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Who teaches pre-engineering? submitted by Thomas Frawley on
04/14/2006
(The following article was written in support of IEEE in Syracuse and is being used in their newsletter in order to encourage engineers and engineering societies to work in support of Technology teachers to help spark interest in engineering and technical careers.)
We live in a time when schools are being asked to better prepare our students for the very high tech future that awaits them yet public education is facing the budget ax at every turn, thus it has become increasingly difficult for teachers to deliver meaningful hands-on experiences in their labs and classrooms. ALL teachers now use computers in classrooms to facilitate instruction and learning; this is “educational” or “instructional” technology. But it’s teachers in the CURRICULAR area of Technology education who currently deliver all of the pre-engineering education being offered. Since the eighties, before Industrial Arts became Technology education, high school Tech teachers have offered a course called “Principles of Engineering” and more recently, a very large number of schools have adopted the pricey yet popular Project Lead The Way (PLTW) high school pre-engineering education program (and their “Gateway” program at the middle school level). According to the New York State Education Department (NYSED), pre-engineering is a part of Technology education and in the majority of schools, PLTW is run concurrently with existing Technology course offerings (ranging from Architectural Drawling and CAD to Photography, Electricity/Electronics and Media Production). NASA and the National Science Foundation (NSF) supported the Technology For All Americans Project (TFAAP) that developed the (K - 12) “Standards for Technological Literacy” and “Technology” has been defined as “the study of the human-made world”.
Professional Societies in general and engineers in particular are now asking themselves what can be done to increase the number of students who decide to go on to college and become engineers. In my role as President of NYSTEA, many fine examples of collaboration have come to my attention and I gladly offer them for your consideration today. The key to success, from my perspective, is to just do one thing. Like a journey of many miles, arrival at one’s destination may be traced back to a series of successful steps. The quote, “Plant trees whose shade you’ll never enjoy!”, is particularly appropriate in that the relationship between the extent of your involvement and the number of students becoming engineers is far from linear. A student will not run to the Guidance office after talking with you and sign up for an engineering college. Rather, your success will result from planting the seeds that allow the kid to say to themself, “Hmmm ... I never knew I could be an engineer! I think I’ll look into that!”
Ask yourself what a kid sees today that influences them in any way about career plans. Students are consumers and thus work by a professional society or by an individual engineer is a competition for the attention of the individual. When you think of collaboration with a Technology teacher, think in terms of “sales and service” - you are directly marketing engineering to the individual! Kids want to know what you do, what your day is like, how much you enjoy your job, the extent to which you travel, what kind of car you can afford if you’re an engineer ... that sort of thing. Kids today are VERY smart and they ARE currently making decisions based on what they see and hear. Your goal then is create an improved vision of what it’s like to BE an engineer.
Group collaboration can be as simple as bringing 1000 brightly colored pencils that clearly state, “BE AN ENGINEER!”, to our Technology booth at the great New York State Fair (each summer). We reach over 20,000 kids during our four day run at the Fair!!! Demonstrations and hands-on activities serve to draw the students in to our booth so that our team of engineers and Technology teachers might then make good use of that “teachable moment”.
Some teachers like to take kids on field trips yet that can be problematic due to release time, costs coming out of students’ pockets and so forth. Engineers are often welcome in the Technology teacher’s classroom ... sometimes speaking to an individual class or classes but sometimes by being a panel speaker or guest presenter at an “Engineers Night” or “Career Fair”. It has been my observation that conflicts often occur as engineers are very mobile (and often their companies send them out of town on a day when they have agreed to be at a school), whereas schools take forever to plan and orchestrate a guest appearance and thus seemingly simple changes to an engineer’s schedule are monster messes in a teacher’s life.
Perhaps a great way to begin collaboration is to develop the dialog that leads to being able to decide upon what it is - that “just one thing” you want to do! Please consider me a ready resource and I hereby offer the services available through NYSTEA to help you get your message out to the schools and to kids. Send me ideas and articles for our website << NYSTEA.com >> and I’ll work with you to post them and then will use our series of email blast services to draw attention to your message. This can be a weekly feature! Consider purchasing an AD in our magazine, the New York State Technology Teacher or think about giving a presentation at one of our conferences. NYSTEA will happily work with you to design, print and mail a specific Engineering education booklet or magazine, underwritten by a company for example. You might subsidize a poster stating, “BE AN ENGINEER!” that is inserted in our magazine and/or distributed at Technology teacher conferences. You can create scholarships or support NYSTEA’s scholarship program that works to support kids who want to teach Technology and pre-engineering!!! The key is to just do one thing, then build upon your success!
Thomas A. Frawley is a Technology teacher at G. Ray Bodley High School in Fulton, NY.
You may reach him at << tfrawley44@aol.com >>
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Tom Frawley
NYSTEA President
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