7A- Testing the Hypothesis, Part 1

Opportunity: I decided to test the opportunity I chose for Assignment 4A. I believe there is a need for High Schools to provide electives that teach kids skills and trades like wood working, mechanics, and home economics. Many schools like mine never offered these classes to us and I think many people could benefit from this opportunity.

Who: The primary customers would be teenagers about to enter the real world who could benefit from learning new trades they may have never encountered before and are valuable to society.

What: High Schools don't have enough resources to provide these tools and classes, so many kids go their whole life without learning essential trades that they could potentially learn to love or have a natural gift in that would allow them the opportunity to pursue a successful career.

Why: Many public schools have had to go through major budget cuts and since these classes are not seen as academically essential they were the first ones to be cut from the program. Since these skills and trades aren't offered in the curriculum, many students are not exposed to learn these skills which are always in need for the workforce.

Hypothesis Testing:

Testing the who: I think it would be beneficial for most people to be exposed to these types of skills and trade. I believe that if high schools provided these classes that many students can get exposed to these at a young age which would allow them to carry these skills for the rest of their life. 

Testing the what: I believe the boundary of this need is the limited access and exposure that many kids don't get growing up. I think if schools included these classes it could interest a lot of kids who are not as academically driven and could allow them the opportunity to learn about a new field in the workforce.

Testing the why: I think the why kinda goes with what I said in the above point. Many kids in school don't like the academic classes and have the idea that college is not for them. If high schools provided these classes I believe these students and even the ones planning on going to college would take advantage of this opportunity. I also think that exposure to these skills will open up another door for students to go to trade school and get an essential job that is always needed in the workforce. I also think it is important for everyone to learn these skills that could help them in everyday life. 

Interviews: 

Interview #1: The first person I interviewed was my boyfriend who is working in construction. He agrees that he wished he had the opportunity in high school to get exposed to some of the tools he is using now. Many people he works with have never gone to college and agree that school would be more beneficial if it included these classes in the curriculum.

Interview #2: I also got the chance to interview my mom who is a school teacher. She is an active advocate for schools to start including these classes. She has seen first hand many of her intelligent students who are just not interested in academics at all and she thinks this a great opportunity for kids to see the other options of future careers that they could potentially do.

Interview #3: I also interviewed my friend who is a welder and who went to trade school after high school. He said he would of loved if our high school had these classes as options and that he would actually look forward to going to school.

Interview #4: I interviewed a worker who does some maintenance for our yard. He expressed how he wish he had that during school and believes that they should bring those classes back. He is also in need of hiring other workers who know how to use these tools and believes there would be a greater number of these skilled workers if they had that exposure during high school.

Interview #5: Lastly, I interviewed my friends dad who owns his own electrical engineering company. He had these classes when he went to high school and he said that is the reason he is so handy today because he was exposed to these skills at an early age. He also said that there is a decreasing number of people who are going to trade schools or learning the skills needed to execute a big job. 

Summary: After getting the chance to interview all these people I am way more confident that this opportunity is worthwhile to pursue. The only big challenge to this is trying to persuade the government school fund to increase their budget to allow them to implement these classes for students. I think many people would benefit from this idea and allow students the opportunity to learn new skills and trades that will be useful and utilized in the future.