The Last Rung of the Ladder

Aaron Stam

Vocational education means many different things to teachers and guidance counselors in our secondary educational system. When I graduated from high school in 1992, I believed that vocational classes were for students who were not smart enough to go to college. There were the college prep kids, and there were the kids who wanted to work on cars or build houses. With my limited knowledge, I assumed only the less intelligent students would not want to go to college. I also never considered that a vocational path of studies could provide experiences that actually would benefit students who would eventually enroll in college.

I now teach at a vocational center and I know that my previous beliefs were dead wrong. There are a great number of exceptionally brilliant students who attend my vocational center every day. Unfortunately, vocational education still has a reputation with some people in the educational system that it is strictly for students who are not on a college bound path. To many of these people, vocational centers and classes are seen as places to send their challenged or at-risk students.

There is no doubt that vocational centers do get many students who score poorly in traditional academic environments. Often these students succeed and prosper in vocational centers, and use their success gained at the vocational center to serve as a springboard for finishing their academic careers with higher grades than before. But, ironically, when we have success stories like this, it tends to create a self-fulfilling prophecy that sending the “dumb” kids to the vocational center is a way to “fix” them. It is this self-fulfilling prophecy that can characterize vocational classes as being the last rung on the ladder, holding students from falling completely into academic failure.

It is these failing students who create tension and worry for many vocational educators like myself. We are torn between wanting to prepare them for a specific trade versus using our trade to help develop students into better people and citizens.

While I have had very gifted academic students in my class, they are not the norm.. I have seen many more students with class ranks in the bottom ten percent of their class than those in the top ten percent. As I have seen many more traditionally less gifted students, I have had to adapt my lessons and strategies to meet the needs of the students enrolled in my class. Instead of focusing on detailed plant physiology and scaled landscape drawings, I have simplified much of my curriculum. My science and mathematics portions cover more of the big picture and basic concepts instead of going into specific detail. I am satisfied that my students are learning concepts that are essential to success in the trade, but do wish I could increase the rigor of my class in some areas. As I have tried to increase rigor, I find many of my students actually retain less of the concepts I was covering than if I use the “big ideas” method of teaching. By simplifying many concepts in class, I help create the self-fulfilling prophecy of helping traditionally challenged students to feel more successful. My students often feel the academic success that they have never had before. I feel good knowing I am helping students succeed in learning, but occasionally the question creepings into my head: Am I covering enough? But as I reflect on my previous classes and lessons, I look back to students and situations where I know I have positively impacted students and remind myself there is more to teaching than just meeting standards.

On the first day of my first year of teaching, I sat in a chair waiting to greet my new students. I was extremely excited and nervous to meet my first class, and I had never even been in my classroom before. I had interviewed for the position just a week before school’s opening day, and had my second interview days before the start of the year. I was offered the job on the Friday immediately before class opened on Monday. My stress and anxiety levels were at an all-time high as my first student walked into my class. His name was Moe.

Moe had a broken arm and seemed to be determined to start an argument with me before any of my other students even arrived. Moe asked me a few questions like what my name was. Mr. Stam was not a good enough answer. He wanted my first name, and a lot of information I was reluctant to give to just one student sitting in an empty classroom. I assured him I would give all the students in the class my biography and if he would sit tight, he would hear it all. My first impression of Moe was not a good one. I listened to him talk about others who were going to be in my class, and he seemed to be friends with most of them. At that point I started thinking I may have made a bad decision about teaching at a vocational school in an economically challenged town.

I was also nervous because I had no idea what I was going to cover in class. I don’t just mean that first day of class, but for the entire year. My background was agribusiness and economics. I had been a grain merchandiser in the Midwest, and now I was hired to teach a class in New England covering local agriculture, forestry, floral design, horticulture and a list of other topics in which I had no formal training. Yet I was charged with providing these students with skills to help them enter the job market. I had no teaching experience.
As my students came through the door, they had no idea of whom or what to expect. My fearful expectations of a student body that looked a lot like Moe and a bunch of his friends was starting to take shape. As they walked into my room, my visual first impressions were that the kids all looked normal enough, but all of them seemed to have an edge, and all of them seemed to have common links to one another. It seemed that the common link was either being at a party over the summer, or all being at the same fight. I was not sure if my first impressions of the students were correct, but if they were, I was going to be in for a long year.

As it was my first day, I had no idea what I was going to cover in class. I decided that I would take my students outside and begin working in the nursery weeding and pruning the trees that had been planted by previous classes. As I was assigning students tools and duties, Moe looked at me and said, “I have a broken arm, and you can’t make me work. If you even try, my mom said we’ll sue the school and you.” Not knowing where to go from there I told him his broken arm was relieved of duty, but his other arm could work just like everyone else, and if he didn’t like it, he could find a new class. He complained for a few minutes, but eventually started to work. I could tell he wasn’t happy about me or his current situation, yet he continued to pull weeds with his one good arm.

Another student approached me and said he wanted to talk one-on-one. I agreed and we stepped away from the group. Andrew was tall and tattooed more than any other high schooler I had ever seen (or adult for that matter). I had been told by the director about this young man and was told he had a high potential for disaster. He told me that he wanted me to know that the last instructor of this class had been afraid of him, and that he expected me to show him respect. I laughed and said we could respect each other, and he needed to start lightening up. I assured him that I was not afraid of him and that I was sure he and I would be able to treat each other like gentlemen and have a good relationship. I also told him that I was the boss. He was free to treat me like he would treat a boss on a job site, but he needed to remember we were not equals. If he could do that, I promised him I would do everything I could to make sure he was successful in my class. Andrew smiled and patted me on the back. His exact words were “I think you’ll be alright.” We both went back to work and continued to get to know one another.

As the day wore on, I realized I had a wide variety of characters; most of them told me in long-winded stories that they had ended up in my class because they could not get into other classes and that they would soon be leaving. I was flustered. I had ten students on my first day, yet the class was considered full at 16 students. I had been hired as a part-time teacher. I had left a job where I made substantially more money, but felt drawn to the teaching profession. When I was hired I was told that if I could increase enrollment for next year’s class, my position would become full-time. I was given a simple statement by the director: Increase the number of students in the class or the class would no longer be offered, and my job would be terminated. I was afraid a mass exodus of students from my class would equal an extremely short teaching tenure for me.

After my first week, no students had left my class and I was gaining more confidence by the day. I hadn’t really pushed the kids academically yet, but it seemed to me if I could get them to work, it would be no problem to get them to learn theory and science in the near future. Soon guidance counselors began asking me if there were any openings in my class. I was also being told what great work I was doing with all of these “tough” kids. It felt great to be receiving compliments from counselors and the school’s director, especially when I really still had no idea what the heck I was doing. I was feeling like teaching “tough” kids was challenging but not as hard as I had expected.

So I inadvertently lived up to the self-fulfilling prophecy. I said I would take a few more kids, and I didn’t mind if they had limited success in their academic history. I began to believe that there wasn’t a kid I couldn’t teach. I was naïve, but as time passed over the first week or two, I believed teaching these kids was getting easier. I was sure it was easy, and I could handle just about anything. I also knew my future as a teacher was tied directly to increasing the numbers of students in my program.

I worked with my students every day, maintaining our nursery and plants in the greenhouse. I tried to build strong relationships with all of my students, trying to find out personal information and what they liked to do outside of school. The more I talked with the kids, the more they opened up to me. Their level of prior academic achievement was very low. Most of my students expressed their dislike of their academic classes and school in general. Most of them were bored with having to sit in class and perceived themselves as unsuccessful students. I asked many of them point blank if they liked my class or not. All of them responded that they did. I explained that success in their academic classes was the only way to stay in my class. I hoped that my students would begin learning how to be successful in school. I needed them to know that I wanted them to succeed in other classes and that I knew they were capable of doing so if they applied themselves. I also wanted them to know that all of their education was important to me, not just what they were leaning in my class.

Soon new prospective students showed up for an interview process to determine whether or not they were viable candidates for my program. A pulse was all it took to meet my admission requirements. I was ready to change the world one student at a time. I also was still under the impression all of this was going to be easy.

The first student who showed up for an interview had nearly as many tattoos as Andrew, and had literally pierced every body part that was visible and probably some that were not. The student, Tony, had a story that even a best selling author could not have created. He had gone through the tragic death of his father a few years before. His father had been a well respected man in the community and had fought cancer over a number of years. His mother had suffered greatly through his father’s cancer and had several health problems and other problems of her own. After his father’s death, his older sister became his best friend and was the one who held the family together. She was smart, pretty and generally extremely popular with everyone who knew her.

About a year after the death of his father, Tony watched as his sister was hit by a truck while walking down the side of the road. The truck sped away leaving his sister near death on the side of a county road in rural, southern Maine. His sister was hospitalized for months, in and out of comas, on the brink of death, over and over, but eventually survived. She was left in a vegetative state, with limited brain function and paralysis through most of her body. His mother, who was struggling now with her own health and emotional issues, had to spend all of her time tending to her daughter.

At this point Tony began a lot of his self destructive behavior. There were drugs and self mutilation, not including the piercings and tattoos. His behavior at his sending school bordered on riotous and he had been suspended several times for a variety of reasons. His guidance counselor told me I was the last chance he had before he left school, and once he left school, he would certainly end up in jail or dead. I would be keeping him from falling into a life of problems and certain increased hardships. I interviewed him for my class, and he told me he needed to do something besides sit in his academic classes. He was well-spoken, and realized he was in a bad place at his current school, but seemed to realize it was crucial to his father’s memory for him to get a diploma. He assured me he would work hard and behave.

I still believed working with tough kids was easy. I accepted him into my program and expected I would continue to sail smoothly through my first year of teaching.

Over the next several weeks I began to feel a change in my beliefs about educating the students in the class. My curriculum moved to a higher level of student involvement in the science of plants and the operations and maintenance of greenhouses and nurseries. I began covering chapter after chapter in our textbook, and very few students were actually doing the work at what I considered acceptable levels. I couldn’t understand why my students were not interested in learning more about the industry. I thought they were being lazy.

It never occurred to me that the students could not read the book. Two years later, a new director of the school had all of our texts scored for Lexile scores and my book was one of the highest in the school. In looking back at my students reading abilities, there was not a single student from my first year class who was at level or higher than our Horticulture text.

So I began doing less text work and more hands-on work to try to keep my students busy and engaged in activities in class. I’m not sure if they were learning all the theory that they should have, but we were doing good work in the nursery, good work in the greenhouse, and my students were excited to get started working most mornings. I began inquiring with various guidance counselors and support staff about my class. One of the school’s drug counselors summarized what he thought my job should be. I don’t remember the exact quote, but it was something like: “A class like yours is the last rung of the ladder trying to keep these kids from falling completely off the ladder of life.” That phrase has always stuck with me.

As my frustration levels with the students’ lack of academic success increased, I was in for another realization about the nature of my students and the impact my class was having on them. Many of my “tough” kids were trying as hard as they had ever tried before in any class. It took me some time to figure it out, but Tony, who often scored in the 50-60 percent range on tests and quizzes, was working harder than ever before. His guidance counselor commented that she had never heard of him studying prior to my class, and that now he was at least attempting to pass. Moe was failing in many of his academic classes but had a solid B in my class. Andrew was failing all of his academic classes and was solid with a C+ in my class.

It is this success that creates a paradox for many vocational teachers. As vocational education is still often viewed as the last resort for troubled students, vocational educators try extremely hard to find environments and means for students to be successful in their classes. As Tony, Moe, and Andrew were all successful in my class, their guidance counselors seemed to collectively say, “Look, these kids made it through vocational; I have a lot more troubled kids on my roster who don’t do well in traditional academic classes. Let’s send them to voc.” And vocational again becomes the last rung on the ladder, trying to hold students in school, keep them on track to receive a diploma, and keep them from dropping out.

At first glance, to someone unfamiliar with vocational training, all of these things may sound good. But vocational training often prepares students for trades that have extremely complicated technical reading and writing required for the trade. Trades-people look to vocational centers to graduate highly skilled potential employees for their trades. Vocational education is constantly stuck between wanting to serve students who are traditionally at risk or left behind in our educational system, and wanting to teach skills which make students directly employable in a given trade.

There can be a happy medium, where tough students are given a different environment at school and can thrive, but there are many students who are pushed into vocational schools as their last chance and do not have the ability to function at industry levels. I have struggled with wanting to prepare my students all to be college bound or qualified to go directly into industry, and have weighed that against giving students an environment in school that may actually keep them in school , which can play such a positive role in their lives.

I have found myself starting to accept my place at the bottom of the ladder. I have increasingly realized that giving a student an opportunity to break free from his or her traditional school, and hopefully begin to look at school in a positive light, really does serve a great value in a democratic society. By keeping these students in school, and giving them a taste of success in the classroom, we are preparing them for a life outside of the school system. More contact hours with responsible adults and people who are generally concerned with their best interests can only help foster more responsible and mature students who will leave school and enter society as productive citizens.

I am happy to say that after two years of having Tony, Moe, and Andrew in my class, they all graduated from high school. All of them are gainfully employed today, and I see two of them on a regular basis. I have given advice about finance, cars, and life in general to all of these students since they have left my class. None of them are employed in trades we covered in class, but I look at my interactions with them as successful. If being the last rung of the ladder can give me the satisfaction of watching more young men like Andrew, Moe and Tony develop, that’s just fine with me.

Discussion Questions:

1.What are the trade-offs in being the “last rung on the ladder” for kids who are in danger of dropping out of school? Should vocational teachers argue not to be a choice of last resort? Or should they accept the students who come to their class and adjust their practices and standards accordingly?
Who is served by adjusting standards so that students with limited abilities can feel as if they are thriving? Is it ethical to lower performance standards in order to give students who have not fit in or belonged anywhere in school a home that they feel comfortable in, so that they can have real, positive, educational experiences?
Enrollment in an elective class can mean the difference between being able to teach the class and having the class cancelled. Lower standards can mean greater enrollment and higher standards can mean lower enrollment. What decision would you make if there were a possibility of having your class cancelled?

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