Besides greater use of community resources and increased participation by students in local affairs, all the member schools are concerned with the problem of preparing young people to earn a living. In the private schools, which send almost all graduates to college, this problem is not as immediate or insistent as it is in the large public school. However, the student who goes to college with a well-defined vocational interest profits thereby, even if he changes his choice of career while in college.
The reader will recall the fact that of six who enter junior high school three drop out before completing senior high school; and of the three who graduate, only one goes on with formal schooling. For five out of six, then, getting a job upon leaving school is the number one problem. For millions of them there were no jobs. There were few places for them in our economic life. The nation's defense program now provides work for them. They are needed now. Will they be needed when our defenses are completed? Whatever employment conditions are at any time, the school admits the inescapable responsibility of helping all six-the five as well as the one-to prepare for economic self-support and useful service to the community.
Few schools anywhere have met this responsibility fully. All of the Thirty Schools have developed more effective procedures in vocational guidance. In many, places this includes the study of vocations, conferences with leaders in various occupations, and direct investigation of conditions under which men and women earn livings. One school holds an annual three-day conference on vocations in which pupils, parents, and teachers participate.15 Another, a Jai-go public high school, arranged for each senior to work each afternoon for six weeks in the vocation which he hoped to follow.16 Students left school at noon and worked until closing time on the job. Their school work was related as closely as possible to the job experience. In most cases this work experience confirmed students in their vocational choices, but for some it served to reveal lack of aptitude or distaste for the chosen work-, thus making possible another choice before it was too late. A somewhat similar plan, cited previously in this chapter, 17 helps students in another of the Thirty Schools to find jobs before leaving school.
One of the most thorough-going curriculum developments designed to help young people get ready to earn a living is found in a public high school" which sends less than 20 per cent of its graduates to college. A faculty investigation revealed that all the others were under the necessity of getting jobs promptly. The teachers learned also that almost all graduates of earlier classes had married within three years after leaving school. With these facts before them, the teachers declared that the school must prepare these boys and girls for the two great steps just ahead: making a living and establishing a home.
The result was that the study of these two topics became the core curriculum of the senior year. The problems approach was used and the units of the course were stated in the form of student questions, such as,
How do men and women earn their living in this city and region?
For what general field of work am I best fitted by ability, aptitude' and interests?
How does one go about getting a job? How can I hold one when I get it? What causes failure?
How can I learn and grow by means of my job?
What shall I do with the money I save?
How can I use my free time profitably without much cost?
Other questions relative to marriage and home are considered and the concluding unit is "Finding Meaning in Life."
To find answers to their questions the boys and girls made first-hand investigations in the community, consulted authorities, and read extensively. The reading lists contained many ]looks for pupils of limited reading ability, but it included, also, many mature volumes that would challenge the best thought of the ablest high school student.
Instances such as these that have been cited indicate the importance which the Thirty Schools attach to vocational preparation. Some of the schools have taken the position that the work of the secondary school is not completed until each student is satisfactorily established in employment or in college. To achieve this they are ready to continue to serve youth in many ways far beyond the usual time of graduation from high school.
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8 Year Web Project
Introduction
III Curriculum-Needs
Traditional
