© 2017 Michael
Swickard, Ph.D. Imagine
that a wave of brown smelly sludge starts pouring over the edge of your toilet.
Oh no! That is not the textbook way brown sludge should be handled by the
toilet. When you press the handle the “product” should just disappear out of
sight, mind and smell.
But it is overflowing
and coming down the hallway. There is the immediate necessity to find someone competent
in plumbing. We are not looking for conversations about academics. We need
plumbers, not professors.
I was
thinking about this because many public schools, starting even in kindergarten,
are pushing all of their students to go to college. No exceptions. But someone needs
to be trained and ready to fix the biffy along with other repair professions.
If every
child goes to college there will be a huge problem. Millions of young adults can
look at the human waste coming down your hallway and comment on the Peloponnesian
War of 431 BC which had minor similarities to the crisis you are facing.
When they
are through talking about Greek history you still have a mess unless you find a
plumber. The brown stuff will just keep on keeping on down your hallway.
So many young
people will know right where to put the comma, but nothing vocational. When
trying to fix things you ask: what about using a screwdriver? No, not the
liquid kind. And plumbers are not the political leak finders in Washington,
they are those professionals who make the plumbing work as advertised.
I was
lucky that vocational education was for all students in the 1960s so that I am
mildly competent in most repair situations. Even better, I know when not to
tackle a problem other than tackle it with my wallet and someone who will fix
the problem correctly.
As a
society, we are looking down our academic noses at those people who work with
their hands and come home occasionally smelling like low tide at the swamp. The
only thing we will know in the future is what we know now: everything will
break at the least useful moment.
We should
bring vocational education back and put every public-school student through
some of it so that minor things can be fixed by each of us. The wave of crud
backing up from the toilet will take a real plumber. I hope we still have them
in the future.
It is
wrong to push all students to college. Rather, we should make students aware of
the possibilities without pushing what we think and let them decide what interests
them. I understand colleges are worried by dropping enrollment.
Partly
this is due to the incredible increase in college costs plus a stagnate job
market. They need skills that our world will support financially.
Many young
people do not want to go deeply in debt. Be a plumber first and then use those
dollars to explore other professions. When the brown sludge overflows you will
know what to do other than worry.
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