I know I've been somewhat of a **** in this thread when it comes to vocational teachings. But my school was setup similar and that's why I'm passionate about it.
We had electives available in 9th and 10th grade that were loosely associated with the Technical High School tracks. I did stuff computer programming, home economics, and industrial science which really was just woodshop.
The issue I found was teachers would push for the other electives much harder especially in my "advanced" classes. They pushed for things like foreign language, AP History, Band, choir, or different tiers of biology. Because they "looked better" on a college application. I said **** that and took the fun classes instead.
I was cooking up French Onion Soup and Baguettes while my friends were learning the different French conjugations. Guess who remembers which skills 13 years later?
I then had to fight almost actively against my teachers to go to the Trade High School half the day during my Junior and Senior years. They thought it was a huge mistake because they knew I wanted to eventually go to college. But I am totally glad I did. I treated it almost like a freshman year and just wanted to see if I'd even like the field that I was thinking I would get a degree in (IT). If I didn't like it then I didn't waste thousands of dollars switching majors at university.
I even got an internship for my senior year and after going to regular high school for 3 hours I drove to work instead of the trade school and got paid like $16 an hour as part of the help desk at the local health department. Making $400 a week as a 16/17 year old was ******* primo. That has paid dividends beyond belief.
I even used go to my old high school yearly (pre covid) to help promote this trade school. A common thing I hear about the trade school is that it is a "dropout" school. So I shifted a bit to get people to sign up even for the sake of trying out a field they're interested in just see if they even like it. It's helped some but I wish my school would push the availability more.
Anyway yea these are the programs they offer at the place I went to and it's all funded by 4 local school districts and any student from those 4 can go for free. That building trades one is actually really cool. They build a house each year and auction it off or donate it to a charity auction.
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