Career and Technical Education

CAREER AND TECHNICAL (aka vocational) EDUCATION

Don't ever discount the power of Career and Technical (aka vocational) education! 

As a high school student in Dothan, Alabama, I stopped taking honors courses my junior year and enrolled our local vocational center taking a class for half of the day. My counselor was stunned and couldn't figure out why I wanted to take vocational courses. The assumption was my "gifted and talented"-ness meant I could not reasonably choose to do something with my hands or something considered to be non-academic. Also, at the time, the schedule was such that if I chose anything vocational, I could not participate in the limited gifted options they had (and I had the challenge of testing well, asking "too many" questions, and not always making "good" grades). 

​I could not get into my first choice course (culinary arts with the incomparable Chef Lamar Black) so I went with my second choice: Graphic Communications. I learned the then emerging technology of computer design as well as how to operate a Heidelberg printing press. Year after year, I see so many times when I draw upon the lessons I learned in the course. This platinum record and my school board campaign images are a few of the many things I've created because of what I learned at DVC (the Dothan Vocational Center; now the Dothan Technology Center). We are diverse and are fully capable of the fullness of learning. Vocational education is for all students of all backgrounds. Let's get back to an oldie and a goodie.