Vocational-Technical Schools

For this weeks blog, we had to pick a type of school that interested us. Well, I would have written about the Waldorf school system, but since I wrote about Rudolf Steiner and Waldorf schools last week, I decided to take a different approach and look into vocational and technical schools.

Vocational-technical schools are often known as alternative high schools, for those students who don't usually perform excellently in academics. But many vocational-technical schools are trying to alter that image of alternative high school. Many schools are trying to make admissions and course requirements more stringent. Some believe that making the admissions and classes a little bit harder will recruit more students, while others believe its important to keep the trade-oriented school identity in order to differentiate them from normal schools. The purpose of vocational-technical schools is to train and specialize students in particular fields of labor.

There is a technical school that was an option for us after middle school in my home town. We got to tour it and decide if it was the place for us. It had many different trades including carpentry, auto body work, cosmetics, hair dressing, computer design, graphic design, and I believe it even had some electrician and plumbing courses.

There are many children in the world who often feel that school is just "not for them". It's not that they are ignorant and unable to learn, some people are just more classroom oriented learners while others prefer to use their hands. These types of learners often do much better in vocational schools. After they graduate they can go straight into their field, instead of going onto college to obtain a college degree. Some people may argue that the best way to succeed in life is to go onto college and obtain a degree and move onto graduate school to get a master's degree.

But, if I've learned anything super important about teaching in this course, I'd have to say that is is the range of differences in all children learning abilities. Every child is different. Everyone learns differently, and feels differently about school. It is important to match every student with an appropriate learning environment.



If you're interested in vocational school... click here!