It’s true. Across the spectrum of skilled trade labor in North America, there is a shortage of people applying for jobs and the willingness to learn how to do a trade safely. People just aren’t interested in entering the tech field.
In Ontario, Canada, as a way to encourage greater enrollment into the trades, the provincial government has opted to make things easier for youth to become involved by now only needing to graduate grade 11.
It’s a win-win, right? Kids get out of the regular stream of classes and enter an apprenticeship, where they learn a trade AND earn money.
Unfortunately, the only thing it costs the kids is their youth.
The provincial government thinks this is a great idea, of course, but I am betting that most have not hung around with a group of typical 16-year-olds.
As a baseball, soccer, and hockey coach, and as a father, I have had more social interactions with 16-17-year-olds than the average non-school teacher.
I should note that I coached numerous teenage girls’ soccer teams, many mixed boys and girls baseball teams, and lots of boys’ hockey teams.
The underlying feature of each cohort is that, relative to an adult—these kids are immature little #@$%&s! Some are more mature than others—the girls, for example—but along with a lack of emotional maturity, these kids—emphasis on the word “kids”—are not even close to being physically mature.
Some of you may ask what the difference is between a Grade 11 graduate and a Grade 12 graduate, especially when a career in the trades beckons—well, I can’t provide specifics, but...
However, speaking of myself, I probably lacked maturity until I was 25 years old. I was also 5-feet tall until I was 17 before reaching nearly 6-foot in height before starting that eventual shrinkage as I got older and older.
Further, I was a year ahead, having started Grade 1 when I was still four-years- old. If given the option as a Grade 11 graduate, I could have entered the skilled trades as a 15-year-old. Would that have been a good thing?
I was a lousy student until I was 17— finally putting in an effort, my confidence grew as I physically grew.
Some people will say that it doesn’t matter if you can author a book report on a play by that Bill Shakespeare guy if you are going to enter the skilled trades profession. Yes, but To be, or not to be a trades- person: that is the question. Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them?
Aside from the punctuation, I want you to know that I memorized that bit of dialogue from Hamlet decades ago. And my son is currently going through the process of reading it.
He doesn’t know why he has to read it—except that it’s one of the greatest stories ever put to paper. What’s wrong with knowing something about that?
Now… the Ontario government isn’t trying to leave kids high and dry should things not work out.
The Ontario decision will allow students to enroll in an apprenticeship while still in high school, with the apprenticeship counting towards the completion of their high school diploma.
So you still get a high school diplo- ma—you just don’t need to learn any more Shakespeare, history, science, geography, math, or English. One only needs to learn the trades in Grade 12.
Pundits will say that it ain’t no big thing if someone doesn’t do Grade 12 proper because it wasn’t their thing anyway. Aside from saying “ain’t”, that is correct. It’s not their thing as a Grade 11 student. Because the average kid is immature. It’s why we adults make them learn things in school.
But it could become their thing. Kids mature at different rates and different ages.
Are there that many kids out there screaming that they just don’t want to do grade 12—just one more stinking year— and are these teenagers that keen on applying to the trades?
Really? There are that many kids out there saying—yes, I want to be a truck mechanic, or I want to learn how to snake a toilet? Of course, there are a few, but in the grand scheme of things—no, there aren’t.
And what of all those kids who think they want to get a head start on learning a trade and earning money? Why should they get to leave school early?
All we are doing is rewarding kids for not learning the things every one of you adults learned in high school. It’s like handing out participation trophies to every kid who plays a sport. Every kid hates those inclusive mementos. They know that they didn’t win the championship. So who are we placating? Parents.
Who are we placating with the optional Grade 11 to trade school deal? Politicians.
So-called grown-ups in both ideologies.
Our truck technician industry already suffers from the stigma that the people involved aren’t too bright. We know that’s mostly incorrect, but the public revels in the stereotype. All we are doing now is depriving people of a bit of education to quickly push them into the trades.
What if I want to learn how to be a sports therapist? Should I be allowed to essentially leave school early so that I can take college– or university-level courses?
For better or worse, this is what the Ontario government is saying.
No, we need tradespeople, so start early. No, only skilled tradespeople! You people who want to learn astronomy or be architects—you need to do all your high school and then university. And no, no one is paying you to go to school. How is that fair?
And I’m a father whose son IS going to college to become a truck or heavy-duty technician.
My son COULD have taken high school courses designed for kids not going to post-secondary education/just going to a community college, but he decided he wanted to take university-level courses.
He had previously taken a couple of non-university level courses and was bored at how easy they were. Also, he was alarmed at the emotional behavior of some of the kids in those classes. He said he would rather struggle and work harder to pass these university-level courses than have things handed to him.
There’s a maturity in my son that I did not achieve until I was eight years his senior. By the way, after years of playing soccer, baseball, and hockey and only earning participant trophies, there’s a real joy on his face when he talks about the one gold medal he won at a hockey tournament this past year—his last. He earned it as his team’s starting goalie.
Other news from Ontario, beginning in Fall 2024, notes that all high school students will need to take at least one class focusing on the following technologies:
• communications technology;
• computer technology;
• construction technology;
• green industries;
• hairstyling and esthetics;
• health care;
• hospitality and tourism;
• manufacturing technology;
• technological design;
• transportation technology.
Interestingly, the school topics listed above are general enough despite having the word “technology” in them. However, it should be pointed out that these sub- jects seem to have NOTHING to do with skilled trades.
However, I do like that it, at the very least, opens up the eyes of students to pro- spective career options.
The biggest concern is for those students pursuing International Baccalaureate (IB) degrees who are now forced to take a course they don’t want to take. It may mean they have to give up taking a course they want to take to fulfill the government technology requirement.
And then there’s the problem of finding enough teachers to teach the students these technology-specific courses.
I know of one instance this past year where a school offered a woodshop class— that had full enrollment, but when the teacher left (perhaps for a better-paying job or because they were ill), the school was unable to find a replacement teacher, meaning these kids spent class time doing online projects rather than getting their hands dirty and full of splinters.
Where will the province find the need- ed qualified, police-checked teaching personnel? And note that this is supposed to be for every high school in Ontario.
I applaud the initiative. I just question the speed at which things are being promised without the means to deliver them.
I would prefer, for maturity’s sake, that kids learn at least the basics of education regardless of their educational stream.
There’s nothing wrong in learning how to tighten a lugnut, but there’s also no need for that to supersede learning about the world... to be able to hold an intelligent conversation about things non-greasy.
If you want to encourage kids to go into the trades, provide them and their parents with an offer they can’t refuse—how about offering free enrollment? Or 75 percent off ?And do it now before I have to pay for my kid’s education.
This article originally appeared in the June/July 2023 issue of Service Truck Magazine.