A real world learning curve

By Joan Barton

It may be best, in the long run, if you drop your child off at work this September, rather than at school. Young Dave has persuaded me on this point.

Dave is opening up and answering the phone at Tim the Welder’s this week, while Tim and his family are off on a rare vacation. It’s great for Tim; since he runs his own business, it’s not easy for him to get time away with his family. And it’s great for Dave; he’s finding out what it’s like to deal with customers directly, and to organize his days, while knowing that Tim has got his cell phone on, there for advice or decisions if needed. It’s a full course load, but the days fly by.

Dave is working for Tim as part of the Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program. The program, available through his high school, is designed to allow kids to get real-world experience in different skilled trades — even to begin a trade apprenticeship while still in high school.

They begin with a workplace safety course, and then apply for a placement with an employer who has agreed to participate in the program. All kinds of skills are offered, over 130 different trades, from hairstyling to millwright. Sadly, the provincial average of female students involved in the program is only 11 percent, but here in our rural county, where it becomes clear fairly quickly to girls that practical skills are what we need, 42 percent of program participants are girls.

The application process is real. It’s meant to be the young person’s first step into the real work world. Dave had to write his first resumé and cover letter and go to a real interview with Tim. They hit it off from the start. So, instead of reporting to school on weekday mornings, Dave reported to work at Tim’s. He kept a record of his hours at work and what he learned each day in a daily planner, and was paid in course credits.

He also did assignments at home to cover off the high school diploma prerequisites that don’t arise in the course of the business day. Periodically, he spent a day back at the school to discuss or present those assignments. But basically, Dave went to work. And Dave loved it. Although, as he says, he has never liked school. Never liked sitting still. Never liked bookwork. But this, this is great.

Dave gets so excited about his plans that it’s hard for him to keep his choices straight. Tim has offered him an apprenticeship after this year, so he could stay here, begin to earn a living, learn his trade, and make a home here in the resort country he loves. He could run his own business. Or he could go out west and earn the big money. He could go to a community college and specialize within his trade, maybe get into pipeline welding. You can go all over the world with a specialty like that, as well as out west. There are so many options; his eyes shine just thinking about it.

Isn’t that we want out of school, for our kids? Options and excitement and loving it?

People come in infinite varieties; so do children. Some need to grow up slowly and dally in the generalized information and gradual progressions of an arts-based education. But others don’t. Other children want to see the practical point of the things they do on a daily basis or they won’t have much enthusiasm — or success — in doing them. For these children, ones who are in fact mature for their years in many ways, programs like this are a gift. The kids take on responsibility and develop self-respect based on real skills. Skills they will always have, even if, later on in life, they choose to use the money that skill has brought them to train in another field.

So Dave gets a double credit for his summer job with Tim, and Tim gets his first vacation in two years. We’re all winning here.

Joan Barton is a former family lawyer and current rural entrepreneur. She can be reached via the Women’s Portal.

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