Aaron Bartsch, a senior at the rural Smyrna High School here, wears his Barkley Heating & Air sweatshirt to school with pride, the way many students might don their school’s sports team attire.
It’s 11 a.m. on a Tuesday, and he and his classmates have just completed their Agriculture Structures/Power and Engineering class where they’re learning about electrical circuitry—both the vocabulary associated with it and how the different types of electrical circuitry work. The classroom door leads to an on-site workshop, where Aaron and his classmates practice what they’ve just learned.
In the afternoon, Aaron will head to Barkley Heating & Air where he’s employed as an intern, learning the ins and outs of the heating, ventilation, air conditioning, or HVAC, industry. His employer has offered to pay his way to attend a local technical college to prepare for a career and earn relevant certifications he’ll need to get his professional start in the HVAC industry. But first he’s got to graduate from high school.
Although Aaron, who is set to graduate in June, is not a fan of the classroom, he’s begun to value its real-world applications.
“What I learn in here helps me figure out problems on the job,” said Aaron, who admits that he finds class “boring” and says he can’t wait to get school over with.
Aaron’s attitude about school isn’t unique among boys. Compared to girls, boys generally are less engaged in school. By age 15, boys are more than twice as likely than girls to express that “school is a waste of time.”
Some experts blame the structure of traditional school which, starting as early as kindergarten, rewards students for quote-unquote good behavior, such as the ability to sit still for extended periods and focus. These behaviors tend to be more difficult for boys than girls at that age.
In turn, a greater share of boys receive punishments, get “tracked” into groups that purportedly represent lower academic ability, and are identified for special education services. Boys make up about two-thirds of school-age children diagnosed with a specific learning disability, and 65 percent of students in special education placements. Boys lag behind girls on various measures of academic success, and they’re more likely to drop out of high school.
There is little to no evidence of differences in general intelligence between the sexes, but being labeled less academically competent than one’s peers probably does little to boost a student’s drive to succeed. Nor does learning in an environment that emphasizes “teaching to the test”—a component central to many of today’s traditional public schools.
The expectation that students learn in a vacuum is an age-old tension in K-12 education. John Dewey, an American philosopher and educator, argued in the 1930s against rote memorization with no broader purpose, saying that students “need to interact directly with the world to understand it, rather than just being exposed to information.”
Administrators and staff at Smyrna High School have embraced an educational philosophy similar to Dewey’s. They also recognize the importance, and leg work, required to help students like Aaron make the connections between what they learn in the classroom and how it can be applied outside of school.
“We pride ourselves on helping students find what they like to do,” said Kate Marvel, Smyrna’s supervisor of instruction. “And we recognize there are things you can’t learn in a classroom.”
So, too, do state education department officials in Delaware, which is leading the nation in transforming career and technical education. In 2014, the state launched Delaware Pathways, a robust initiative introducing high school (and even middle school) students to high-quality career pathways that they can explore through relevant coursework and opportunities for experiential learning—and that don’t necessarily lead to any one particular post-high school route.
Students who complete these pathways might go directly into the workforce or might pursue an advanced degree. Formerly, CTE tended to be a direct and singular path to accruing a particular set of trade skills, such as welding or automotive repair.
“CTE really covers the gamut: health science careers, business and marketing, hospitality. It’s just a really broad umbrella,” said Catherine Imperatore, research and content director for the Association for Career and Technical Education. “Increasingly, we’ve been more focused on a college and career model where [CTE] prepares students for further education as well as careers beyond high school—whether that’s getting industry certifications or licenses, associate’s or bachelor’s degrees, or going into the workforce.”
Smyrna, a school system in Delaware with a single high school of approximately 1,800 students, has embraced the Delaware Pathways initiative and serves as a model of how real-world, experiential learning can transform students’ futures.
The initiative aims to give both male and female students a head start on career exploration and experiential opportunities. But its design—with hands-on learning and direct links to real-world applications—appeals to how boys tend to learn best, according to experts.
“The career pathways programs get at the question, ‘Why are we here [in school]?’” Marvel said.
Career pathways keep students on track to graduate
About 90 percent of students who graduate from Smyrna complete one of the school’s six different career programs, or Schools of CTE: agricultural and natural resources; business, finance, and marketing; education; leadership studies; performing and visual arts; and STEM and professional studies. Completing a pathway requires students to pass at least three related courses and gives them the opportunity during 12th grade to complete an internship or similar “real-world” experience tied to their chosen pathway, which about a third of eligible students do.
Female and male students at Smyrna enroll in the pathway program at about equal rates. But teachers at Smyrna seem to feel a greater sense of urgency about getting boys hooked on one of the career pathways.
Without the hands-on, experiential component of those programs, “a lot of them would simply drop out,” said Rebecca Moore, an agriscience teacher at Smyrna.
It’s a valid concern. Nationally, girls graduate from high school at higher rates than their male counterparts. Further, statistics show that students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are more likely to drop out of high school and less likely to attain a college degree.
In Smyrna, 45 minutes outside of Wilmington, the average household income was $68,260 in 2022, compared to the national average of $74,580. That same year, just 21.3 percent of adults 25 and older in Smyrna had obtained a bachelor’s degree, compared to the national average of 37.9 percent.
District administrators, led by Marvel, are working hard to set a much higher bar than simply ensuring students graduate from high school. Marvel and her staff educate local professionals on the school’s career-related pathways, introduce them to their internship program, and gauge potential work placement opportunities for students.
The community outreach is critical to growing awareness of the program and expanding experiential opportunities for students. But Marvel notes that teachers’ commitment to supporting students in the work-based program drives its success.
“There are many times I’ve walked into a teacher’s classroom at lunch time, and they are helping students explore colleges, places of employment, or scholarships” related to career pathways, she said.
This summer, Moore, the agriscience teacher, spent 11 days in an unairconditioned workshop during a 100-plus-degree heat spell at Texas State University’s Agricultural Mechanics Academy in order to learn how to teach small engine and related mechanical techniques. Now she’s trained to certify her students in Smryna’s Agriculture and Natural Resources pathway to become small engine master service technicians during high school.
“It will give students a leg up,” she said, if they don’t have to commit to taking and paying for a certification program outside of school on their own.
Moore also recently became certified as a National Teacher Ambassador for FFA, a global student organization that supports training and hosts competitions for high school students interested in careers in agriculture and leadership. In October, Moore took four students to the National FFA Convention in Indianapolis after they’d placed first in a statewide competition.
The students, some of whom flew on an airplane for the first time to reach the convention, walked away with a bronze medal, plus exposure to sponsors from John Deere, Caterpillar, Lincoln Electric, and other potential employers. One of those students was Aaron Bartsch, whose future is coming into focus.
“It’s fun when you’ve got to problem-solve on the job, when you have to figure out why it’s not working, and what’s wrong,” said Aaron. “Once you get it accomplished, it kind of makes you feel a little better about yourself.”
