A MODEL FOR WORK EXPERIENCE: THE BUILDING
TRADES
Now and then, in the American high school — operating at
the rural cross-roads, tucked away in the big-business
enterprise of a large city educational system, or
sheltered in the restfulness of a big city's suburban
bedroom — is found a fragment of the blueprint for the
school of tomorrow, is found a program that reflects the
educational foresight and cunning of some individual who
has dared to crack the traditional mold of the school
and step over the debris to serve the youth before him.
Such a man is Walter Durbahn.
The setting of this building-trades teacher's service to
American youth is the community of Highland Park,
Illinois. [3 The author served this school as
superintendent-principal during the World War II years.]
Relationships with Groups.
His place is well marked in the hearts
of the hundreds of young men who have gone through both
study and practice in the six related areas of his
school and community program — millwork, sheet metal
work, electric house wiring, plumbing, concrete and
brickwork, and painting and decorating; and the place of
his program in the ongoing life of the community is well
marked on the streets of the town —
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845
Centerfield Court
168 Beverly Place
648 Yale Lane
120 Clifton Avenue
158 Beverly Place
335 N. St. John's Avenue
1748 Broadview Avenue
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To these seven fine brick, stucco, and wood residences
that have been planned and built by Durbahn's
high-school boys can be added these buildings belonging
to the school — a trades and industrial education
building of 12,000 square feet, a garage for the school
buses, and an athletic field house complete with a
second-floor apartment for the caretaker.
Walter Durbahn is one of God's ordinary fellows, who
belongs to his union and gives it his best, and hobnobs
pleasantly and understandingly with his fellowmen and
trades associates. Besides his high-school program, he
helps carpentry apprentices and journeymen, opens his
shop at night to adults, and in the summer serves those
college-bound boys who because of college domination of
their high-school time schedules are deprived of his
teaching during the regular school year.
The carpentry apprentices for the area are given
training one day a week to supplement their practical
work with the contractors. Their day is spent in related
drawing, mathematics, estimating, English, and social
sciences, besides such shop experiences as benchwork,
saw filing, roof framing, and stair building. Many
journeymen in the construction industry have availed
themselves of the opportunity of attending evening
classes. His night classes are also popular with the
patrons of the school who further their hobbies there.
A master craftsman himself, he sets an example in fine
cabinet making that gives his boys something to look
forward to in their later development. His own
publications in his field are a contribution to the
teaching profession.
The Work Experience Program
Three hours a day, five days a week, and six weeks in
each of the six related fields represents the work of
the first year, which is considered adequate to prepare
the student for participation in the house building job
the next year. The daily program is rounded out with the
usual related drawing, mathematics, science, English,
and social studies.
The following boxed section excerpts
from some of Mr. Durbahn's printed descriptions of the
work in building the residences in the community and the
school facilities reflect the educational values
derived.
Each paragraph treats a different
building project.
1
Many of the boys will recall the odd jobs they
did around the school during the first two
months of school. In one short week the picture
changed to a building lot one mile west of the
school, where on October 29 in four inches of
snow the first student-built house was started.
The long walk and work in the cold, snow, and
rain did not dampen their enthusiasm. By the
latter part of January the building was closed
in, and by June 20 their first construction
project was completed. What an experience!
2
Construction got under way early in September.
The garage was erected first to afford shelter
and storage for tools and equipment. By the time
the cold December weather set in, the house was
closed in and the heating plant installed. A
second-hand truck furnished transportation to
and from the job, and a telephone established
connection with the school and material yards.
3
The industrial arts classes were growing, so the
building-trades boys came to the rescue by
building the original auto shop. Eighty thousand
brick are a lot of brick to lay, and the boys
soon discovered that the bricklayer earned his
fourteen dollars a day, as it meant more than
the spreading of a little mortar and sliding a
brick into place. Even though a journeyman
bricklayer, Bert Coleman, laid up the corners
and part of the face brick, the boys laid the
two backing-up courses and later also the face
brick.
4
The auto shop did not require the entire school
year, so in April the foundation for the next
year's project was built. This added time made
it possible to erect the most pretentious of the
houses built by the students — three bathrooms,
a game room, two fireplaces, a garage, and a
large solarium were included. The bricklaying
experience gained the previous year was put to
good use with the added experience in stone
masonry. A portable joiner and radial saw
facilitated the construction and cabinet work.
The rubber tile floors in the bathrooms and
kitchen and the asbestos-cement shingles brought
new and interesting problems.
5
The building-trades boys planned and built this
house, the industrial arts classes built some of
the furniture, the home economics girls planned
the decorations and made the curtains and
drapes, the art appreciation classes selected
and placed the furnishings, local and Chicago
merchants lent furnishings, and the ladies of
the local chapter of the Better Homes in America
Campaign formed committees to work with the
various groups in an advisory capacity. The
result — an interesting educational experiment
for the community and the National First Prize
in the annual competition of the Better Homes in
America Campaign.
6
The little Cape Cod cottage which has caused so
much favorable comment made a desirable project.
Located just across the street from the school,
it involved no transportation problems. This was
the first of two houses built for an owner; all
others when completed were sold to the highest
bidder. Here the owner, rather than the School
District as in other cases, assumed all
financial responsibilities, furnished the lot,
and paid for all materials and any journeyman
labor required. Dan McLellan, a local tradesman,
assisted the boys for several months. His
interest in youth and his adequate trade
training were great assets to the department.
7
Another house — this time a two-mile haul. The
brick veneer construction again gave the boys
the experience to work with that important
building material, brick. One of the boys
interested in landscaping planned a complete
planting for the place. When the ground was
ready in the spring, he with the help of several
others planted trees and shrubs, and transformed
the yard into a garden.
8
The field house has two complete units, one with
167 lockers and the other with 99. Each locker
room has ten showers and toilet facilities.
There is a coach's office, locker, and shower
room, a five-room caretaker's apartment, and
public toilets. On this the brickwork and
steamfitting were let out by contract to
outsiders, but it still left enough work in
other trades to keep the classes occupied for
two years.
Year after year, this educator leads his students into
work experience that makes of their class group a
co-operating unit in which each individual is dependent
upon the whole, and the success of the whole upon each.
In one slack year, when building tradesmen were idle and
it was considered inadvisable to build a house, the shop
turned out for the school district thirty-six
bookkeeping tables, thirty-two typewriting tables,
twenty art tables, and ten cabinets, machined,
assembled, and finished. The instructor stated that this
afforded enough repetition to develop skill, and an
appreciation for accuracy and a well-finished product,
that were never attained in any other project. The
eventual construction of the school's building-trades
building was a pronounced undertaking.
According to this master teacher:
A boy who has known real
exploratory experience while in the high
school is better able to make an intelligent
occupational selection. His familiarity with
tools and materials and his related academic
training help to make him a more skilled and
better in-formed mechanic. While
co-operating in a common enterprise with his
fellow students, under the conditions that
closely approach those of the trade, he
cannot help but develop the qualities and
character traits that make a better citizen.
However, high-school training alone cannot
take the place of an apprentice-training
program, or any other training given by
industry which alone develops these specific
skills that are a part of the stock in trade
of the master craftsman.
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REALISM ASKED OF YOUTH
Vocational education and general education must function
side by side in the program of every high-school
student, if the realities of life are respected in
school planning and operation.
The educator who would make this so, must immediately
set out to bring students and parents to face life
realistically also. Parents have wished their children
to enter the professions and semiprofessions, and thus
to enjoy a higher status in the social scheme of things
than has been theirs. In the selection of a high-school
course, social mobility upward has been repeatedly
revealed as a prime motive of both students and parents.
Preparation for a white-collar job that will not be
there represents disservice rather than service on the
high school's part.
Every survey that has ever been made of the occupational
desires and expectations of a class of high-school
seniors has revealed this same lack of reality. Half of
the youth enrolled in high school take courses leading
toward the professions or semiprofessions. In spite of
the fact that over half of our youth will eventually
take semiskilled and unskilled occupations, not over 5
per cent of any graduating class will respond that they
expect to do so.
Perhaps the first task of general
education is to provide a citizenship training that will
enable youth to see our social and economic structure as
it is actually constructed. Citizenship training must be
moved close to those it would serve, and must set a
pattern for youth in coming to grips with life's
realities. Educators themselves must be the first to see
that vocational and general education are not opponents
pitted against each other. Rather, adjustment to life
work is essential if a person is to make the broader
adjustment to community life.