Intro and Information about Vocational Ed Group and Why I Started It

My daughter will be of college age in a year and it will be great to read these posts.
Great idea Jane.

Jane,
Both our daughters went to college at Marshall University.

good idea!!

Feel free to post an article to the group, anyone :)

I think this is a great idea, not only for parents, but for those of us who are involved in education.

We've had kids go to college and flounder, but do well in voc ed. I highly recommend it for those who know what they want to do for work. Vocational training is so much more hands on.

Good idea.

90% of my students go through a Vocational Education Program. They get a ton of hands on experience and many even get internship experiences. I am a big supporter of further education, but that certainly comes in many forms. If this is what is right for your son, then great. I am glad you are able to see the differences in your children and adjust for them accordingly.

Great idea for a group, Jane. Next year we'll have 3 in college at the same time! I don't know how it'll work out. Luckily our eldest is mostly independent and has residency.

J.K.
Well, we survived tuition with two of them. Actually, technical training isn't necessarily less expensive but just more focused on learning a specific skill or set of skills for students who are less abstract thinkers - or maybe that isn't the right term - but perhaps for those who prefer to learn by hands-on training and concrete examples.
He is a gifted athlete but we aren't thinking in terms of an athletic scholarship because he doesn't want to be a coach and athletic careers can be cut short by one injury.

This is a great idea for a group. Individuals with technical training are so needed. My youngest was saying she didn't want to go to school and I told her hey, that's fine but you need some continuing education...I suggested being a plumber because they are so hard to find and they do get paid well (not that they don't deserve it!) After some thought she decided to go to college. It hasn't been easy.

This is a great idea for a group. I have been through graduate school, although I never finished my PhD. I do work at a University with undergraduate students. I welcome the opportunity to talk about education. Because I have been around universities for the past 25 years, I can tell you that not everyone belongs at one. Parents are in a really tough position in the 21st century; you can't do anything without an education, but every student doesn't belong in a traditional educational setting.

My son is a senior, and has faced many challenges educationally, emotionally etc. He wants to go to the community college, but I am not sure.

I'm in. My son has taken a year off after graduation and is now deciding what to do. Maybe he'll just go for a job for a while. This would please his father who is very tired of sending support checks. We've both been to the department of rehabilitation and are getting whatever advice they can give us. Whatever that will be.

Jane:

You have contributed so much to me over the past couple of days. I joined your group even though I didn't know anything about it. I still am not sure what to contribute, but I believe in being positive -- networking (eyes and ears open, right?)
Who knows what I'll come across, just when I wasn't looking and just because you asked.

My mind is tuned-in!

Something will pop up -- watch and see what I tell you!

The educatioinal system in our country pushes for kids to attend college. A friend of mine cited a woman collage professor who stated something like,' If you don't go to college, you're a loser.' I hate to be the bearer of bad news for this woman, but, there are many extremely productive people who never went to college. Not all of us are college material. So, this brings up the big question, what to do with ones self.

There are so many crafts which are dying for lack of craftspeople. Women now have opportunities never before open to them. I spoke to a high school teacher who taught welding. His best student ever was a girl whose mother I happen to know. He went on and on about what a great welder she was.

Single women, more then ever, own homes. They really don't want a strange man in their house. (and let me tell you, there are a lot of strange tradesmen) A woman trades'person' would be just the ticket for them. I'm familiar with all the hype, but how many women earn $25 - $50 an hour?

I worked for years with my father, who was a general contractor. (visit my blog at: http://fixyorehouse.blogspot.com Please say hello when you're there. I mean to the blog. I've been ignoring it for a few weeks now.)

The key to getting a job in the trades is persistence. When a contractor tells you he doesn't have an opening, he means right now he doesn't have one. If he sounds remotely interested, tell him you'll work a day for free cleaning up a job, anything. Then go out there and strut your stuff. If you are in fact a dead beat, then you had better buckle down and go to college.

Excellent article and excellent idea for a group. My son is currently a junior in high school and has no idea about what direction he should head in. I'd like him to keep his options open since there is no set way on how to proceed in life. I've already taken him to one college over the summer but don't want to push him either. This group may open some other possibilites.

The group is here:
http://vocationaleduc.gather.com/

Currently, submissions to both groups are on "moderated" status but I'll change that if it really bothers anyone. Here's my reasoning:'

1. I want both groups to be open to ALL ages. This means that students of all ages could pop in with a question. How do people feel about children as young as 6 or 7 seeing unmoderated submissions, including the possibility of adult material? As a parent, I wouldn't be crazy about that.

2. Secondly, some people post ANYTHING on any group. I've accidentally done that myself, pushing some group button by mistake and sending a recipe to the "Car" group or something, leaving them a bit baffled.

But I'm generally anti-censorship and "moderated" groups do have a lag time on comments showing up.

So let me know what you think!

P.S. The second group is a homework helpline. The link to it is at the voc ed group.

I'm ambivalent about vocational education. In keeping with the trend to make everything bigger and better a bachelor's degree these days is worth what a high school diploma was 50 years ago. It's hard for me to list all the ways that this is insane. I was a blue collar worker for nearly 15 years and met some very smart people who would never have fit in in a college.

The down side of vocational training is that there are a lot fewer skilled trades than there were 50 years ago. For a long time the trend has been to replace skilled workers with unskilled workers supervised by an educated person--an engineer, etc. Written procedures have taken the place of knowledge gained through experience. People aren't expected to solve problems. We do very little manufacturing any more. The metals trades are almost defunct. My wife did drafting for most of her work life. When she started a lot of the design was done by skilled drafters. Engineers would supply a concept and set some constraints and leave the implementation to the designers. Now everything is under the control of engineers and the former designers make drawings. Skill is measured by the ability to use complicated software.

Sorry, I can get wound up on this one. *gets down from soap box and begins disassembling the PA*

Nippy getting wound up is fine! Emotion is fine! Anger is fine!
Exclamation points are fine, too.

Anyway, I'm in a dilemna because one child is not eager or probably able to go to college, for many reasons. . Whenever I throw that out there, people start saying "Don't think that" or "Be positive" or "If you think it, you'll give the message to the kid"

However, I've lived with him for over 15 years. When it comes to pure drive, passion and a desire to work...and work HARD.....he can't be beat. But coming out of a mother who had cancer while carrying him (ovarian cancer, to boot) and struggling for every ounce of abstract learning he gets makes it hard for me to believe that he'll survive a college situation. Two of our kids graduated college. I graduated college. I know what it entails, even with support and extra tutoring and "accommodations" . So that is where I'm coming from.

great idea for a group, good luck

P.S. He spends hours on homework every night and getting through high school is going to be challenging enough. The "modifications" and the IEP plan (a special plan designed to help special needs kids) are jokes. By the time he finishes, it'll be a miracle if he still wants to pick up a book..ever...again. They just finished Animal Farm. He knows the basic story inside out but the connection to the Russian Revolution and which animal represents Trotsky or Stalin or the proletariat (sp?) is too abstract and mysterious for him...still..even after much review.

I would love to see vocational education have some value and make a college education at least partly educational instead of the vocational training (e.g. business, bio-medical,...) that it's become. There are so many people who have more than enough intelligence to do something that requires thought who don't do well in school. We're wasting a bunch of people.

I wish you great luck with your group!!!

I may annoy some educators here (I know my sister-in-law, a middle school teacher, cringes when I go on a jag - but she never engages...). I highly respect teachers for the work-load they take on. I just wish their efforts weren't so restrained by public policy decisions of non-educators. The following are conclusions and claims from my experiences, not my main subect matter.

I'm of the opinion that some people don't do well in school because they are gifted intellectually in a way that teachers being educated into the modern education system are not prepared or willing to address. Nothing in recent memory has set education back more than the "No Child Left Behind" public policy. In the 70's great strides were being made in multiple intelligences and open classrooms were giving children's pent-up anxieties "room to think" in new directions. Now, teachers are mandated to homogeny - every child respresents a percentile rank by which school funding is acquired. It's conservative madness, blind to any who would excel to question the status quo. I get the most absent looks when I tell educators my children do not have a problem with authority, only that I have taught them that all who would claim it have no right to possess it absolutely if they use it unwisely - my children have been taught with a focus on compassion, to think objectively on their own contributing actions in any particular scenario on a daily basis as life happens. And, thank gooness I'm almost done with it and haven't gone to jail for, in just their vernacular, 'lack of parenting'. Three more years...

You might be saying about now, "she's an idiot" or "she's one of those crazy irrational parents out of touch with reality". I'm actually a very quiet, analytical type. A methodical but creative troubleshooter. If it's logical according to my experience and intuition then I will consider whatever it is in forming my opinion. I'm tooting my horn but it took me a long time make a note. I had a 156 IQ in 8th grade and I COULD NOT sit in school bored out of my mind - literally. It was a long time ago but I can still think my way out of a paper bag and I did go on to earn a Bachelors in Business Administration, suma cum laude, just because it stuck in my craw that I could train management but couldn't get paid as management. Our children have not had this rude awakening but if they do they will probably take care of it just fine if you continue to show them you have faith they can do whatever they set their mind to. And what is wrong with being self-made? It's a boon to a brand of self-esteem that can take you through even the lowest times.

I had to work at that time for family reasons. And even though my public school education took place in the 70's - a time kids think is 'the old days', there are a lot of families where the same pressures are filtering into their kids' psyches. The pressure to earn money to have 'things' is powerful for youngsters lacking long term sight. And then again, the ever increasing adjustment in poverty level income figures may still account for young wage earners contributing to their being clothed and fed. Combine this with extremely boring curriculums, bored teachers, having your hardest efforts as a student received as mediocrity with the potential to jeopardize the school's funding for talented and gifted programs or band uniforms and the choice for some is readily - work first, even if it means strained family relations and the vague concept of lower lifetime earnings.

As an aside, I have to qualify what I said and what my children know all too well. Talented and gifted programs, in my intimate experience, are filled with children with good grades and whose families are most active in school politics and not necessarily those with poor grades in standard classes but with extraordinary intellectual or tactile gifts or those with good grades whose parents are perceived as uncooperative. In the state of New Jersey, those children are 'sent to alternative placement' settings usually in a trades program off the school grounds and separate from inclusion in the school's ranking. I experienced this myself with my daughter, a gifted graphic artist who's math grades weren't good enough for her to receive a placement in an accelerated arts program. My son, gifted in math but who learned best when he was bouncing his knee or standing up when he was doing algebra in his head (a trick he learned because he hates to write and never could get an A without keeping a notebook (4 years, 3 school psychologists, 1 district psychiatrist, all mandatory appointments through the school, and no diagnosis of ADD or ADHD but every guidance counselor suggesting I try medication for his 'problems'). Several of my friends, and friends of friends throughout the state have had the same experience. There have been no programs at all in any grade for my daughter who is so musically gifted she can relate to any subject matter in terms of music. The only warning I will give here is not to rely on your local school district to recognize or aid you in maximizing your child's strengths. Homeschooling with high level community project involvement has equal college scholarship potential but superior character building potential.

2 of my children worked first and my 3rd is still in high school. My daughter is 26 and went to culinary school for a year but is married and having babies with plans to work with her husband in their own catering operation (for which she has already designed a menu and thoroughly feasible business plan), and my son at 18 is working with a general contractor who is teaching him and treating him very well in addition to paying him $500+per week. My son was so much like me he didn't finish high school and has promised he will follow me and get his GED. If he does decide to go to college or a trade certificate program he will excel at it because it's what he's prepared to do, not what he expects I want him to do. I've always encouraged them to find something that they are happy doing. That's the only time I really ever made a good living.

Now you all know where I'm 'coming from' in this forum. I've personally had some bad experiences that I wouldn't wish on any one else but I try to keep the rants to a minimum and never consider them relevant in full form for instruction based writings. I remain respectful, and a little in awe, of and to parents and children who attend public schools without incident. Every child is different, every parent's experience unique. And when it comes to learning and teaching I feel it must be approached from the view of empowerment of any student. The student must want to learn and long term retained learning only happens when the student is having fun, controls their own learning experience at their own pace, and can readily see the application and value of the subject matter in/to THEIR lives.

I'm vented. I'm revved to write after a long absence. Thank you. I had always hoped to pass on my love of learning and learner empowerment in this forum. Take what you can use, pitch the rest. Constructive criticism ALWAYS welcome and taken as such no matter what the apparent 'virtual' tone.

whew! sorry, i wasn't keeping a word count :)

This group is a great idea, Jane. One thing I would advise is to make sure you get references for any voc ed program from graduates of the program. I have a friend in California who graduated from one of those Cisco programs with flying colors, but she really doesn't have the understanding she should have to function in the job. Thankfully, she has other employment, but that program was a total waste for her. She got a piece of paper out of it and nothing else.

nice post, thanks for sharing!