2383. Apprenticeships

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I never liked secondary school much – except for the sports. I had to sit through all these classes without understanding a word; General Science, Mathematics, History, English Literature. I even had to learn Spanish for half a semester until they realized that Spanish was my first language and who needs to learn how to say everything the wrong way from a teacher who doesn’t know a cañon from a cannon.

Let’s face it; I only took Chemistry because Lucy-Sue was in the class. Lucy-Sue was no good at Chemistry either, so I figured I could make her feel better about it by commiserating with her. It didn’t work back then, and she told me to “shove it” and took off with Malcolm MacAnally who had “anal” in his name for a reason.

Anyway, as soon as I was allowed to I left school and got a job working for a builder. I liked that and he gave me an apprenticeship provided I went to night school and took Mathematics. Well, that Mathematics was different from the stuff they taught you at school. This Mathematics was about how much gasoline you needed to buy if you were going to run a generator that used so much blah blah blah when you were stuck out in the middle of nowhere. All that was interesting, and a lot more useful to me than x2=a2+b2 – which I never figured out what it meant.

These days I own the building company. I was invited by the local school to come and speak to the kids during their “Vocations Week”. I was to talk about being a builder. I did that, but they didn’t like the bit where I said that if you want to be a builder don’t waste your time trying to get an education higher than you need. They banned me from coming to speak again because of that. It was against “standards”.

Now they’re asking for donations for a new gymnasium. I thought about buying one for them (my kids go to that school) but my wife said they can “shove it”, so I’m doing that. Lucy-Sue is usually right. In the meantime, I seem to be employing every kid who has got kicked out of the school for “misbehaviour” of one sort or another.  I find they’re the best workers and it doesn’t hurt to give them a chance.

27 thoughts on “2383. Apprenticeships”

  3. observationblogger

    I only took Chemistry so I could view my teacher sitting on the lab bench as she gave her class. Suffice to say more pens dropped on the floor than usual.
    My economics teacher was a bore as most are, but I liked his lessons as I found boring teachers astute and I admired them for that. He once gave amazing investment advice which I’ve never forgotten, and I wish I had followed up on. He said, ‘If you want to get rich – own something which sells alcohol because when people are happy they drink and also when sad’.
    I loved the moral to your story Bruce. This will doing to the rounds here.

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  6. Chel Owens

    Bruce, this is such a nice story. I can see you’ve really learned from your English studies. 😉

    Actually, my children routinely have poor grades in English. I say, “What language do you speak? What do I do online all day?” They hate being graded.

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    1. Bruce Goodman Post author

      One of my brothers – who passed away last May – was the Chairperson of the Board of Trustees (don’t know what you call it over there) of the local High School. He was an earthmoving contractor. The principal of the school would have to call my brother in for any major disciplinary action. Quite often the student involved would be “withdrawn” from the school and end up working for my brother.

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      1. Chel Owens

        Sheesh. That is an idea Kevin and I have often talked about, though -that of not everyone’s being cut out for The Education Machine. People are spending (wasting!) so much time and money on schooling.

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  7. umashankar

    The Chemistry between the protagonists worked after all! Incidentally, I looked for dead bodies with anal in the middle of their names and didn’t find any, so I thought, shove it, and focused on what the story offered instead.

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    1. Bruce Goodman Post author

      !! My older brothers and sisters were made (by the nuns) to learn up to the 20 times table, whereas I had only up to the 12 times table (state school). My older siblings still instantly know that 17×19=323! I was also away for the B times tables!

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  10. Sarah Angleton

    I recently attended a “Launching into Senior Year” presentation from our high school guidance counselors in which they talked some about finding and applying to and paying for the right colleges, but I was delighted that they put just as much (maybe even more) emphasis on vocational programs, apprenticeship programs, and military options. It was nice. Not every kid is a scholar and the world offers lots of great opportunities for bright futures.

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