Read Aloud Think Aloud
- This read aloud think is based on Mike Rowe's 2011 testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.
Video of Read Aloud Think Aloud
Text-to-Self
Seeing the word electricity sent a mental jolt through my system, as a college graduate holding a Bachelors degree, asking me to explain to another person how electricity works sounds beneath me. Why should I have to know anything about it? I flip a switch and boom, light comes on, the phone charger gets plugged into the outlet and my phone does the battery recharge thing.
Mike hit the nail on the hammer about most people not caring where their food comes from, how electricity works, who fixes the plumping or the people making our cloths. The passage resonated with me because it felt like a description of myself, actually, before taking an interest within my major. I’ve always been a hands-on student, and while written assignments certainly did the job, I noticed that content material I was allowed to physically interact with was retained longer. My first educational setting with electricity was in a large open room with plastic pipes, fuses, and a light blub students had to make light up. While I don’t claim to be a professional electrician, I have a better appreciation of what people who do in this line of work do. |
In all honesty, putting wires together and creating something with the knowledge I learned from the classroom was fun and makes me wonder what’s so bad about having an interest in blue-collar jobs.
There are men and women, who work behind the scene jobs everyday to make life easier for modern world, whether as a farmer, seamstress, or electrician. There should be no shame in wanting a career that’s have kids getting feeding the world, working at odd hours of the night or day. |
Text-to-Text
When reading this, I couldn’t help but think of the article entitled, Why You Should Consider Trade School Instead of College. Before I continue, let me be clear, I’m not advocating a disregard of a four-year degree. Rather high school students shouldn’t be engrained with the belief that those who don’t purse higher education at a four-year degree will find instant happiness and a higher paycheck.
As the paper points out, that’s not reality, not everyone can finish his or her degree in fours years. What’s worse is the climbing cost of tuition that will set back a family thousands of dollars, as much as $120,000 in total; the first two years I attended Fresno State saw an increase every semester by five percent. How can anyone be comfortable sending off high school students to college with out discussing the hidden consequences of tuition? As of 2015, the Institute of Education Statistics reports that 40% of attendees at four-year colleges drop out before completing their degree. For the other 60% that held out and managed to earn their degree, it took longer than four years to graduate. I can personally attest to this, by sheer will and determination, I was able to take two back to back semesters of 20+ units in order to graduate in four and half years. I can’t even begin to imagine the effect this reality has on students who began to see their college career shoot pass five years. |
Text-to-World
I know some people will never want their children to consider a vocational career, and that’s a shame. There should be kids who are encouraged to dream about becoming a welder, out in the wilderness studying bear habitats or taking care of gardens in an urban city. There are dozens of people who do the jobs most people consider ‘beneath them’ and that’s a real shame, because without these people, civilization would not be what it is today.
Yes, the world needs doctors, lawyers, and teachers, but people shouldn’t just show students only careers society would approve of. High school counselors should expand a student’s mindset of the millions of jobs a person can have. Never in all my life would I have ever considered having a life-long career in floral design, yet I do. I love teaching people how to arrange flowers and becoming a florist was certainly not a career I thought someone could have. People have birthdays, get married, or have special events all the time and flowers have become an important role to help things look festive or create that ‘wow’ factor. |
I think that if people step back and take at look at the folks they meet on a daily basis, they'll start to realize the importance of different jobs.
Having a trash collector come by, construction crews out on freeways making the roads safer for everyone, or putting a car together, these are all jobs that make life easier for everyone. I believe that the world should take a closer look at vocational education and the benefits of attending trade school. |