Taking the Other Path

by Trinity Stringer staff writer

Perspectives from CTC teachers and students about engagement and real learning opportunities in schools

Teachers say that school is similar to a workplace. Being on time is a responsibility, while having good behavior is mandatory. The staff makes it known that students should feel like school is a safe place for them to be themselves. However, it’s difficult to know if schools are always giving students the most helpful resources to impact their futures. The attitudes and opinions every teacher has can cause conflict of what the focus and purpose of school should be.

As a senior here at Central, I attend the Career Tech Center (CTC) to earn credit for math and English, along with my business class. This means that when I am not in CTC, I only have three electives that I need to show up to. Doing this allows me to leave school an hour early next semester. It is a completely different environment at Central, compared to what CTC is. I have more responsibilities at my business career class, along with more independence. In my perspective, my business careers teachers are more like my bosses, or managers. They manage what I need to do, and really only give me deadlines. At Central, teach- ers are often confined to only being able to teach from the textbook and aren’t as project-driven as my CTC classes.

In addition, many of my CTC teachers define students differently than in some of my classes at Central. Julie Gauthier, a business careers teacher at CTC, has a lot of experience as a leader from her own challenges leading up to educational entitlement. “In our classroom, the students are eleventh and twelfth grade, so I try to treat students in my classroom like adults, because we are trying to prepare them for the workforce,” Gauthier discloses. There are many instances where students will give back the same respect they receive, allowing them to gain independence while still being able to ask for help, which is something that is a big part of the business careers classes in particular. “Since we are career focused, you are able to eat and drink in an office, so you are able to eat and drink here. So I try to do the same types of things that you would do in an office. Another privilege I give is, if you say you are going to go somewhere, I let you go somewhere until I find out that students are not doing what they say they are doing. That’s when those privileges could get taken away,” Gauthier acknowledges.

Other students feel the same way about the balance of personal responsibility and engagement in the classroom. “CTC is definitely more beneficial. It teaches you more. I feel like I’d be a lot more ready after high school to be able to be out in the world. And just being at Central sitting in these classrooms, just typing on a computer doesn’t really prepare me for anything,” Caleb Warren ‘24 admits. Even though some Central classes are hands-on, being around real job opportunities can be seen as a better use of time and energy. Michael George is a former Central teacher who now teaches robotics for CTC. He has had a lot of experience in knowing what students look forward to. “When I was at Central, I tried to teach programming to a class. I tried to teach java programming and other programming, too. And in the first week, half of the kids dropped out because they didn’t think it was supposed to be a hard class to be in,” George recounts. “And then I got a phone call from the principal, and he said, ‘look, if you lose one more kid, we will shut down this class.’ So I had to shift down and make it more of an elective. So that’s kind of the Central thing. But now, here, this is the place kids want to be at. They want to be in these programs, and they want to learn this stuff, and a lot of them are really hungry to learn at CTC,” George acknowledges. Because most students only want to learn about subjects they find interesting or useful for their future, this helps motivate them to want to show their skills off in a way that makes them feel different from the rest of the students who go to Central. “Sitting on a computer, just reading books and speaking about things that you don’t even want to learn about, [as] opposed to being able to take something that you really want to learn about, really helps you in life,” Warren asserts.

Because all teachers at most public schools have certain curriculums they need to apply to their classes, the subjects themselves don’t seem to be eye catching for students who view school as something they can use to help provide stability for their future selves. CTC is a college based program that allows students to prepare for college classes, while earning college credit after two years. If high schools changed their curriculums into something more entertaining for students, I feel that most would be excited to push through school to end up in a college that is similar to what they prepared for throughout their high school experience. //