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Health & Fitness

Bring Back Shop Classes

Instead of forcing all students into a "one-size-fits-all" college-prep education, we should give them the opportunity to learn a trade, and graduate from high school with marketable skills.

When did we decide that professional careers involving a four-year college degree are superior to careers in the traditional trades?  When did we determine that all children must be educated with a four-year college degree as the minimum goal?  

This mentality has resulted in a secondary education system that no longer serves the needs of its students (customers) and sets up many of our children for failure.

Let’s face it — a four year college degree is not for everyone.  Many students do not have the desire or interest to graduate from high school and attend a traditional university.  Some just don’t have the necessary affinity for some required subjects. 

We graduate these kids from high school without any marketable skills, but with a whole lot of knowledge that they will find largely useless in life.  I don’t know about you, but I haven’t needed Calculus, Trigonometry, Physics, or Advanced Algebra since I took my last college entrance exam.  

The demise of vocational education in our schools is a travesty, and we’ve allowed it to happen with little to no protest.  For most, long gone are the days of wood shop, metal shop, auto shop, mechanical drawing, art, music, and a host of other, non “academic” classes.  

These classes did more than enrich the lives of our kids - they allowed them to discover whether they had an interest in a trade.  Many kids who were bored in school and did not excel in math or science, found they enjoyed working with their hands, and they gained a certain satisfaction from completing a project.  This could then allow them to choose a well-paying, satisfying, enjoyable career in the trades.  
Again, when did we decide that the trades weren’t important?  We still need homes built by carpenters, we have drains that need unclogging, and there is no shortage of cars to be repaired by skilled auto mechanics.   Not to mention all of those perfectly operating computers.

By forcing students who would prefer to work in the trades into a college-prep environment, we are squandering short resources at an unimaginable level, and the result is a growing populace without marketable skills.  Let’s stop forcing useless information down our kids’ throats, and give them a high school education with real, useful, marketable skills.

Bring back shop!

I would encourage ALL parents to pick up a copy of Ryan Teves’ insightful book, In Defense of the American Teen. (It’s available on Kindle.)   He touches on many of these concerns, and more.  I found it to be a real eye opener, and wished I had read it ten years ago, when my son started school.   No, I have nothing to gain from suggesting/promoting Mr. Teves’ book — I just found it to be a great, common-sense filled argument for what is really wrong with today’s educational system.

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