Courtesy Massachusetts Child Labor Committee.
THEY NEVER KNEW A VOCATIONAL COUNSELOR.
There is a growing belief among those who are exploring the twilight zone between education and industry that what youngsters like these need is not more help in finding jobs but more and better training before they find them.
In the first place the ordinary high or vocational school offers a choice of several lines of work, and it is highly advisable to have the child make a wise choice as to the line he is to pursue. The best way is to have a general course offered at the beginning during the pursuit of which the vocational counselor studies the child and confers with the parents as to the child’s natural ability, etc. This combined judgment of counselor and parent is sure to result in a much wiser choice of work in the school than if the matter had been left to the discretion of the child, who is too immature to see the various occupations in their true relationship. Parents and counselor may meet at the school, or the counselor may go to the home. By going into the home discoveries are often made which could not have come from only seeing the child and parent at school.
During the school course it is often advisable to change a pupil from one course to another. For example, Clara Bartlett had been taking the millinery course with the intention of entering the trade on graduation. Owing to her mother’s death, she found that she must become her father’s housekeeper at the end of the school year. Accordingly, after talking the matter over with the vocational counselor, Clara changed from the millinery to the domestic science course and obtained a very good training in cooking and housewifery. The result was that when her school life was over she was able to enter upon her new work as housekeeper with a marked degree of success.
Sometimes it is necessary for a child to change from one school to another in order that he or she may receive the best training for a particular need. This implies a very close and cordial relationship between the various kinds of vocational schools in the city. Thus a girl who can give only one year to the preparation for a trade should spend that year in a school where she will get intensive work in that trade. If she is not advised, there is danger that she will spend her year in a school which offers a general course in preparation for the trade course, which will then follow in the next two or three years. In other words, it is necessary to take into consideration the girl’s outside obligations and adapt her school life to them as closely as possible.
Again, it is the duty of the vocational counselor to see that the graduates of the school are given the most auspicious start on life’s journey. This may imply definitely organized placement work or it may mean simply making recommendations. If the work of placement is definitely organized it should be done on a broad social basis, for it may mean finding a position for one girl in a millinery establishment and guiding another into a higher institution of learning.
Courtesy Massachusetts Child Labor Committee.
HE LEAPED BLINDLY
And his only school now is the school of hard knocks, his only teacher a factory boss.
If the work of placement is to be done by the vocational school, great insight into the true ability of the girl under actual business conditions may be obtained by “part time” work. For instance, Susan Williams, who is taking the course in dressmaking, was placed by the school in a near-by establishment where she spent her afternoons and Saturdays. Here she obtained a very definite idea of trade conditions, also earned a little money to help with her expenses and secured for herself by her own desirable personality and excellent workmanship a permanent position on graduation. In the same way Josephine Riley, who was taking a course in designing, was placed by the school in an embroidery shop where she did work in designing on Saturdays during the latter part of her course. She too worked herself into a permanent position for which she had demonstrated her qualifications.
Occasion often arises to provide a girl with an opportunity to earn enough money to keep her in school until graduation. Sometimes the work found is similar to that pursued by the girl in the school. Often it is not, however, for many times the girl can earn more money in some other kind of work. Frances Newton, who is taking designing, can earn more money by acting as assistant in an office on Saturdays than she possibly could in any designing establishment owing to her present limited knowledge of her trade. Thus she is tided over a financial crisis without being deprived of her school work.
