At the June 20^th lunch meeting of the Gator Exchange Club (www.gatorexchange.org), we had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Ed Prevatt, a senior manager with the National Center for Construction Education and Research (www.nccer.org).  Ed has been an educator for 18 years at The Loften High School and specializes in teaching at-risk kids that are often only a small step away from dropping out.  Ed has also worked in the construction industry for 30 years, which provided us a unique perspective on how education affects today’s youth and their ability to transform their technical training into successful careers.  When most Americans measure the success of our students on their ability to graduate high school and enter the University system, Ed measures success in an individual’s ability to obtain skill levels that, more often than not, do not require a college degree.

He started by pointing out that most kids want to be successful.  High school students don’t drop out because of their lack of desire to be successful; they often drop out because they haven’t been given the chance to match their interests and the personal understanding of what they wish to do, with what they are being told they must do to succeed by very rigid guidelines.  After all, how many students really find Shakespeare interesting?  If the school system would spend more time getting students to read things they are interested in, instead of the things that seem like a chore, then maybe more would take an interest in reading and learning.  After all, isn’t the goal to be able to read, not just to read Shakespeare?

Ed, having spent much of his life in construction, pointed out that it is an incredible “time to acquire wealth in the construction industry” and that there are not nearly enough craft workers available to support the needs of the industry.  He posed the following question to the Gator Exchange club members and their guests: If in 1950 20% of the jobs needed college degrees, how many jobs need college degrees in today’s market?  Several club members suggested answers ranging from 40% to 75%.  The club was stunned to learn that today only 20% of the jobs available in America still require college degrees. The number of jobs requiring college level education has not changed in over 50 years.  Only our perception of the idea of needing a college education leading to successful job opportunities has changed.

Today 15% of the available jobs require unskilled laborers and 60% of jobs require learned skills that often have a licensing requirement beginning with classroom training not conducted in a college environment.  Only twenty years ago 60% of the jobs available required unskilled labor, making this one of the most significant employment changes of the twenty first century.  We need to educate the men and women teaching today’s youth that students do not necessarily need a college degree, but they almost always need to learn a skill.  Those learned skills often lead to very successful and rewarding lifetime careers.

It may be more important to have our high school students do a book report on the history of construction instead of the fictional works of Shakespeare. Isn’t it more important to teach our youths to learn skills using relationships that will show them how what they are being taught today will benefit them in the future?  With 60% of the industry jobs available in the US requiring a specific technical expertise, instead of a college degree, then we should be more concerned with teaching someone how to think and react on the job to support the ever changing needs of our country and the people that make it “the best country in the world.”  Our educators need to get away from focusing their teaching efforts on the interests of school boards and politicians.  Instead let’s get them to focus on the needs of the student and their interests and how education can help them succeed in a job market that does not usually require the focus of college graduate level individuals.

Ed ended his presentation to the Gator Exchange Club by sharing his experience with a young man that he had in his class 10 years ago.  This student, Ernest Jackson, was a typical at-risk 10^th grader that was being transferred to his class at the Loften High School from East Side High School.  Earnest was a typical angry, moody, and unsatisfied young man whom was no longer paying attention in any of his classes.  He didn’t understand the need for the education he was being forced to endure. 

As often is the case, it is usually easier for most of our educators to get rid of the troubled kids so they can focus on those who are interested in the traditional approach of our public education system.  What Ed quickly learned about Earnest is that, although he was angry at traditional education and his forced adherence to traditional education that he believed wasn’t doing him any good, Earnest was truly a very articulate, intelligent, and often fun-loving young man. 

After Earnest’s first term at Loften, he participated in a summer work program in the construction industry with Ed.  That summer changed young Earnest’s entire attitude about learning in the classroom.  Earnest was able to understand, through Ed’s mentorship, how the education he was getting in the classroom translated into helpful job skills in the workforce. 

Ed has subsequently kept in touch with Earnest over the years and has watched young Earnest grow into a successful contractor who now lives in Hawaii.  Earnest sent Ed an email with pictures of his recent vacation to Thailand.  Earnest had remembered a video that Ed played in his classroom about Elephants in Africa being used to harvest teak logs.  Ed had used this video to evoke in his students an understanding of the amount of skill and labor that goes into the manufacture of products that eventually make it into our homes.  The pictures Earnest sent were of him standing next to two of those teak logs being harvested. 

Earnest Jackson, a troubled high school student who was sent to a drop out intervention program, had become so successful that he could afford vacations in other countries. He was also moved by the education he received to show his mentor and high school teacher that success is not always achieved through what most Americans have come to know as a traditional college education, but through hard work and the learning of job skills that made him the man he has become today.