In the last three weeks, I've met three different people who, upon learning that I'm a principal at a postsecondary technical center and a technical high school, said something along the lines of, "That's great - there need to be options for students who aren't going to college."
I always struggle with how to respond to this statement. It's not that the statement is incorrect - it is correct, to a certain extent. But there are two reasons I struggle with my response: first, it's only part of the "correct", and second, in some cases it's correct for very different reasons than the individual making the statement may think.
With the first concern - it's correct, but only up to a point - well, here's the thing. Yes, there do need to be options for students who aren't going to college, but the implication that this means students going to a tech center/tech high school won't (or can't) go on to college is mistaken. On the postsecondary side of our house, we've had many students who ended their formal education upon their graduation from our school, but we've had others who've gone on to associate's, bachelor's, or other degrees. We have articulation agreements with a number of institutions, so that any student leaving our school and enrolling in a two or four year degree program usually does so with advanced standing.
And on the high school side of the house, this path is going to be even more common. Because we require a "college prep" (I HATE that phrase, for reasons I'll get to in a moment) academic curriculum of every one of our high school students, more of them than not will, in fact, likely go on to further college study (in my last district, where we ran a program just like this starting back in 1998, we found that the majority of our students went on for degrees - and our grads went everywhere from the local community colleges, to private proprietary schools like DeVry or Johnson & Wales, to the state universities and even University of Miami, Duke, NYU, and more).
Bottom line problem #1 with that statement people make: There are plenty of students who choose technical centers and technical high schools as part of their path toward college, not just instead of college.
But the second concern I mentioned - that, often, the reason that statement is correct is different than the speaker means - is an even bigger issue to me. Often, although not always (and almost never said out loud to me), what people mean by that statement is that the students who choose technical education aren't CAPABLE of the intellectual rigor required from a college education, and that idea just gets my goat.
First of all, much of the work done at technical schools is of extremely high rigor: Dr. Willard Daggett's studies have shown that reading levels required of so-called entry level jobs are now higher than most high school graduation tests, and often even higher than that of college-level texts.
Daggett says, 'the academic skills underpinning our technologically driven, increasingly global and competitively intense workplace are higher than and different from the requirements for entry into most four-year postsecondary programs. In our research here at the International Center for Leadership in Education with both the business and academic sectors, it is clear to us that this apparent disconnect has occurred, although the notion is contrary to the American mind-set. Americans have long believed that the highest academic standards that our students will ever need to meet are those required for higher education. Parents put great pressure on schools to “Get my child ready for college.” But this cultural belief of our past has not kept pace with the realities of the 21st century.' (http://www.daggett.com/pdf/CTE%20white%20paper.pdf)
And I challenge anyone to take a look at this and try to tell me that technical education isn't intellectually rigorous.
The big problem I have with that statement that well-meaning individuals make is that they are separating the world into two false paths... college is for those up to intellectual rigor, and technical ed is for those not up to it. This ignores the realities of the world we live in, it insults the skills and talents and intelligence of those who choose technical education, and it feeds the continuing perception of tech ed as a lesser choice. The simple fact is, there are now more promising jobs that require technical ed than require bachelor's degrees, but those promising jobs require BOTH technical AND intellectual skill. This is why I hate that term, "college prep". Any educator actually keeping up with the world knows that intellectual rigor can no longer be considered "college prep" - it's life prep, and it had better be combined with some of that technical skill development, or the world will wind up with too many eggheads and not enough real people.
I say that as an egghead, mind you. I went to a traditional liberal arts university, majoring in English and minoring in Sociology... was in Phi Beta Kappa... graduated with highest honors. Wouldn't trade any of it for the world (and, in fact, I continue my education even now as a doctoral student - I just love the formal process of learning). But there just aren't that many wonderful jobs for eggheads, and some of my egghead friends spent years floundering before they found productive employment. Which is one of the many reasons why, as I told my faculty recently, I am a 'recovered intellectual snob'.
In school, I was lucky, because I happened to be "smart" in the ways that traditional school has always recognized and rewarded. But put me in an automotive class, where they talk about physics when it's real and in action; or a health sciences class, where they talk about real biology; or a cosmetology program, where they talk about chemical compositions and reactions... put me in any of those, and I am dumb as a doorknob.
And my ways of being smart aren't any better or worse than anyone else's ways of being smart. My ways of being smart are the ways of being smart that the world used to reward, pretty much to the exclusion of all the other ways of being smart.
But the world has changed. And it's in the process of being run by those students who "aren't going to college". We'd better figure out how to educate them in ways that reach them, and with both academic and technical focus - and we'd better start acknowledging their value. Too many times, educators trumpet concepts like multiple intelligences, but they turn right around and hold up just a very few forms of intelligence and skill (usually verbal and logical... the types that feed right into traditional baccalaureate schooling) as being of greatest value. And that's just dumb.
Whew. Anyone have any ideas how I can condense all that into a pithy sound bite, to allow me to respond, without offense and without creating that glazed-over look in their eyes I see far too often at parties, to those poor unfortunate souls who tell me "there need to be options for students who aren't going to college"?
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