Page 24 - 1923 Mayr - To Dragma

TO DRAGMA OF ALPHA OMICRON PI 209

THE VOCATION AL ADVISER IN CONTINUATION SCHOOLS
EDITH DIETZ, ALPHA

There is no division of the teaching profession in which opportunities
for work and service are increasing' more rapidly than in the field of
Continuation School work, and no position more interesting than what
is known in New York City schools as "Preparatory Class" teacher, or
Vocational adviser.

Continuation Schools now in operation in nineteen states, are designed
to furnish compulsory part-time instruction to boys and girls who have
left school without completing the course, and are employed. This tre-
mendously large group includes the mentally and physically handicapped
who could not complete an elementary course, those compelled by financial
necessity to contribute to their own support, and those to whom the
conventional elementary or high school offered nothing of interest. Some
come direct from school, some have been in industry for months before
they are discovered and brought in. Few come willingly, because school
has meant either boredom or hopeless battling with tasks unsuited to
their powers. It is the duty of the preparatory teacher or vocational
adviser, whichever the official title may be, to begin that adjustment
between the young worker and his environment which is the aim of the
Continuation School. It is from this class of children that the ranks
of industrial drifters, misfits and malcontents will be recruited unless
means are found to widen their knowledge of occupations and encourage
them to discover their aptitudes.

One of the most interesting and valuable features of the work are
the daily visits to industrial plants and commercial establishments, which
must be made to secure employment, get first-hand information about
the mental and physical requirements for various positions, judge of its
suitability for certain individuals and secure the fco-operation of em-
ployers. Training of this sort would fit one for business positions as
employment managers, plant welfare-workers, or supervisors of plant
training classes which are maintained in all department stores, many
banks, large commercial houses and industrial plants. It is difficult to
find workers with both the academic and the practical knowledge necessary
for such positions, so a person with pedagogical training and the intelli-
gence for job-analysis has many opportunities in business organizations.

But it is within the school that the greatest possibilities for interest
and service lie. If the confidence necessary for success in this work is
established in the initial interview, at registration, the boy or girl will
come back for advice or confession as long as he or she remains in the
school. New problems arise every hour, in economics, psychology, manners
and morals. What shall be said to a sixteen-year-old girl who is about
to marry simply to escape a father's tyranny; what appeal made to a
boy who prefers to be a helper on a rum-runner's truck because it is
more exciting and lucrative than operating a drill press? When one
realizes that three-quarters of the voters in the United States never get
beyond the sixth year in elementary school, so the girls will derive their
ideas of child hygiene and training, from their mothers and the boys
their economic principles from the union delegate unless some other agency
moulds their adolescence, one gets some idea of the opportunity for
service that the continuation school affords.

To qualify as a vocational adviser one needs (1) knowledge of child
psychology and hygiene, including the problems of exceptional children;
(2) study of industry, occupations, labor problems and enough of industrial
processes to understand the practical problems confronting the child on
entering industry; (3) understanding of the principles of interviewing,
investigation and the utilization of community resources; (4) teaching
experience or supervised and sympathetic observation of teaching.