Few satisfactory examples are yet available as to profitable evening preparatory vocational education. The time is usually too short, the student too tired or uninterested to make satisfactory progress. The following examples are suggested: Girls in textile mills studying homemaking, the latter work being divided into short units, such as shirt-waist making, the preparation of lunches, laundering, etc. (as now provided in special legislation in Massachusetts); a bookkeeper taking machine-shop practice, with a view to becoming a trained worker upon a special machine; a clerk studying, in an evening law school, for the purpose of passing bar examinations. It is important to consider how far preparatory work in evening vocational schools may be developed in the future on what is known as the "short-unit" basis. The most successful extension work in evening schools of a definitely vocational character is now organized on the short-unit basis, which means that the learner is enabled to acquire skill in a particular process, with a particular machine, or to learn how to solve certain problems or to use certain devices, the necessity for which appears in connection with his daily work. It is possible that in evening trade preparatory schools similar results can be procured by a strictly practical" short-unit" organization. are 10 (Definition). Continuation Vocational schools schools which are attended for a limited number of hours each week, within the customary working-day, by persons regularly employed. (a) Continuation vocational schools, like evening vocational schools, may be "trade extension" or "trade preparatory" schools. (b) In practice evening vocational schools are adapted to workers upward of 17 or 18 years of age, while continuation vocational schools are primarily adapted to young workers from 14 to 18 years of age. 11 (Definition). Extension continuation vocational schools are schools giving instruction or practice directly related to the occupations being followed by the pupils. If the time given to the school is considerable perhaps alternate days or weeks, or a half of each working-day-then such schools are often called "part-time schools." Many, if not all, of the great variety of occupations followed by young persons offer opportunities for supplemental or extension training in vocational schools on the continuation basis. The following are examples: A messenger bov learning the geography of the community in which he works in order to improve his efficiency as a messenger; a machinist being taught in short-unit courses a variety of devices and operations essential to his advancement or greater efficiency; a salesgirl being taught devices of salesmanship; a farmer being taught particular phases of tillage, animal husbandry, etc. 12 (Definition). A preparatory continuation vocational school is one which undertakes to teach the student a new trade or other occupation, or to give him an essential part of the training required for such trade during hours in which he is in attendance. 13. Modified forms of continuation vocational education.-Various modified forms of continuation vocational education exist, according to the character of the occupation followed and the time available for related study. Part-time vocational education includes plans whereby young people regularly employed are released for regular periods, sometimes alternate weeks, in order to obtain instruction and practice. in matters related to their ocupations. Farmers during dull seasons attend the short courses offered under extension agencies or in agricultural colleges. Apprentices are sometimes sent away to other establishments for temporary employment, primarily to learn new or related processes. Physicians in practice sometimes engage in hospital practice for short periods, in order to obtain new knowledge. In Germany and England the more capable workers in certain technical trades are sent to special schools for limited periods to acquire mastery of mathematical and technical processes needed in order to become foremen or overseers. 66 "Improvement" or general" continuation schools, not of a Vocational character, are common in Germany and are found at present in two or three States of the United States. These aim to utilize the continuation period of instruction to further general education. VI. ADMINISTRATION OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. The administration of publicly supported vocational education involves the same problems as those found in the public control and direction of general education. The relationship of the administrative organization of general education to the administrative organization of vocational education introduces questions of "dual" versus "single" control. The types of schools and the internal organization of schools introduce problems of differentiation of schools, and divisions and departments within schools. 1 (Definition). Dual administrative control of education exists when, either in the State or in the local community, or in both, the agencies for the control of vocational education are distinct from those for the control of general education. Examples. In Massachusetts for several years a commission on industrial education had complete authority over industrial schools on behalf of the State, its operations having no connection with those of the existing State board of education. In a few Massachusetts 28259°-16- -5 communities, separate boards of trustees are in charge of industrial schools. 2 (Definition). Single administrative control is found when vocational schools are organized and supervised by the same authorities as those charged with responsibility for general education. In Massachusetts at the present time, the State board of education exercises certain functions alike with reference to vocational and general education. In most Massachusetts communities, a local school committee, working through a superintendent of schools, is in charge of both forms. In practice, neither dual nor single control is found in a pure form. Experience shows the wisdom of arrangements whereby, in communities properly appreciative of vocational education, there shall be ultimate single control, but with a differentiation of specific agencies for the direction and supervision of each form of education. For example, in Massachusetts a single board of education, working through a commissioner, supervises on behalf of the State vocational education and so much of general education as it is authorized to supervise under the law. Under the commissioner, however, is one deputy commissioner designated to deal with vocational education, and another deputy commissioner to deal with other forms. Wisconsin, Indiana, New York, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut present examples of more or less modified forms of control. In some instances, where separate local boards exist, the board for vocational education may be created by the board in charge of general education, or the two boards may have common membership. 3 (Definition). A vocational school is an organization of instructors, pupils, courses, buildings, equipment, etc., devoted to Vocational education for one or more distinct vocations. An analogy is found in university organization, where, under one general control, departments, or schools for the teaching of the various professions and the liberal arts exist. 4 (Definition). A vocational department in a vocational school is an organization of teachers, equipment, etc., designed to train young people for a single recognized occupation. Thus, a vocational industrial school may have departments for the training of plumbers, patternmakers, cabinetmakers, printers, etc., and experience may show that very little of the actual training required for these different occupations will be alike or in common. A vocational commercial school might have departments for the training of accountants, stenographers, clerks, salesmen, etc. A department of "general instruction" in a vocational school is an organization of teachers, equipment, etc., designed to give the non Vocational instruction required in common by several departments of a vocational school. 5 (Definition). A division in a vocational school includes two or more departments dealing with related materials, and involving, to some extent, related processes. Thus in a large vocational school there might be a wood-working division embracing such departments as patternmaking, cabinetmaking, and house carpentry; a machine-shop division; a printing division, etc. 6 (Definition). A departmental advisory committee in the administration of vocational education consists of two or more persons, preferably representing, respectively, employers and employees in a given vocational field, for which the department to which it stands in an advisory relationship is giving vocational training. The successful administration of vocational education under public control requires the active cooperation of representatives of the occupations for which training is being given. A useful means to this end, where vocational schools are under the general direction of the regular school authorities, is the advisory committee consisting, in the main, of employers and employees in the particular industry for which a given department is offering vocational training. Good administration requires that the advisory committee shall be brought into intimate consultative relationship to all new proposals as to standards and conduct of vocational training in the department concerned. The responsible head of the department must, in an executive capacity, be responsible for securing the conditions which shall enable the advisory committee to be active and effective. VII. PRACTICAL ARTS SCHOOLS, DEPARTMENTS, AND STUDIES. In private and public schools a variety of studies and practices have developed during recent years that may be described collectively by the words "practical arts." Various forms of practical arts education are to be sharply distinguished from vocational education. Experience proves that practical arts training, of one form or another, may make valuable contributions to general education. It is not yet evident that practical arts education, as ordinarily carried on, makes substantial contributions to vocational efficiency. It may be made to affect vocational choice and perhaps stimulate vocational ideals. Among the forms of practical arts education are these: 1. Manual arts training in lower grades.-Manual training in lower grades is that form of practical arts education in which boys and girls, usually during the work of the first six grades, have practice with a variety of exercises or projects resembling projects carried on in practical life. This manual training includes whittling, clay modeling, paper folding, picture mounting, needlework, weaving, and a variety of other constructive activities within the range of the experience of children under 12 years of age. In this work, boys and girls usually do the same exercises, and these are taught by the regular class teacher. 2. Manual training in upper grades and high schools.Manual training in upper grades and high schools, as the term is now used, applies mainly to wood and metal working, including at times printing, bookbinding, and various forms of constructive work as arranged for boys from 12 to 16 or 18 years of age. In this field of manual training, well-defined programs of bench, forge, and metal working are now found. This work is usually taught by a departmental teacher. 3. Household arts for upper grades and high schools.Corresponding to manual training for boys from 12 to 18 years of age are now found in upper grades and high schools a variety of practical exercises in cooking and sewing, and occasionally in other home-making fields, designed to give girls from 12 to 18 years of age insight and taste with regard to domestic operations. In forms slightly, if at all, modified the same subject is called "home economics" and "domestic economy." Sewing and its allied lines are sometimes included under the term "domestic art," while cooking and its allied lines are sometimes called "domestic science." 4. Agricultural arts education.-In some elementary and high schools exercises based principally upon tillage are now found as constituting a phase of general education. In some cases home gardening, school gardening, and laboratory work in agricultural science are added, as well as reading exercises regarding live stock, etc. 5. Commercial arts or business education.-In elementary and high schools a variety of studies and practical work in bookkeeping, typewriting, commercial paper writing, and the like have been introduced in recent years, but no real distinctions between "vocational" commercial education and "general" vocational education have yet been made. 6. Practical arts high schools.-Under the influence of the movement for manual training a variety of special forms of high schools have developed, each frequently with some special characteristics. They are variously known as "manual-training high schools," "manual-arts high schools," "mechanic-arts high schools," "technical high schools," etc. A practical-arts high school in Boston is organized for girls' work in household arts exclusively. Technical or manual training high schools frequently have departments of household arts for girls. |