Breaking Down the Educational Dichotomy Between Those Who Work with Their Hands and Those Who Work with Their Minds
by Jacqueline Darvin
Queens College – City University of New York

“The rhetoric of social thought and political practice expresses in part our hopes and dreams. Yet it reveals, even more, the ideas and beliefs we take for granted: that is, our unexamined presuppositions” (Toulmin, 1995, 152).

“The field site can no longer be considered simply the physical or geographical location of the study; it is also the place where geo-political vectors of power crosscut the cultural terrain in the investigation” (McLaren, 1999, 265).

The trend of noting the political elements that surround ethnographic data is one that has been written about by several researchers. Agar, for example, (1996) believes that “ethnography in the modern, or postmodern, era. . . has to deal with ethnographic detail as part and parcel of political economic process. . . . It has to deal with issues of power as well as context and meaning. . . Ethnography is now understood to be part of a political process, with the ethnographer playing an active role whether he or she likes it or not” (50).

Like all teachers, I am confronted with political issues in my classroom on a daily basis. I cannot come to work in the morning without being challenged by one political issue or another. On national and state levels, students are being bombarded with high stakes tests and workplace writing assessments. Many of them react by writing expressive protests against these reductionist examinations. I have collected several of them and continue to be impressed by their candor and ability to make their feelings known. During the seven-year study I conducted on literacy practices in a vocational high school, many white, middle class students confided in me that they were discouraged from attending vocational school because their guidance counselors, parents or teachers did not think vocational placement was appropriate for them. Conversely, black and Latino students spoke to me about being forced into programs that they really did not want to take and being steered away from others. Politics is particularly intense in vocational schools because of all of the societal issues that are played out within their walls. I wrote about several of these issues in my 2001 English Journal article “Beyond Filling Out Forms: A More Powerful Version of Workplace Literacy.”

“The dominant class, deaf to the need for a critical reading of the world, insists on the purely technical training of the working class, training with which the class should reproduce itself as such” (Freire, 1996, 83).

“Literacy itself can be understood only in its social and political context, and that context, once the mythology has been stripped away, can be seen as one of entrenched class structure in which those who have power have a vested interest in keeping it” (Stuckey, 1991, vii)

Occupational Discrimination
The politics surrounding vocational education are the same politics that affect other working class kids because, for the most part, vocational students come from working class families. Although there are some vocational students from middle and upper class backgrounds, the majority of vocational students are not from these socio-economic groups. The politics that impact vocational students are a combination of the politics that impact foreign-born students, minority students, females, and working class students. In addition, vocational education has an added political element that I will refer to as occupational discrimination because of the kinds of educational programs vocational schools deliver. It is only through examining some of the political influences on vocational education that we can begin to understand vocational schools, students and teachers.

Day (2001) summarizes some of the political issues surrounding vocational education in his discussion of this parallel system in France, “Technical and vocational schools in particular stand at the intersection of numerous, often contradictory, discourses in a hierarchical educational system that directs young people into higher or lower levels, often according to social origins. . . . They provide the possibility of social and professional advancement while confirming the marginal status of their mainly lower class clientele; they are often depicted as ‘bridges to success’ that achieve meritocratic objectives of social justice and equality, but in practice often reinforce class distinctions, racial stereotypes, and gender inequality” (6).

Preparation for Wage Labor
“The difficult thing to explain about how middle class kids get middle class jobs is why others let them. The difficult thing to explain about how working class kids get working class jobs is why they let themselves” (Willis, 1977, 1).

Finn (1999) believes that children in working class schools develop “a relationship to the economy, authority, and work that is appropriate preparation for wage labor – labor that is mechanical and routine,” and that they engage in “relentless ‘slowdowns,’ subtle sabotage, and other modes of indirect resistance similar to that carried out by disgruntled workers in factories, sales floors, and offices” (12). In several of the vocational classes I observed, students were required to punch a time clock when they entered and left the classroom. Although I understood that the instructor was doing this under the pretense of instilling a sense of responsibility and punctuality in the students, I shuddered at this “working class” practice. Practices such as these send messages to students that they will always have to punch time clocks at work, so they may as well start getting used to it now. The only positions that require workers to punch time clocks are those for which workers are paid hourly and have few opportunities to exercise self-directed problem solving and independent thought in the workplace. Not surprisingly, as Finn’s quote suggests, the students in these classes developed complex techniques to “cheat the clock” and in one instance even went so far as to vandalize it when a substitute teacher was present.

“In middle class professions it is clear that the yearly salary is paid in exchange for the use of continuous and flexible services. Remuneration here is not based on the particular amount of time spent on the job and of course those ‘on the staff’ are expected to work overtime and at home for no extra cash. Such workers, their wage form makes clear, are being paid for what they are: for the use of their capacities, for their general potential as managers, accountants, etc. The social implications of the weekly wage packet are very different. The general capacity of labour power which is recognized by the salary form is here broken up into weekly lumps and riveted to a direct and regular award. Weekly wages, not yearly salaries, mark the giving of labour. The quantity of the wage packet is the quantitative passing of time” (Willis, 1977, 131).

What is so important about this concept of time is that in the case of vocational students, they often begin to see school as “putting in time” as the predecessor to work as “putting in time.” They often attempt to free themselves from this feeling by acting out behaviorally in classes or leaving the school building entirely. Willis (1977) associated counter-school culture as being partially a protest against the rigidity of the working class view of time. He wrote, “Though it must not be exaggerated we can see elements of the counter-school culture not only as cultural penetrations but as a limited defeat of this dominant sense of time. The culture in its most successful informal direction of its members timetables, and subversion of the official one, is directly freeing space for cultural activities but is also rejecting artificial order and gradualist patterns of bourgeois time” (135). This resistance to “putting in time” is a catch-twenty-two. Are students placed in vocational education because they do not do well in school or do students not succeed in school because of their placement? 

Rose (1989) describes vocational education as being “aimed at increasing the economic opportunities of students who do not do well in our schools” and characterizes the vocational track as “most often a place for those who are just not making it, a dumping ground for the disaffected” (26). During his time as a vocational student (he later was promoted out of the vocational track), Rose became aware that students “take on with a vengeance the identity implied in the vocational track” (29).

The Fallacies and Dangers of the School-to-Work Movement
The concept of vocational schools being designed to increase the economic opportunities of students who won’t be successful elsewhere has very dangerous political undertones. It is this philosophy that underlies the School-to-Work Movement, a political movement that I believe to be one of the most detrimental to vocational students.

Jonathan Kozol, in a keynote speech delivered at NCTE’s Annual Convention in 1998, spoke about the School-to-Work Movement and its potential dangers for working class students. He believes “The movement known as School-to-Work is going to increase savage inequalities, unless it’s monitored and governed with extraordinary caution. Because this whole agenda is a targeted agenda, aimed at inner city kids who are believed to be incapable of higher academic work in universities and colleges. . . The children in the suburbs are being taught to value the dignity of being brain surgeons, while the inner city kids are being taught to value the dignity of emptying the bedpans in the hospital -- and that’s the truth of it!”

This movement has also targeted vocational students and has created yet another billion-dollar opportunity for publishing companies. Many vocational schools purchase highly scripted School-to-Work materials for their students and buy into the illusion that these materials are going to help students make smooth transitions from high school to the world of work. These “workplace literacy” textbooks give clear indications of what many School-to-Work advocates consider “functional literacy” to be. They are filled with skill-and-drill lessons on how to properly fill out forms, time sheets, telephone messages, packing slips, and purchase orders. Students are rarely asked to read whole texts or do any writing that requires analytical problem-solving or expressive abilities (Darvin, 2001). Movements such as School-to-Work are “used to disguise racism and class discrimination in our school system and, worse yet, are sealed with a congressional stamp of approval” (Darvin, 2001, 36).

The Dichotomy - 
Those Who Work with Their Hands and Those Who Work with Their Minds
Henry Ford, an icon in American industry, was known for his belief that certain people should be paid to think, while others should be paid to do physical work. This school of thought is still alive and well in many educational institutions, despite the attempts of some vocational schools to break the dichotomy down. I believe that one of the reasons why it is so difficult for vocational schools to successfully integrate academics and vocational learning is because many people genuinely believe that these disciplines are intended for very different types of people. A perfect example of this perceived dichotomy can be seen in remarks that were made by a New York State Senator at a vocational school building dedication ceremony on December 10, 2002.

“I remember all the careers and all the different arguments that faculty members would have and some would say, ‘Well, you know the kids that are going into these careers are not the bright ones. They’re not going to be physicists. They’re not going to be atom smashers. They’re not going to build rocket ships to the moon.’ And my answer was, quite simply, if we can’t have people who know how to repair cars, who know how to repair those rocket ships, who know how to build what we have to build, who are good carpenters, good plumbers, good electricians, who understand what careers are other than the, you know, so-called academic careers, this world is not going to be balanced and it’s not going to be a good place to live.”

Although the senator intended these remarks to show his support of vocational education, I doubt that he realized what they imply about vocational students’ abilities with regard to integrating academic knowledge with their vocational training. He emphasized the dichotomy again when he commented about auto mechanics, “There need to be people trained to do that kind of work -- to fix those vehicles. Somebody has to do this work and I can’t do it.” I think the senator’s comments put into words what many good-intentioned people believe about vocational education; that it’s good for those people who are not academically inclined (“Not that there’s anything wrong with it”).  My question to the senator and others who think as he does is, “Why can’t our students understand physics and build rocket ships? Why must the two forever remain separate?”

References
Agar, . H. The Professional Stranger: An Informal Introduction to Ethnography (2nd ed.). San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 1996.

Darvin, J. “Beyond Filling Out Forms: A More Powerful Version of Workplace Literacy.” English Journal 91.2 (2001 November): 35-40.

Day, C. R. Schools and Work: Technical and Vocational Education in France Since the Third Republic. Montreal, Canada: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2001.

Finn, P. Literacy with an Attitude: Educating Working-Class Children in Their Own Self-Interest. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1999.

Freire, P. Letters to Christina: Reflections On My Life and Work. London, UK: Routledge, 1996.

Kozol, J. “Keynote Address.” National Council of Teachers of English Annual Convention. Opryland Hotel, Nashville, TN. November 1998

Marcellino, C. Address at Building Dedication Ceremony. Joseph M. Barry Career and Technical Education Center, Westbury, NY. 10 December 2002.

McLaren, P. Schooling As a Ritual Performance: Toward a Political Economy of Educational Symbols and Gestures. Lantham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1999.

Rose, M. Lives On the Boundary: A Moving Account of the Struggles and Achievements of America's Educationally Underprepared. New York: Penguin Books, 1989.

Stuckey, J. E. The Violence of Literacy. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1991.

Toulmin, S. “Jobs, Human Welfare and Social Production.” Dalhousie Review, 75 (Summer/Fall, 1995), 152-170.

Willis, P. Learning to Labor: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs. New York: Columbia University Press, 1977.