Vocational Education

Vocational Education

Ellie would look up at Venus and imagine it was a world something like the Earth – populated by plants and animals and civilizations, but each of them different from the kinds we have here. On the outskirts of town just after sunset, she would examine the night sky and scrutinize the unflickering bright point of light.

By comparison with nearby clouds, just above her, still illuminated by the Sun, it seemed a little yellow. She tried to imagine what was going on there. She would stand on tiptoe and stare the planet down. Sometimes, she could almost convince herself that she could really see it; a swirl of yellow fog would suddenly clear, and a vast jeweled city would briefly be revealed. Air cars sped among the crystal spires. Sometimes she would imagine peering into one of those vehicles and glimpsing one of them. Or she would imagine a young one, glancing up at a bright blue point of light in its sky, standing on tiptoe and wondering about the inhabitants of Earth. It was an irresistible notion: a sultry, tropical planet brimming over with intelligent life, and just next door.

Vocational education means creating your own planet (quotations from M. Jorgensen). Image:© Megan Jorgensen (Elena)

Ellie consented to rote memorisation, but knew that it was at best the hollow shell of an education. She did the minimum work necessary to do well in her courses, and pursued other matters. She arranged to spend free periods and occasion hours after school in what was called “shop” – a dingy and cramped small factory established when the school devoted more effort to “vocation education” than was now fashionable.

“Vocational education” meant, more than anything else, working with your hands. There were lathes, drill presses, and other machine tools which she was forbidden to approach, because no matter how capable she might be, she was still “a girl”. Reluctantly, they granted her permission to pursue her own projects in the electronics area of the “shop”. She built radios more or less from scratch, and then went on to something more interesting.

(See Carl Sagan, Contact)