Hammond Technical Vocational High School - Chart Yearbook (Hammond, IN)

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VOCATIONAL EDUCATION recognized principle of education, that without interest learning ceases, and since these boys and girls are interested in some trades, we make use of that in- terest by directing and training along the lines of the trade which appeals to them. The boy in auto mechanics, who may have shown no interest in learning arith- metic in the past, will now take an inter- est when he finds that a knowledge of that subject is necessary for the repair of a gas engine. The girl who is taking shorthand will be interested in and learn her English because that English is a tool of her trade — the stenographer. If a boy is working in the electrical shop here, it is because he expressed a desire to become an electrician, or if he is in the plumbing shop, it is because the plumbing trade appealed to him, but do not think that our objective is to make one of these boys an electrician and the other a plumber. We must put him in the shop he desires and likes to work in, in order to maintain that interest which is so essential for learning any trade, and we do it also to arouse greater interest in the academic subjects which apply to the trade, but he is constantly reminded that the world is over supplied with elec- tricians and plumbers, and that when ha goes out to find work it may l e a long time before he can get a job in this par- ticular trade. We show him how the knowledge and the training he is gaining can be applied to other trades — the new trades that are coming in with the new world of today and tomorrow — work in television, the radio, air conditioning, the aeroplanes and many others. It is also impressed upon him that his training here will prepare him for civil service ex- aminations for the many government jobs which will open under the plans of the “New Deal.” We cannot over em- phasize the fact that Vocational Educa- tion is not training to increase the over- supply of labor, but training for the future. We are making good citizens. We do not have to worry about the over-supply of labor in training our girls. They present an entirely different prob- lem. No amount of home training in the school will bring an over-supply of home- makers among the women. Neither will the training of stenographers. Hammond Tech trains its girls to become stenogra- phers, and it trains them to be good ste- nographers, but we know that any busi- ness or professional man will tell you that there is not now, and never has been, an over-supply of good stenographers. Cooking and sewing are also taught and sometimes these subjects are criti- cized as frills in the school system, and the claim made that this training in homemaking should be done by the mother and in the home. That was true in pioneer days, but the average mother of today is not training to teach, and further, the home conditions of many of the pupils in our public schools are not the home conditions of the average American home. These girls recognize that fact, and they demand the right to that training. Remember that the envi- ronment which shapes the lives of the children of Hammond, and the methods of training which are considered the best for others may be entirely unsuited for the children who are to become your future neighbors. Your school authori- ties here saw this to be true and that is one reason, one justification, for the ex- istence of Hammond Tech. Radio Speech Delivered by Director F. S. Barrows Pune Seven

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VOCATIONAL EDUCATION T HERE is a saying that a democ- racy without education is dynamite in the hands of a child, and that saying is the truth, but it is also true that the type of education which was considered when this statement was made, is not the type of education which meets the needs of all of the children of all of the people at the present time. Educa- tion today must be something more than the learning of reading, writing, and arithmetic, and the heads of your edu- cational system here in Hammond have long recognized the fact that not all chil- dren are academically minded. On the contrary, more than half of the children are motor-minded and the form of school training which appeals to one class has no appeal to the other. Now what do we mean by a motor- minded boy or girl. It is easier to answer that question with reference to boys. If your boy is training with a definite pro- fession in mind, and plans eventually to go to college, then your boy can be classed as academically minded, and the academic high school is the proper place for his training. But if he is the type of a boy who likes to go into the base- ment and use his hands as well as his head in making a radio set, or if he goes to the garage and spends his spare time working on the car — if he shows little interest in English, or Grammar, or His- tory, then undoubtedly yours is a motor- minded boy, and it was for his ltenefit that the Hammond Technical- Vocational School was organized. This school was started fifteen years ago and its development directed along lines which would make it of the great- est benefit to those children who could not profit by an academic education. It? has grown from a school of one teacher and one pupil housed in a garret room to a school of a thousand pupils and forty-four teachers, and it has entirely outgrown its present quarters, which in- clude nineteen shops and sixteen class rooms. I find that many people do not know what Vocational Education really is. Some of them think it is a development of the old style manual training depart- ments, a work shop in which pupils spend a few periods of the day in order to gain some knowledge of the use of tools or equipment which will better fit them for work around the home. But I can assure you tliat Vocational Education has noth- ing to do with manual training. Some others think of it as a Trade School where boys are trained to be machinists, car- penters, and electricians, and the girls trained as stenographers, typists, or in cooking and sewing, and undoubtedly they were correct five or ten years ago, but they are wrong with reference to the Hammond Technical - Vocational plan. Those in charge of your school system know that a strictly trade school is not needed, that it is useless to train for trades which are already vastly over- crowded. Then what is Vocational Education today as practiced at Hammond Tech? It has as its objective — the making of dependable men and women from the hoys and girls who enter it at fourteen. It recognized the fact that most of these bovs and girls have come with a definite interest in some trade that requires the training of the hands in making, as well as the mind in thinking. It is a well- Pape Six

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FREDERICK E. BENSON Business Training A. VERA EASTWOOD Shorthand Senior Class Sponsor R. MILTON WILSON Athletic Director Football Coach MARIE LANDON Co-ordinator JAMES B. CAMPBELL Plumbing ANNA MOENGEN Geography OLIVE S. BYERS Social Sciences NILO W. HOVEY Band Director GEORGE K. WELLS Delated Technical and Trade Training JOSEPHINE READ Cafeteria Director ALBERT J. PASCHBN English BLA NCH E KANSFIBLD Office Secretary WILHELM ENA HEBNBR Bookkeeping ERSKIN E CROMWELL if at hematics Senior Class Sponsor FLORENCE LAW LEI l Mathematics H. J. ASKREN Delated Science Page Eight