Vocational education comments & thoughts

[Squeaky 135]

Hello:

 

"Capt. Nemo" has a topic below titled "Death of Shop Class." I think the lack of vocational routes, or apprentice programs, in our country is a very bad thing. Though my real interest now is National Security, I would have loved to have had an option like my uncle had around the end of my high school years - learn to build aircraft engines at Pratt & Whitney. 

 

In retrospect, it seems unfortunate that my high school was (and still is) set-up primarily to produce college students. "Go to college" was the main message we got. Even at that young age, you were stigmatized if college wasn't in your future. Like someone else said, votech was a dumping ground for the bad students. 

 

So ... I did what I was socialized to do: I got an engineering degree. Even now there's a TV commercial telling viewers to be an engineer, and one talk show host pushes STEM curricula. Yes ... engineering is very important. We need engineers. But the fact of the matter is most people are not engineering material. You might even be intelligent enough to go through the motions and get an engineering degree like I did only to fail in your career because it really isn't what's right for you. It isn't natural. Also, most college professors can't teach worth a damn anyway. One thought I had when I graduated from college was "where's the beef?!" There's something wrong with getting an engineering degree and not knowing how a house is built. My experience has been colleges DO NOT prepare kids for the workforce like vocational programs do. I didn't really know how to do squat after engineering school. I knew about a lot more stuff, but not how to do anything.

 

To this very day, I have no idea how one becomes a plumber or an electrician. My father was an aerospace engineer who was a natural mechanical genius with his own shop that even had a metal lathe/mill combination machine. I figured I'd follow his example, but he failed to pass on his skills to me. We're talking about a man who built his own kit car based upon the Ford GT-40, and he could overhaul engines. He once made a digital odometer powered by a 9-volt battery. Despite having had some basic electronic classes in college (including a digital class), I still have no idea how my Dad made that odometer from Radio Shack parts. So much for college. V = IR doesn't go far. 

 

I'm proud of the modest fact that I've somehow taught myself to use hand-powered woodworking tools. I read these strange things called books to learn about them. 

 

My main point is we've quite understandably made a "god" out of the engineering/technology fields since W.W. II, and many kids get suckered into this societal attitude. Whenever my friends and me would hear the term "liberal arts" we'd think "yeah .... those are the folks who want to study drama." Ironically, that's the realm in which my academic strengths lie. Thus, doing well in history and languages. But nothing affirmed nor encouraged that. (Go to college and be an engineer!)

 

There are problems with the social messages kids get, failure to pass skills on to the next generation, no vocational routes, and ... most importantly ... failure to help kids know themselves well enough to make more educated career choices instead going for the trendiest jobs. 

 

So ... in the end there will be a glut of engineering grads., and companies like Boeing will be laying-off even more folks. Not everybody is a chief - you need braves too. But colleges keep pumping-out chief-wannabes. 

 

No one is putting the onus upon colleges. To be fair, most of my high school teachers were good teachers. It's the system that's screwing kids. I must say that if my high school teachers "taught" the way college professors do, parents would have been rioting at school board meetings demanding they be fired. The crap colleges/universities get away with is one of our nation's biggest scandals.  

 

 

[Capt Nemo 882]

That crap is at the high school levels too.  I did a year at a local high school as the Technical Director for the theatre.  They hated my guts as I didn't have a teaching degree.  Yet I've been in professional theatre working Broadway touring productions in theatres that make their theatre look like a bad joke.  They replaced me with an english teacher that I had to train how to use the equipment.  And I still get the "How do I do this?" calls from him. 

 

Did meet one of my HS tech crew...He's touring as a pit musician!  He was a damn good sax player in HS.

 

In tech school for Electromechanical Tech, I had former Giddings & Lewis and Allen Bradley employees as instructors for industrial computers, ect.  All my instructors were former industrial automation people.  They been there, done that, and were teaching how it's done. 

 

The best was having one of those instructors on a backstage tour while I was fixing one of my moving lights. 

[montec 164]

I grab a tools as a child, took my grandfathers tools and tried to do something with them.  yes I lost a few in time.  Was he mad probably but he didn't let me know it very often unless it was recent, or I left it outside in error.  I was always interested in mechanical things, maybe it was because of looney tunes and watching old movies like smokey and the bandit and cannon ball run.(this was the mid 80's)  I am early to Gen Y I think that started in '80 or so.

 

I started wrenching with my stepdad by age 12, he is a mechanic.  I was on a roof about the same age learning to help with shingles.  Driving an old '53 chevy 2ton truck, manual with no brakes.  age 14 I was roofing as part as a crew for a few days until I think they realized I could do more then I should have been.  moving their truck around so they could tear off more shingles cause I was able to get up and down the ladder much faster and they could keep going laying out the shingles perfect for the nailer to come thru and even staging refils of roofing nails for the guns at the right intervals for them to lock and load.

 

I've been wrenching ever since now 21yrs later I still do it, but I hate electronics in cars.  Really I can do so much more with a carb.  I had Auto class my junior and senior year of HS.  I placed 1st in our local competitions and 4th in state(missed 3rd by 4pts), almost made it to nationals if only I had know AC better or had longer time to learn.  Plus it was on a Ford at state and I'm strickly a GM person, older that is and I do love me a classic mopar.  Auto Class was fun and it interested me, even though I was not the best student in class for getting different assignments completed as I really didn't care for them.  PO'd the Teacher as I liked to disable emissions on vehicles and I do so with great enthusiasm.  Had a '78 Pontiac Pheonix that had no cat, I got rid of the stupid EGR and managed to get it so tuned that, even though it got 15mpg or there about, I had the cleanest emissions out of the tailpipe then the brand new vehicles we had in the shop that were to cali specs.  When you can pass the cali sniffer test better then cars made for it, that shows something.

 

I'm trying to get my 5yr old interested in building stuff and its working ever so slightly.  he gets so excited to do things but he drifts off cause it takes so long.  Glad Home Depot and Lowes have these building events for kids.  He wil learn how to do things, thats gonna be the hard part is to keep him in that stage to learn.  He loves being around me working on vehicles but I have a hard time letting him under or over the hood as I just dont want him to get hurt if something were to happen.

 

I know wrench on my own dont get much work but it sure does save me thousands of dollars over the years.  I've done transmissions, engines, differentials.  I think it says something when you have a list of vehicles like I have.

 

1979 Chevrolet Monte Carlo(400+ hp and 450+ ft lbs of tq)

1983 Chevrolet T-10(4x4 s10)(this is currently pending a restoration with a V8 carbed transplant)

1994 Chevrolet S10 Blazer(this wil get a lsx when I get done with the '83 LSx's get upwards of 30+ mpg in these trucks when done for gasmileage)

1995 Chevrolet Blazer(for sale)

2002 Chevrolet Trailblazer(wifes vehicle)

 

I work on my own stuff, If I can't do it then I have family or friends to call on and we trade skills as we each know something more then the other.  I'm not afraid of doing any house repairs.  Hell I'm hell bent on building my own house someday from the foundation up, and I mean everything.  I'll have to learn how to lay cinder blocks, getting the right footings, ect.  I may even get to do the foundation in my current home in a couple years just because it will be so dam cheap to do so.  I've played with sparky, and plumbing.  Hell I'm gonna be playing with plumbing in the next few weeks.  hopefully I can get the gravity re-circulation system figured out so I don't need a pump on the hot water side.

Edited October 1, 2014 by montec

[Sneak 81]

My grandfather was a radio and TV repairman 60 years ago.  Knew everything about electronics and was self-educated (sort of illiterate since he only made it to 6th grade in the back hills of Tennessee).  He could make remarkable, useful things.  I wish I would have learned more from him before he went senile, but I was too young and immature to realize the importance.  I have a 4 yr engineering degree that I don't directly use and I would do college differently if I had the chance.  There is nothing wrong with trade schools or apprenticeships.  They have very valid, everyday, real world applications.  Not everyone's cut out for a 4 yr degree, my son included.  Kids today don't want to learn anything and many don't have parents who can / want to teach their kids life skills.  I can't believe the stuff sold in stores geared toward people who don't know how to use a basic set of tools. 

 

In the last year I have resided my barn, built a 6 cord wood shed, installed and plumbed an outdoor wood boiler, and will be resurfacing and glazing the basement floor.  In between, there are a million little things that break or require maintenance.  There's no way I could have done any of these things if I didn't learn on my own or have a dad who pushed me and taught me life skills when I was 12.   Thanks dad.

[storm6490 2,768]

Very well thought out and well written. You nailed it and answered your own probem. Books! Crack a freaking book. Your dad made that thing by reading a book along with a set of classical education skills that were once a standard in this country.

 

It is up to the parents to supplement their children's education. It is my opinion that the Union IS THE COMMUNIST. They protect the worthless teachers and drag down the entire system. The educational system has become more of a prison worried more about money than the mind.

 

This stuff will continue to get worse unless people realize what the unions in all public services has become. Auto workers union? Sure, I don't give a shit... But when it comes to teachers, cops and other public servants, no fucking way. It's a matter of national security and a HUGE conflict of interest.

 

You can still do anything you set your mind to. Along with the cool old books, we have the internet for research. Getting over the I can't possibly do this thing attitude is half the problem. Everybody wants stuff now, they don't want to work at it. And if they fail, they may never try again.

 

Keep grinding away at it. Who knows, you may be much closer to your old man than you think!?

 

p.s. I also have a degree I don't apply. Not a big deal. We did develop skills from it that will help us no matter what we end up doing.

Edited October 1, 2014 by Stryker0946