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All this time in which the schools were neglecting the duty of coöperating with the young people when they were making their vocational decisions, however, an active but erroneous form of guidance was going on a species of false guidance which still flourishes. The suggestions of the street, village, city, or limited environment enter the mind of the child and influence his decisions. Uncriticised information about the successes of others, suggestions of relatives or of child companions, or newspaper and magazine advertisements of doubtful veracity aid him in reaching decisions which determine the course of his whole life. If the school is not willing that such sources of vocational misinformation should monopolize the field, it must make systematic efforts to furnish proper substitutes.

WHAT THE SCHOOLS ARE DOING

Schools in various parts of the country have already developed the elements of effective vocational guidance. If certain good plans now in successful operation could be gathered up and set into motion in any one school system, that school system would make adequate provision for guidance. Let us now examine some of these plans.

(1) THE LIFE-CAREER CLASS FORMED

Some ten or more high schools, within the writer's limited investigation, are conducting regular classes for the study of occupations. The following are some illustrations of the work being done at various places: In Oakland Technical High School, California, first-year pupils meet in classes once each week throughout the year, and, under the leadership of teachers who are making a study of vocational guidance, investigate occupations and study the problems of continued education in relation to the calling. Boys and girls are in separate classes. In Middletown, Connecticut, the life-career class has been a regular part of the high school work for several years. Recently a textbook for boys has been issued, based on the work in this school. The plan includes a study of the whole field of occupations, under ten different heads, together with discussions of the following topics: the importance of vocational information, characteristics of a good vocation, how to study voca

1 Gowin, Enoch Burton, and Wheatley, William Alonzo, Occupations, Ginn and Company, 1916.

tions, choosing a vocation, securing a position, efficient work and its reward.

Other plans are fully as comprehensive. Grand Rapids has accomplished the same result without creating new classes, the work in English composition has been directed into vocational channels, and the pupils in all the grades from the seventh through the high school have the benefit of systemetic enlightenment about the following topics: vocational ambition, value of education, the elements of character that make for success in life, vocational biographies, the world's work, choosing a vocation, preparation for life's work, vocational ethics, social ethics, civic ethics.2

The life-career class should begin much lower than the high school; it is known that a large proportion of the "leakage" from school occurs before the sixth grade. It is unfair to these children that they should be permitted to go from school into occupational life without some insight into and outlook upon the opportunities and problems about them.

(2) SCHOOL STUDIES ADAPTED TO VOCATIONAL NEEDS

Many schools which have not organized life-career classes have done excellent work in reorganizing the material in the subjects of the established program. The teacher of a lesson in arithmetic, geography, language, or science should bear in mind that each child's life presents certain actual and potential requirements of a personal, social, occupational, and civic sort, and should see that the study and experience involved in each lesson are so planned as to contribute something toward satisfying these needs. Many subjects of the school program should be almost wholly related to occupational needs, and practically every lesson in the school work has something to contribute to success and usefulness in the vocation. Occupational needs are not the only needs, but they should not be ignored. Teachers in Boston and Grand Rapids have made progress in this particular. Many teachers are using the "project" method in teaching: thus, arithmetical principles are taught in connection with "keeping store," or building a play house, and the principles of physics by putting together an automobile. Trips, visits to museums and galleries and coöperative tasks such as building a

2

• Davis, Jesse Buttrick, Vocational and Moral Guidance, Ginn and Company, 1914.

miniature landscape, dramatizing an event, or keeping the school yard clean, may be used as aids in teaching geography, history, and community civics. It has been said that lack of interest and profit in school work is largely due to the fact that the tasks assigned to children are those that no one outside of school is engaged in performing. Vocational guidance would be much more intelligently done if each child might have concrete experiences in solving actual problems.

(3) SCHOOL REORGANIZATION TO MEET VOCATIONAL NEEDS

A less direct but very important way in which the school system can adapt itself to the needs of vocational guidance is by changing its organization to suit modern needs. Kindergartens, good playground facilities, a school program rich in many different kinds of mental and manual exercises, and junior high schools with a wide range of subjects, all help the pupil to find his abilities and to measure himself against many kinds of tasks. Versatility is important; a "jack-of-all-trades" experience is a good basis for the intelligent choice of an occupation. Many school systems have in the elementary grades simple work in clay, printing, gardening, sewing, cooking, wood, and iron; and some have work in shoe repairing, electricity, cement, and bookbinding. The intermediate or junior high school, which admits children at the end of the sixth grade and keeps them for three years, offers splendid opportunity for the child's development and self-discovery. This is the "trying-out period" the time when teachers and pupils may coöperate for vocational guidance with great advantage. All pupils at this age should have a broad study of occupational opportunities.

The organization should provide, too, for individual conferences on vocational choices, and on such questions as further education, means of preparation for particular occupations, opportunities of earning money to allow the education to be continued, and preferences of parents. These conferences need be nothing more than friendly conversations, with information and advice suited to the needs of the individual. Each child may be asked to choose several occupations for special study, with tentative decision on one or two. No pupil should be asked to make his final choice of an occupation prematurely, many may profitably delay the choice until the college age. We may insist, however, that no one should be forced by economic necessity, or by the negligence of the schools, to enter a job or an occupation blindly. In the Boston schools the eighth grade teachers hold individual conferences with their pupils, aiding them especially in choosing a high school. In Birmingham, England, men and women under the general direction of the school authorities in the occupations often act as advisers of children.

Teachers who are especially qualified for the work should have time allotted them for vocational guidance. Much can be done on a volunteer basis in the beginning, but the investigations necessary to effective work require more time than the teacher can spare from her regular duties. Those appointed to do counseling should study the economic, industrial, commercial and professional life of their communities, and make efforts to coöperate with workers and employers. They should follow the children who leave school, guiding them in their progress in the occupations, and deriving from them valuable information to use in advising those still in school. Counselors may hold frequent conferences for developing good methods in the work.

Parents, too, need help and advice. In Pomona, California, the vocational director for the schools is holding a series of parents' meetings for the consideration of problems connected with the guidance of the children. The school departments in a score or more of places have each appointed some one person to exercise general supervision over the vocational guidance work of the schools. These officers assist the teachers in finding occupational values in the studies of the school program, hold teachers' conferences for the discussion of methods of vocational guidance, enlist the aid of civic associations, help in securing work, arrange for apprenticeship and part-time agreements, investigate occupations, and conduct life-career classes.

EXTRA-CURRICULAR AIDS IN VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE

The student affairs and club activities of the children give them experience which is valuable for vocational guidance. The Boy Scout and Camp Fire Girl movements acquaint their members with many kinds of useful activities not yet furnished by the schools, and they substitute projects or "merit badge" tests for formal instruction. Summer camps, athletics, debating, boys' and girls' clubs, student self-government, and literary societies all offer opportunities for learning lessons of self-reliance, service, and coöperation-valuable traits for all callings of life.

Is finding jobs for children an aid to their vocational guidance? Some school people unhesitatingly answer yes, while others think that there are far more profitable activities for the vocational counselor. Though much good argument may be found for the affirmative side of the question, and though some "vocational guidance bureaus" are concerning themselves almost wholly with placement, it seems fair to say that other activities in vocational guidance are more profitable to society and to the individual than securing places for unprepared children who leave school. The conditions of finding employment are in an unsatisfactory state, but it is by no means certain that placement by school people would relieve these conditions, nor even that the school could obtain better positions for the masses of workers than they could secure for themselves. Placement deals with the effects of maladjustments in the occupational world, and the energy of the vocational counselor should be directed at removing the real causes of the difficulty.

THE RELATION OF VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE TO VOCATIONAL

EDUCATION

Vocational education is the subject of another paper of this volume. Great strides forward have been taken during the last few years, and through this progress the efficiency of vocational guidance has been greatly increased. It is worth pointing out here, however, that vocational counseling requires certain essentials in the program of vocational education. In the first place, it is well to remember that vocational education must not begin too soon, even if it aims to help those already at work. Thus, it has been found that the pupils of the continuation schools (schools which young people at work attend during working hours for from four to ten hours per week) are most of them not ready for vocational education, for they have not really decided on a life-career and they are working at jobs which offer little opportunity for advancement. In the second place, vocational education must not be too narrowly restricted to training for the mere occupation. The reasons for this are that education for social, moral, and citizenship duties must receive ample attention; and that in spite of careful decision and careful preparation for an occupation a change in the choice of

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