History Repeats Itself in Education and Employment
Schools Must Prepare Their Students for College and Employment
in the Trades
Ben Vitale
In the 50s I benefited from certain trade related courses
that were given while in junior high school. In the early 50s school courses
such as wood shop, metal shop, and cooking for men were commonplace! The
knowledge that I gained through taking the metal shop course in junior high
school helped me to succeed at my first significant job, after I graduated! In
junior high school, we were not allowed to actually operate the dangerous
machinery, but we were taught how to operate machine equipment in great detail.
My first job in electronics also required me to operate
machine shop equipment! Although I had never actually operated machine shop
equipment, I was able to answer questions, and perform operations on this
equipment immediately, without hesitation, because I was totally familiar with
the operation of a metal lathe, drill press, and metal shear. I operated each
piece of machine shop equipment without any problems, because of my total
understanding of how each piece of machinery operated.
Trade related shop courses slowly disappeared from the
school curriculum of most schools. For decades we were without trade-oriented
classes. Most schools operated under the premise that all of the students will
be going to college. This turned out to be a bad decision.
Unfortunately, employers
started to include a four-year degree requirement on jobs that actually did not
require a degree to perform. The underlying problem to the degree requirement,
was that the material covered in college did not match the actual job
requirements of most trade type jobs.
The fire dragon of underemployment scorched my behind quite
by accident! One day while solving some electronic design problems on my
computer, my actions were coincidentally seen by an Electrician that was doing
major renovations to my house! The electrician
knew exactly what I was doing… I was amazed! I asked the electrician how he
knew what I was doing and he said that he knew what I was doing on my computer,
because he has a Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. My electrician
couldn’t get a job in engineering so he settled for a job as an electrician,
which coincidentally paid more money! Wow! Underemployment that worked out for
the better! LOL!
Unfortunately, the material covered to attain a Bachelors degree
does not usually coincide with the requirements for employment in many
companies. Company management is currently making agreements with academia to
train student to predefined criteria, so that they can qualify for employment
at their particular company. This specific training concept is only in its
infancy… Presently many companies such as such as Google and Apple are
accepting applicant for employment on the basis of what a person can actually
do, not on what the degree implies that you can do. Although I got my first job
without a college degree, I never thought that I would see hiring practices
revert back to the way they were in 1960.
May I suggest looking over the courses offered in BOCES and
adult education. In my case I received fantastic training in electronic
technology via adult education. It seemed that a Navy electronics instructor
retired and was bored to death sitting home, so he put together a two-semester electronic
technology curriculum, for Adult Education… the same material that he presented
in the Navy! Needless to say, this Adult Ed course is what pushed me into my first
job! I did not need a Bachelor's degree!
