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When I was growing up in the Midwest many of my friends from High School went on to a Public Vocational Technical School. They went to one or two year programs to learn how to be a skilled trades-person. There were great programs to learn how to be an: Air Conditioner repair person, a plumber, an auto mechanic, a baker, cook or audiovisual technician.
Now for some reason, many of these schools were closed. I can not understand why? Don't people need job skills for professions that do not involve a four year college degree?
My cousin was in one in Massachusetts. It was a great program, but sadly was where a lot of the "problem" kids ended up because of course they're the only ones who wouldn't want to go to college! In all seriousness though, it's a real tragedy in this country. I know personally, I hate working with my hands and thrive in academia so that was always my path- but most of my friends from high school have no business in college. It's frustrating when I have friends who know they want to be, say, a chef but go to Auburn for restaurant management because that's "what you do". Yes, restaurant management would be helpful one day, but it's not getting him to his goals of being a chef any faster.
I think that we might be seeing a start to a trend back to Vocational Training for the high school age group.
It had been the viewpoint of too many so-called "educators" that every child, was entitled to, and should be prepared for a college education. Schools just didn't have enought rooms or teachers to teach everything and vocational subjects got dumped. Why take something like mechanical drawing if you didn't plan to go to college and learn to be an architect? Why take something like typing, if you were going to be a doctor or lawyer? It was a stupid move on the part of many School Boards.
Our school system is working on developing a plan that allows the interested high school student to take classes at our local Technical College. It should work out well as the College has been turning out graduates in many different fields for many years.
We have a great "technical institute" for HS kids but peer pressure and parental pressure dictates that only the kids that are not good in academics and behavioral problems go there. Our society has deemed that working with your head is good and cool and working with your hands is dumb and dirty. NOT true, but that's the message sent by the entire society. Just think about our tv shows - Any of the guys on the sit-coms that aren't business guys are not quite smart and have pot bellies. Is that a goal for any HS kid?
In Eugene we have job corps, and then we have http://www.networkcharterschool.org/ which allows kids to gain knowledge and experience working with local businesses in various fields. We also have several charter and alternative schools. We are just a smallish' sort of town. If you call your school district or search around their site, perhaps you'll find something? Not sure where you are, but if you're in a bigger city chances are you have a lot more opportunities and resources available to you, they just might take some digging around and playing phone tag to find. Best of luck to you and your son!
My school district here in Colorado has a vo-tech school. Students go 1/2 day to their vocational classes, and 1/2 day to their academic classes. Enrollment is dropping, and they are reorganizing.
My ds goes to one in CT. They have a wait list to get in. He goes 9 days to academics, 9 days shop (vocational). He's on a college track and another kid in his shop got a full ride scholarship to a University last year. My ds is expected to be scouted by a local college. My young cousin also goes to the school and she will graduate with a trade-which is great for her, since school has been a struggle for her. At least her future is better than flipping burgers. From my research, most states don't have this system anymore-too bad, since it seems very useful.
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