The Power of Vocational Learning
Who Should Set The Goals of Education: Schools Or Students?
Ask an educator, “What’s the goal of education?” and you’ll likely receive an answer based in that teacher’s discipline. “To enable students to define and pursue the good life,” a philosopher might answer. To a political scientist, the educational system should develop an informed citizen who can participate in civic affairs. “Expand our students’ worldview to be more inclusive of all experiences” is a fine answer for literature professors. “Provide effective skills to the workforce,” economists inform us. In all of these responses, however, one thing is missing: what does the student want from their education?
Ask a real-life student why they’re a student. Will you hear, “I want to be a well-rounded citizen,” or “I want to define the good life?” More realistically, students go to school to get a professional job, or because their parents, and society in general, said they have to. Many don’t have a clear idea of their ultimate goal in education, especially if they’re not in a classroom by their own choice. In most of their classes, the student’s goal of being there is vague and indirect, more likely to fulfill an external requirement than an internal curiosity. So, what is the rightful goal of education, and whose interests should it serve? Who should decide what education looks like: the schools or the students?
From a teacher’s standpoint, the goal of education should be to empower students to achieve their goals in life. From a student’s perspective, however, the goal of education is often circular: I’m going to school so I can finish going to school. I’m doing this because I want a certificate that says I did this. The decision is also, for many years, compulsory: I’m going to school because I am legally required to do so, and my parents would kill me if I didn’t. For those who have a legitimate interest in learning, the clearest goal is self-improvement. A person becomes a student when they decide they want to become better at something. They want to do something they can’t do right now, or know more about something they don’t know enough about. So they decide to take on the role of a student, and put their trust in schools and teachers to guide them towards their goals.
A student’s degree of success relies heavily on what drove their decision to attend class or enroll in school in the first place. The most likely students to drop out of a course are those whose parents paid for their tuition and convinced or pressured them to enroll. They don’t have much personal investment in the class, financial or otherwise, so they struggle to find the motivation to succeed, or even complete the course. Even when a student is perfectly capable or even skilled in the subject at hand, courses attended involuntarily can hardly amount to much more than a needless burden to their real goals.
The students least likely to drop out, and most likely to succeed, are those who are working to support a family and pay for their tuition, but still find time to dedicate to learning. They’ve made an active, clearly motivated decision to become a student, and made commitments and sacrifices to achieve their goals. When people have consciously chosen education for strong, personal reasons, they become the ideal students in a classroom. Since the goals each student brings into the classroom are such defining factors in their success, educators should try to bring their lessons in line with student’s genuine goals as much as they can. In much of modern education, however, the student’s goals are irrelevant compared with the desired outcomes decided by institutions.
I’d like to contrast the two styles of learning environment that I’ve taught in, and the difference in goal-setting for each: the first learning environment, as represented by your standard K-12 and college classes, I would describe as “institutional.” Institutional schools have a strong opinion of what an educated person should pay attention to and study, and the subjects chosen aren’t grounded in any particular student preference or goal. Institutional environments strive to produce well-rounded students, knowledgeable in all the many classical topics of education, such as Science, Math, History, English, etc. Putting aside the tremendous difficulty of achieving this goal, the ideal of the well-rounded student doesn’t line up with human nature or economic reality.
Few people like eight subjects equally without preference, nor would they choose to split their time equally between them all. People become passionate about their favorite subjects, and if left to their own devices, would spend most of their time developing an expertise in a small number of skills. There’s a reason we admire the image of the master craftsman, dedicated to their pursuit above all others. Whether it takes 10,000 hours or not, high performance comes from focus and sustained attention, not dividing your time between as many different topics as you can fit in a single day.
Similarly, companies hire for expertise in the task at hand, not for breadth of knowledge. A person’s ability to create economic value is immensely higher when they specialize, and can contribute to society in ways that few others can. The institutional goal of a well-rounded student reduces each student’s ability to succeed in the field they eventually choose by diluting their attention and effort. Imposing many small, unrelated goals prevents students from pursuing any single one effectively. The graduates of institutional education end up being equally mediocre at many things, instead of becoming particularly good at something they like doing. This is the goal of institutional schools, to produce jacks of all trades, students like stem cells who can be placed into any environment equally.
So much for the goal of the institutional school- what are the goals of an institutional student? In many institutional learning environments, the student’s main goal is to move on as quickly and painlessly as possible. At the college I taught, my Composition courses were the first on campus to fill up on registration day. I’d love to say it was because of my brilliant teaching and insight, but if I’m being honest, it’s because I taught the least painful of the available sections of Composition. I set clear and achievable goals to be done during class time, assigned minimal out-of-class homework, and focused on the students gaining as much writing experience as they could. I also allowed freedom in choosing topics for writing exercises, and encouraged students to bring in their personal interests and goals into their assignments. While the situation wasn’t ideal, at least we were aligned in what we wanted- to get them through my class with minimal friction, while still practicing a reasonable amount of writing and incorporating their real life goals into said writings. Other than getting out of there with the credential, students of institutional schools don’t have very clear goals for their education, which goes a long way towards explaining the disappointing results of these schools.
The second learning environment, more focused on a student’s goals, I would describe as “vocational” schooling. Vocational schools enable students to follow a specific goal or calling they have already chosen for themselves. Vocational schools stick to this clear goal, and avoid content that will not help students achieve it. I currently teach at a vocational school, a computer programming school that takes in students for three months and trains them to qualify for jobs as web developers or software engineers. These schools are possible because programming is blessed with the perception that institutional education and credentials aren’t totally necessary, as long as you’ve developed the skills and knowledge required for the job.
The learning and dedication I’ve seen in vocational schools far exceeds the results gained from institutional education. The goals of the teacher and student are symmetrical: “I want to teach you the skills needed to enter this career field,” and “I want to learn the skills needed to enter this career field.” The teacher has no personal agenda to push on their students, beyond some personal preferences in the way things are done. The school as a whole does not try to push an opinion of what all educated people should know, or what other fields are important to study. The goal is determined by the student’s self-selected desire to practice in the school’s field of study, not by an institution deciding arbitrarily what students should know.
If you enroll in a vocational school, you have already agreed that their field is important, and that you will be focusing on it throughout your studies. There is no disconnect between students and the school about what should be studied or why, and everyone involved shares a common interest in the topic. Naturally, these factors encourage a harmonious and productive learning environment. A classroom of students unified around a common interest will always succeed over the classroom that enforces the enrollment of all students, including those with no interest in the topic.
One frustrating aspect of teaching general education college courses is knowing that most of your students have had over a decade of instruction in your field. At this point, explaining the rules of run-on sentences to a student feels futile- if years and years of classes on writing and grammar didn’t stick, how on earth am I going to be the one to break through? The answer lies in the student’s attitude, of course. They don’t want to learn essay writing. They never wanted to learn it, so they didn’t. And they still don’t want to learn it, so they won’t. It won’t help them achieve any goal they have set for themselves, except getting out of your class and on to the next.
Vocational education requires students to exercise the skill of choosing a goal to pursue, and developing clear plans and strategies to achieve their goal. This skill of careful choosing of goals is lacking in the institutional context, as the only measure of success is how well you can achieve the same goals as everyone else. This limits the potential of all students in their ability to identify and achieve in the field of their interest, and takes a psychological toll on those who don’t succeed in the pre-chosen goals. There is no potential to simply choose other goals, in which you might have a more natural inclination and advantage. Struggling students in the institutional system are forced to keep playing a losing hand, instead of finding a better use of their skills and interests.
For truly effective education, the decision to learn must come from the student’s personal goals. At a vocational school, the student’s goal is clearly the focus of education- there is no cajoling of why coding is important, or persistent questions of “when will I use this?” At institutional schools, the goal of an individual student isn’t as strongly considered by either the student or the school, and if a student has chosen a goal for themselves, many courses are unrelated to it.
Does it even need to be said that people work harder and are more motivated when they have a goal, especially when that goal is one they have set for themselves? Without a self-directed goal, students lack the motivation and clarity of purpose necessary for true learning success. Directing education towards a student’s goal brings greater focus to the program and lessons, and focused effort will always be more effective. It’s easy for teachers to lose sight of larger goals in the mire of grading, lesson planning, and classroom management, but none of it matters if we’re ignoring the main mission of education: to empower students to achieve the goals they set for themselves.
