From the Desk of Mr. Jeff Kuhns
3 April 2023
A Different Side of Learning
I attended a conference last week in Williamsport, PA. Williamsport may seem like an odd place for a leadership conference but the purpose was to visit some of the unique programs at Pennsylvania College of Technology. In a general sense, it is a Career and Technical Center for postsecondary students. What makes it unique is the state-of-the-art equipment and the real-life, hands-on experience that they receive. In some of the programs, for every one hour of lecture time, they have three hours of lab time - actually doing the tasks that they eventually will be employed to do. One example that really hit me was in the forestry program. In the fall semester, the students learn to harvest trees. They don't just learn to do it, they actually do it! They select, fell, trim, remove and load raw logs. In the spring semester they learn how to mill the logs into lumber. In their mill they have a state-of-the-art bandsaw mill. Very cool piece of equipment.
On Friday night, I attended the STREAM Night at New Bloomfield. STREAM stands for Science, Technology, Reading, Engineering, Art and Math. To connect this to the Penn College activity, this is the hands-on portion of learning. Students were growing grass, building catapults and running robots around the cafeteria. Learning and having fun at the same time. I also saw some parents and grandparents that were thoroughly enjoying the activities.
Finally, on Saturday afternoon I attended the Perry County Council of the Arts Youth Art Day at our high school. There were examples of student writing, drawing, singing, painting and sculpting as well as other artistic displays. To again connect back to the other two experiences, a great representation of hands-on but I would also add that this event showcases creators in every possible artistic category.
Hopefully you have followed my strand of thinking up to this point. For years it has been talked about in educational circles that we are training students for jobs that haven't even been created yet. Technology moves so fast that by the time our students graduate, the things that they have learned are already outdated. That's what ties all of these activities together: A need to have students thinking through real world problems in a hands on way , a need to have students be creators and the need for state-of-the-art technical opportunities. These are skills that employers will value no matter what the job.
Yes, it's a different side but it is most definitely an important side as we look to the future of our graduates,