need the best possible teachers.
This is also the area where they do the most social engineering and the most playing around with teaching methods. A HS student with a poor teacher will be able to compensate and overcome. A first grader with a poor teacher can be crippled for life.
Reform the K-4 and you will have solved the majority of the problems in American Education.
He’s meeting with a locksmith next week to explore that.
= = =
This is verrry smart.
Locks aren’t just keys and tumblers anymore. Gone computerized. Security business is booming. Locks overlap security big-time, and especially blends into computer/camera/cardlock type stuff.
Customers have to call the serviceman for this stuff, too.
That was over twenty years ago. I'm not sure it's any longer true about American engineering students. Nobody seems to try to fix things nowadays. I'm happy about the so-called "maker movement," but I still have to laugh. When I was growing up, we were all "makers" but we didn't know it.
I was not knocking them. I was complaining about the fact that when I got to high school. They had centralized all the Vo-Tech into one school reachable only by bus. The K-12 “powers-that-be” forbade the college bound “curricu-lites” ( which I was one!) from attending! This was 40 years ago and I still remember it with annoyance!
Was just a general statement. There can be a lot of overlap between the shop courses and STEM. There was a time when machinists and tool and die people had to be good at math. I still have my Machinery Handbook from high school.
No argument from me!
“”” Me ‘I’m almost done’
Cop orders me to comply”””
Just union goons washing each other’s back.
Liberal Arts colleges are High School 1.5 today.
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