Editor's Note: FenderBender and ABRN have teamed up with TechForce Foundation to share perspectives to help you better understand, recruit, and retain the new generation of technicians.
Collision Technician James Mcadam recently took a job as a high school shop teacher in the Garden Grove Unified School District in Orange County and is fighting to bring the Southern California program back to life.
What has been your biggest challenge in preparing high school students for the shop?
I am working to save a dying automotive program. Convincing the administration of the program’s value has been our biggest obstacle to success. There is little interest at the district level in filling the class, and funding has been a major obstacle as well.
When I took the job this year, I inherited a shop full of 20 to 30-year-old equipment. While our textbooks and curriculum are current, our hands-on training equipment is not. Every platform in the program needs to be updated and modernized to properly prepare these students to work in the industry after graduation.
What is your experience with your students so far?
The students are interested in wrenching and committed to building their futures. Many come from families where someone is a technician, and their experience at home helps them better understand what we learn in class. This raises the overall level of understanding in the classroom, which benefits their classmates, too.
Although we can’t train with current hands-on technology, we can teach mechanical skills and the soft skills that are necessary for success in a professional shop. Many of the students who take this class learn best through hands-on experience rather than through reading, listening, or watching a demonstration. The connections this creates can be surprising; I’ve accidentally taught English to more than one student while helping them learn some other skill.
What can be done to further prepare students for technician careers?
Our class is preparing to start fundraising for equipment to be able to train and certify students in A/C systems. The goal is to provide students with a certification that dealerships care about and that helps them get a job wrenching after graduation. We were unsuccessful in convincing the district to pay for it, so the class is taking it upon themselves to raise funds for what we need to get them started in the industry.
If the district or the industry takes a larger role in these students’ success, we can better prepare them to enter today's workforce.
