Good morning, I didn’t come to the forum yesterday 
but I hope you all are having a restful holiday season, whether you like or dislike Tom Selleck and the Queen, and I sure am looking forward to a better 2021.
Thanks for all your contributions, and glad to have been able to spend all these years around here to get to know you a bit.
Carolyn
When I was a child and then a teenager, I remember gazing longingly at the Hawks in the showroom of the local Studebaker dealership. When they put an Avanti on display, I was over the moon. After the corporation ceased car production, the dealership shut down, but the two brothers who had owned the dealership bought a Sinclair gas station and you could always see an incredible assortment of Studebakers there, brought in by their customers who remained loyal for servicing and repair.
After my father decided that he could no longer deal with the crazy guy who ran the Plymouth dealership, we began taking our Plymouth to that Sinclair station for servicing, and the two “Studebaker brothers” were honest, competent, and pleasant to deal with.
After being vacant for a few years, the old Studebaker dealership became the site of a factory and showroom for high-end artificial Christmas trees, so I still had an opportunity to visit, even though the Studes were gone.
@VDCdriver I was in high school when the Studebaker Hawk hit the showroom. I was really impressed. When I was in my second year of graduate school in 1963, the Studebaker Avanti was produced. I was home on break and my dad had purchased a new Studebaker Lark. It had a manual transmission and a V8 engine. It was a fast car for its day. I went with my dad when he took his Studebaker in for its first oil change and the dealer had two Avantis. I thought the Avanti was the most advanced car in 1963. Of course, it was way out of my price range at about $3500.
The car that was almost in my price range was a brand new bottom of the line Studebaker Lark on the showroom floor with an out the door price of $1495. I thought I could come up with $500. My dad was willing to loan me $1000. Then he started looking at other new Studebaker Larks and thought I should have something better than the strippo model. I didn’t want to owe money, so I decided to keep my old car.
Back in the day my high school had auto shop, metal shop, wood shop, drafting, print shop and photography (taking and developing pictures) as well as classes in home economics and office work.
All of these programs were a choice one made as a sophomore after introductory classes. You’d rotate between print shop, metal shop, wood shop, drafting to find your talent and interests. Auto shop, and office work were more encompassing than the others.
And they had college prep, honors and AP classes.
The idea that not everyone goes to college but still needed skills to be employable was an accepted norm. None of those manual skills programs exist in my old high school today… and sadly… the graduation rates as well as the percentage of students moving on to college have drastically dropped.
At the school where I was on the faculty, we had an auto shop, a print shop, a metal shop, and a drafting class. At one point, when the administration wanted to add a weight-lifting/fitness room, the auto shop was eliminated and that space became a phys ed facility. The metal shop program was eliminated, and that room became a wood shop. What probably didn’t help to preserve the auto shop program was that the last two auto shop teachers whom we had were incompetent.
About 25 years ago, NJ introduced a requirement that students had to complete one year of “fine, practical, or performing arts” in order to graduate. Students could satisfy that requirement by taking a shop class, a music class, a drama class, a visual art class, or a computer class.
When I was in high school in the mid-80’s, we had all those classes. Taking at least one semester of a practical arts was mandatory in junior high as well. Starting in 8th grade I signed up for Graphic Arts (printshop). By my senior year I was in the print shop 2 periods a day and was the shop foreman. We taught hand typesetting from a CA job case, we had 2 linotype machines, 2 Chandler and Price platen presses, a vertical press. We printed all the tickets for our sporting events and dances and many of the items needed for the school.
Our school newspaper came out every 2 weeks and we did all that in house–we had a darkroom to make our own negatives then we would etch the plates for our offset press to print them. Quite an accomplishment for a high school class. When my Economics teacher’s mother died we printed the funeral programs as a courtesy. We were that serious.
We also had a pretty decent auto shop, but somehow I never signed up for that. Kind of funny, I’ve made a lifelong career as a mechanic and never had any formal schooling in my field.
You’re not kidding
For a long time now, the message has been to get every kid enrolled in a 4-year college
That’s a total denial of the facts that not all kids are going to be a smashing success in college.
And that’s not meant to imply that these kids can’t cut it.
It means that a college degree shouldn’t necessarily be the goal for every single kid
it’s not the only path to “success” . . .
I’m sure many of us regulars would be great auto shop teachers . . . that was not a joke, by the way
There’s plenty of us on this forum who can talk the talk and walk the walk.
In my experience, a person who’s literally been there and done that can often earn the respect and attention of kids . . . as opposed to somebody with a teaching credential who might be the smartest guy in the world, but hasn’t actually “done” what he’s teaching
During my 3-1/2 year apprenticeship, I personally had the greatest respect for those instructors who had pulled themselves up by their boot straps, as opposed to those who’d spent a lifetime in the classroom, but never got their hands dirty. And I wasn’t the only kid who felt that way . . .
Same here . . .
my 3-1/2 year automotive apprenticeship came several years after high school . . . after spending time doing other things.
But that’s common, too. I know several guys that are doing just fine now, after taking several years to get things out of their system and figure out what they are . . . and are NOT . . . good at
And that’s part of the reason why I’m somewhat disappointed that “the message” is that every kid needs to be enrolled in a 4-year college.
College costs money and time . . . even if it’s an affordable community college. And I’m sure it’s a common scenario that a kid spends several years in college, racks up debt, only to eventually discover that his best path forward lies in a different direction. But the debt remains and will hang over his head for a long time to come . . .
One of those kids was a friend’s son. Both Mom and Dad had college degrees and pressured the kid to go to college (and accumulate debt). The kid graduated but has taken a different employment path that needed no degree. The parents felt bad after a heartfelt discussion and are paying off the student loan. I applaud their decision to accept responsibility.
at least he graduated and got the degree
Many kids wash out and have nothing to show for themselves except the debt . . .
Well, that message didn’t come from me as a high school counselor. I lost count of how many parents told me over the years that their kid “had to” go to college, even if he/she had shown little if any interest in higher education. I would point out that their child could carve out a very good career as a plumber, or a mechanic, or a draftsman, or…, but all too many parents were insistent that their kid “had to” go to college.
One set of parents decided that their son was going to be a Pharmacist, by hook or by crook. After they spent a LOT of money on his first year tuition, he was finally able to convince them that this wasn’t what HE wanted to do. True story… He is now my mechanic of choice at the Subaru dealership, and he appears to be happy.
Are you kidding…there are schools dedicated to those subjects at the high-school and college level.
That’s how I got where I am. As a high school kid I had a part time job at the corner garage. I wanted to go to college and become a teacher, and fortunately for me my family was able to provide financial resources to do that. But I still needed to eat. So I found a job at a service station with a garage, evenings and weekends.i worked 32 hours a week all through college. I was able to learn a great deal mechanically, and was entrusted to do the daily books and banking on the weekends.
By the time I was 22 and finished my Bachelor’s, I was assistant manager at the shop. While I was watching my friends move back with mom and dad I had a job that paid me a living wage, 2 weeks vacation, medical and dental. I figured I would keep working for a year or two while I decided what my next step would be. Next thing you know…
+1
Additionally, many–perhaps most–states have county vocational-technical schools dedicated to those types of hands-on career training programs.
We have a Vocational High School that was founded as part of the Tumwater school district but has offered 20+ other schools in the area an option for Auto Repair, Collision Repair among the list of programs. Students can earn credits at the community college or one of the nearby Technical colleges at the same time.
And a better 2021 to you as well,