Jeff Kelly, chairman of the National Tooling and Machine Association, has an op-ed in the Post-Gazette about worker training. He says there is a critical shortage of skilled workers. Even here in Western PA. I keep hearing people complain about it. And I know a few people who have added some personal anecdotes. So I will accept that it is true.
Kelly proposes some government spending to provide the training. Which always makes me cringe. After all, lots of companies require specialized training. But a lot of them supply that training themselves. The federal government does not "teach" people to be investment bankers. You learn the basics in high school. A little more at college. But even graduates of elite universities have to enter grueling internship and training programs to make the grade at Goldman Sachs. It takes years. And it costs Goldman Sachs a lot of money.
Be that as it may, I do accept that there is a need for more and better technical education. And that, for better or worse, some of that could conceivably come in the form of government supported education centers. (There are medical schools at public universities, for instance. Law schools, too. Theater programs. But not much in the way of tool and die.)
But what about something more basic? It seems to me that most people generally accept the idea of public high schools. And it seems equally clear to me that the technical training done in many of them could be improved. In a lot of ways. I never took a shop class. I was too busy in "college prep." When was the last time I used calculus? When was the last time I wished I could make a wrench do something? Exactly.
All this is a long and rambling way to make yet another pitch for this fantastic article from the New Atlantis called "Shop Class as Soul Craft."
Read. Enjoy. And envision a world in which the average guy could actually fix his own lawnmower without calling in reinforcements. Or could even conceive of something as basic as "fixing" a lawnmower instead of "replacing" it.
Without reading the article, let me put my pitch in for public school districts to start treating their vocational high schools--and the students who attend them--with more respect. Guidance counselors often discourage capable students of attending vo-techs, because they think college is better, regardless of the students' career goals. Many view vo-techs as a dumping ground for special needs students and discipline cases. But the fact is that a technical education can wreap as many financial rewards as a college degree, the value of which has been steadily declining over the years. Don't get me wrong; I went to college and I work for one of the nation's elite research universities. But we need to get away from the one-size-fits-all definition of academic and career success.
Posted by: Jonathan Potts | June 26, 2007 at 05:37 AM