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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Exeter Times-Advocate, 1968-05-30, Page 10There are individual welding booths for the boys' occupation shop students and Gord McDonald is shown here doing some arc welding. The students spend two years in the class, learning various trades they can pursue. Iferead Ofteg qoade See the displays in all departments &see ea* and &floe, tlse 446eceee Tech courses 'as modern as tomorrow Tly W, FYPENCHilic Technical Director The newest and POSSibly the most expensive addition to the vast, educational com- plex making up South Huron District High SCI1001, is the technical, department. R consists of seven tech- nical teaching areas which include the Drafting Room, /Building Construction room, Applied Electronics Labor- atory, Applied Electricity room, Machine Shop, Auto Mechanics Shop and the Boys Occupational Training Shop. I will not elaborate on the courses offered in the tech- nical department, since this information will be explicitly presented by the technical teachers themselves. I am however very happy to relate that the technical courses offered to the stu- dents at South Huron are, d‘as modern as tomorrow". I am also very happy to inform you, the taxpayers and parents, that the quality of the tools, instruments and machinery in the technical department is second to none in the province, with regard to comparable schools. Two types of technical courses are offered at South Huron, the four-year and the five-year technical course. The four-year technical course is offered to students who are mechanically inclin- ed but do not plan to go to university. Students taking this course, will "sample" all six technical subjects in grade 9 and 10. At the end of grade 10, they will choose the technical subject in which they plan to specialize for the next two years. In addition to carrying on with their regulaeacademic work, the l‘tech, spec ial- ists'? spend 16 periods per week in grade 11 and 12, tudYing the major technical subject which they chose to sPecialle. They spend ap- proximately 50% of their time studying theory and the other 50% is spent on prac- tical work based on the the- ories studied. It is quite obvious that the technical courses actually Present a new concept in eduation "The Head and Hand Approach To Learn- ing". Upon successful comple- tion of the four year tech- nical course, the student has various avenues of endeayor open to him. He can become an apprentice, which is a rather unique, "Earn While You Learn", scheme in be- coming a highly skilled and highly paid tradesman, or he can take further training at a community college and graduate as a technician or technologist. There are also avenues open to the ambitious four- year technical graduates to proceed to university and be- come engineers. The five-y e a r technical course is similar to the four- year course. The course content involves more the- ory, problem solving and research and less practical work. This course appeals to five-year students who plan to attend Institutes of Tech- nology or proceed to univer- sity to study engineering. It enables the student to learn and develop more in-. sight regarding engineering principles and problems that he will be confronted with at university. The course exposes the student to the many applica- tions of the engineering prin- ciples that he will study. An example of this would be drafting and machine shop practice. Either one or both of these technical subjects, would he.niest Valuable to a student; who Aspires to be a meehaniCal engineer, Len Hurtle, one of our former students? preSently studying civil engineering, related to Me, how he Wish- ed the five-year technical course could have been available at South Huron three years ago. In, addition to the regular technical courses, we are offering a special two-year Boys Occupations Training Course. It is offered to stu- dents, who for one reason or another, cannot success- fully cope with the regular academic and technical courses. The practical parts of the course are less mechanical- ly complicated than the regu- lar four-year technical course. This year we are offering arc and acetylene welding, sheet metal work, small engine repair and ser- vice station operation. As you may have gathered by reading so far, the tech- nical courses offered at South Huron, are certainly no ',Dead End Courses", in fact, I like to refer to them as "Go-Go Courses". The age of Sputniks and Telstars, computers and automation, has made all of us aware of the importance of technical training as an in- tegral part of a young pers- on's education. In this regard a very co- operative liaison is main- tained between the technical department, the science de- partment, the academic de- partments and of course the guidance department. Thus we can truly boast that South. Huron District High School is a composite school in all respects. The boys' occupational shop is always a hive of activity and the students in this two-year course have been doing many odd jobs around the school. Their training will enable them to fulfill roles in industry. Shown above fixing school desks are, from the left: Bob Max- well, instructor J. Remkes, Gord McDonald, Brian Fields and Doug Wareing. Below is a scene taken through the open door of the shop where one lad paints a tire-tester they completed for the auto shop. Guidance helps student arrive at self-guidance K. LAWTON Guidance Department Head The concept of guidance has gone through several evolutionary stages in the last couple of decades since its need in our school sys- tem was recognized. To-day, generally speaking its func- tion is thought of as three- fold—educational, vocation- al, and personal. "It helps the student to get the greatest benefit from his schooling, and all his other educational experienc- es, and to prepare himself in the best possible way for a stimulating and satisfying career, but in the long run, it mainly helps him to under- stand himself as a person in relation to the rest of the society in which he must live". In practice, guidance counsellors generally serve in helping the student to se- lect suitable educational, oc- cupational and other goals, in planning how to achieve them and in coping with per- sonal problems. Guidance workers try to provide facts, and experi- ences, but the student must make his own choice. Their purpose is to help the in- dividual arrive at a stage of self-guidance. As our society is getting more complex, more tech- nologically sophisticated— with occupation and career choices subject to ever-in- creasing change; as the edu- cational and subject choices confronting high school stti- dentszultiply and since they may have far reaching ef- fects beyond high school, the need for guidance becomes significantly more import- ant. At South Huron, as in oth- er secondary schools, guid- ance is recognized as a ma- jor department. The head is supported by several guid- ance counsellors who divide their time between guidance work and teaching duties. By the nature of its func- tion the guidance department works in cooperation with all departments within the school with the principal and vice-principal and with all students in all three pro- grammes. It maintains contact with the public schools in the dist- rict, the Universities, Col- leges of Applied Arts a nd Technology, Nursing Train- ing Schools and the other various post-secondary edu- cational institutions. With respect to the C.A.- A. T. it is the hope of South Huron's guidance depar t- ment that students and par- ents alike are becoming in- creasingly aware of the sig- nificance of the vast edu- cational opportunitythat they offer. The guidance department also works with the Public Health Nurse concerning students who have problems which may require referral to some outside agency. In so far as possible, it also Maintains liaison with local businesses and industry. In the day to day contact with students, the depart- ment attempts to implement in part its aims through group guidance classes and private interviews with stu- dents in the two counselling offices. All students are interviewed routinely; stu- dents may also r e qu e s t interviews. The department might be described as an informa- tion centre. For here, avail- able to students, is a mul- tiplicity of information on a wide variety of occupations; calendars of universities, colleges and so on. Here the student can be directed to the information he wishes by the guidance secretary, make use of it then or ar- range to take it home. Information is also avail- able on student records. In large part it is the respon- sibility of this department to maintain these records. If it were possible to pick out one aspect of guidance more important than the oth- ers, it would be counselling. Counselling should strive to meet the needs of all stu- dents. Its ultimate aim is to help each student assess his own strengths and weakness- es to learn to cope with spe- cial problems and to make intelligent decisions. All counselling is done and all information about every student is compiled with one purpose in Mind-- to assist the student to develop, large- ly through his own efforts, his potentiality to the fullest extent possible.