What was it called when College students abandoned classes as an act against the Vietnam war

Photograph is part of the series 'Vocational studies, public schools.' (Photo: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C.) But with the rise of factories, it was no longer safe for kids to learn to work alongside their parents. Many of those kids would have learned farming or skilled trades from their parents in an earlier era. And public schools were seeing an influx of immigrants and farm kids. Factory owners were facing a shortage of skilled labor in a rapidly industrializing society. The interest in vocational education in the early 20th century was prompted in part by big economic and social changes. Others were tracked off to go to universities and be the intelligentsia. “Kids from poor families were tracked off into becoming the worker bees. “The early vocational education was driven by a philosophy of fitting people to their probable destinies,” says Jim Stone, director of the National Research Center for Career and Technical Education. The Smith-Hughes Act of 1917, the law that first authorized federal funding for vocational education in American schools, explicitly described vocational ed as preparation for careers not requiring a bachelor’s degree. Vocational education wasn’t designed to prepare students for college. (Photo: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C.) Even before the Smith-Hughes Act authorized federal funding for vocational education, many schools offered vocational classes. The origins of vocational edīoys in a vocational printing class learning math, Fall River, Massachusetts, 1916. The goal was to “get people to work,” says Houle.Ĭollege was a struggle, says Houle. “And that only happened my sophomore year because it fit in the schedule.”Īcademics weren’t a priority at his vocational high school. “The highest-level math I ever had in high school was Algebra 1,” he says.

And that’s when he realized that, when it came to academics, he hadn’t learned nearly enough in high school.

But to do that, Houle needed a teaching license. He’d always been interested in teaching welding, partly because of the close relationship he had with his welding teacher from high school. He started to think about the fact that his body would give out someday. It’s “not kind to your knees and your back,” says Houle. (Photo: Bill Heisler)īut welding is tough work.

When he eventually went to college to become a teacher, he realized he hadn't gotten a very good academic education in high school.

Ernest Houle learned to be a welder at a vocational high school in Massachusetts in the 1980s.

What was it called when College students abandoned classes as an act against the Vietnam war