My wife and I like to go listen to a big band that plays in our town every Wednesday night. The band is made up of a group of excellent musicians, half of whom are K-12 band teachers.
Last night a group of high school musicians joined the band for a few numbers, and then a trio of them performed at intermission between the first and second sets. It was neat to watch the kids play tunes with the vets. It was clear to me that there was a lot of collaborative learning taking place on the stage. Both the adults and the kids were having a blast.
While sitting there enjoying the show, I started to think about apprenticeships. Here you had a set of experienced musicians willing to play, coach, support, and sometimes criticize a set of young musical learners. At the same time, you had young learners who were willing to play, receive coaching, invite support, and accept criticism, all while making great music.
And then I asked myself this question –
Why aren’t there more apprenticeships offered to our country’s young learners instead of traditional public school?
To be honest, I didn’t know enough about apprenticeships, so I did a little research today and this is what I found.
According to information shared on the U.S. Department of Labor website,
“Beginning in the Middle Ages, apprenticeships were the accepted model for teaching young people a skill, while utilizing the expertise of a master tradesman. In this country, apprenticeships have helped build America from its early beginnings to the present day. Among the early apprentices who went on to national distinction were George Washington (surveyor), and Paul Revere (silversmith). Thousands of others – carpenters, masons, shipwrights – did their part in developing and supporting the economy of our young nation and making the United States what it is today.”
“In 1937, the National Apprenticeship Act (NAA), also known as the Fitzgerald Act, was signed into law establishing the Registered Apprenticeship Program as it is today. The NAA permitted the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) to issue regulations protecting the health, safety, and general welfare of apprentices as well as preventing racial, ethnic, religious, age and gender discrimination in apprenticeship programs.”
“Early in the 20th century under NAA legislation, apprenticeship began by primarily supporting workers in the skilled trades. In 2021, apprenticeship is still thriving and includes a range of industries and occupations ranging from the skilled trades and construction, to burgeoning industries like technology, healthcare, energy, and advanced manufacturing. Apprenticeship is a workforce solution that is evolving to meet the needs of employers and to create skilled workforces that meet the demands of the changing American labor market.”
It seems like apprenticeships have been a successful model for learning, both past and present, so why aren’t there more opportunities within our traditional K-12 system to access them?
If you ask public school leaders today, they will tell you that they do offer their version of apprenticeships. The K-12 system calls it work study. Usually, work study is assigned to students during the last two hours of the instructional day. Sometimes the work study assigned matches a student’s interest. Sometimes it doesn’t. The rest of the day is spent focusing on reading, writing, math, history, and science.
But what if the traditional day was flipped? What if a young learner was allowed to spend most of their day learning a trade, a musical instrument, a sport, a video game, and the list goes on and on. What if the remainder of the day was used to improve reading, writing, and problem-solving skills?
What the traditional system has convinced most of us to think is that young learners won’t learn basics like reading, writing, and problem-solving if they are allowed to work most of the day perfecting their passion.
I don’t buy it.
My experience tells me kids will learn what they need to learn IF they are allowed to work on whatever they determine their passion to be at that time.
When I was a region superintendent in a traditional K-12 district, a group of building contractors came to me with a proposal. The contractors wanted to open their training site to allow our kids the opportunity to learn a trade that was considered critical to the building industry. The contractors, in turn, would be able to identify potential trade workers to hire. It seemed like a win-win deal.
It wasn’t.
The district told me to turn the deal down. The district was afraid they would need to terminate work study teaching positions if they allowed students to leave their campuses to serve, in effect, as apprentices.
The current K-12 system does not play well with others, and kids suffer because of it.
It’s time to create a new system of learning that embraces opportunities like apprenticeships, without being threatened by what that opportunity might do to the status quo.
Friday News Roundup tomorrow. SVB
A Better Path to Learning 
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