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Experience-Based Clubs
March 6, 2023
I
n the 1960s and 70s, real-world experience was emphasized at Kennedy in the form of clubs and programs that took students to get on-the-job training from professionals in their chosen industry. There were a variety of practices covered such as health careers, trades and office jobs.
The Trade and Industry Cooperative Education Program was a school-run program in which students were taken out of class for the last half of the day and worked with a professional of a certain trade or learned how to run a business. Students received financial compensation for their work as well as school credit based on performance assessments completed by their mentors.
Kennedy had multiple clubs where students earned credit by working after school for pay, occasionally supervised by a club sponsor. Office Education Club was one of these, providing job opportunities in offices, schools and within the government. It was an attempt to equip students with the necessary skills and experience to gain a white-collar job in the real world.
Distributive Education Club (DE) was another for-credit afterschool program, allowing students to go work manual labor jobs in areas like construction, sales or mechanics. DE was meant to promote making a living doing necessary jobs most don’t aspire to have.
The last of these programs was a class called Health Careers. Students took it for multiple years, sitting through lectures from both their teacher and guest speakers about the medical industry in hopes of being allowed to assist medical professionals during their senior year.
All of these classes were available until the late 70s and early 80s as core classes and in-school instruction became a constant expectation and college was seen as a requirement for all. Today there are opportunities through Kirkwood for job shadows and unpaid internships, however, the experience is far more limited. Students lost the opportunity to gain job experience through school, preventing today’s youth from jumping into trades of choice after finishing high school.