Criminal justice and public safety majors at River Valley Technical Center and Randolph Technical Career Center are training to save lives. In this case a victim, who has fallen through an ice-covered reservoir in North Springfield.http://www.wcax.com/story/16945571/future-vt-first-responders-train-for-emergencies
Future first responders train for emergencies
WCAX-TV
NORTH SPRINGFIELD, Vt. -
Criminal justice and public safety majors at River Valley Technical Center and Randolph Technical Career Center are training to save lives. In this case a victim, who has fallen through an ice-covered reservoir in North Springfield. One crew begins a slow descent down a steep hillside. Another team practices an alpine traverse over a large ravine. They reach the would-be victim who is pulled to safety.
"These kids actually get in more practice than most full-time departments because they have the luxury of having the whole school day to do it," said Tom Harty of the Randolph Technical Career Center.
This training is not for the faint of heart. After stripping down to just a T-shirt and jeans, Cody Martin enters the 30-degree water without any protective gear. Within seconds his body language tells the story. More seconds tick by, and then Martin is pulled to safety.
"Your body just kind of shuts down," Martin said. "It's really hard. You have to control your breathing. It's why most people can't function in the water. They just let themselves go. One thing you get taught in this class is to control yourself."
The kids are carefully monitored after their frigid plunge, and on mild days like this one, teachers say they are never in any danger. However, they are learning a valuable lesson.
"They get to feel how the shock feels to their system; they get to feel the hyperventilation. How to control it. And we do it so they know the panic that can set it when someone really is in the ice. They understand how a victim feels," Harty said.
"It allows me to know what they are going to do. You can predict. With any experience that you get you are going to be able to predict future actions," Martin said.
And that's what this day is all about. It's the first time the two schools have collaborated on the exercises and organizers say they hope to include more schools in the future. The students say it's the best way to learn.
"I learn a lot better. I like acting it. I like touching it. And when you do you get a feel, instead of reading it. And if you are in a life situation, you know more how to do it when you do it with your hands first," said Kiree LaPointe, a senior.
The Randolph students do this type of hands-on practice on a regular basis. They are the future first responders learning in real-life situations.
This is what we did in Boy Scouts. Amazing what passes for education at SHS.
ReplyDeleteJust this week, the Spfld Reporter has Gov. Schumlin addressing the local Rotary Club. He makes the well known case of students being unprepared in math to hold meaningful jobs. Yet the State funds this poor excuse for education. This only insures a future of minimum wage jobs and unemployment.
Want proof? Ask how many employers are invited on campus to interview this course's graduates? Ask how many are working in the field after graduation? The tech ctr is largely a job program for teachers. Job placement proves it!
The best option for these students would be intensive, remedial, math, English/writing, and science classes. Then, work with employers to offer part time, OJT. Such would give these kids the very best tools to further their education and enter trade fields that offer prosperity.
Sure everyone in the community got a copy of the tech ctr's mailing. On the cover of the funding appeal is a kid lawn mowing. How disingenuous to encourage a young person to throw away education for that. Vermont, with the possible exception of Montana, and Northern Minnesota are the only places in the US white people do landscaping. We're training kids for unskilled jobs in a field dominated my illegal Mexicans willing to work for minimum wage.
Sir,
DeleteI completed two years of RVTC's Audio/Video class. I took it to gain a skill in that area, planning on working with the church. Now in Bible college, I am called upon all the time for any project related to video, sound or media. The head of the media department and I are actually starting a media club for the students, and plan to propose the addition of a media class to school curriculum. Today's churches are dependent on media- PowerPoint, websites, graphic design, podcasts, let alone the live sound and live video streaming of weekly services. What I've learned is indispensable for service in the church today.
One of my friends finished RVTC with me, soaking up everything the school's engineering program had to offer. Him and his team won a national engineering competition. His first year at college he could have taught more than he learned. He's already had job offers and opportunities many of his classmates envy. I think it the opportunities and education RVTC supplies is evident.
I cannot finish this, however, without a final note. I am dumbfounded at your view of lawn mowing. I understand you're talking about job placement; it's difficult to land a job in a field dominated by people willing to work for the minimum. I just feel to say than any job- whether the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company or the kid next door who mows your lawn- is a job worth doing, and job worth mastering, and an act of service to our fellow man. If I earned a doctorate and preach to a church of ten thousand every Sunday as a living, I wouldn't be afraid to mow my own lawn. So if I choose my education and pursue a life of landscaping or lawn care, and that is the way I support my family, what's wrong with that?
I would have to disagree. As a graduate of the technical center I went to college in the same field I studied at the tech center and have a good paying job in that industry. Most of my peers that took tech in high school did the same. In fact I decided to call the technical center after reading this and here is the data in their records: 65% of program completers (students who completed a two year course and met state requirements) pursue both related post secondary training and are employed in a related field. In fact just the number of students who go on to a college from the tech center is greater than that of the high school. Also I know from personal experience that several programs at the center do bring in employers to interview students in fact several of these programs have students working in the industry through a coop program during their time at the center.
ReplyDeleteSo my response to readers of this blog is YES DO CALL: 802-885-8300 and ask the questions posed above and you will find the truth and not the ill-informed assumptions made by a person who has obviously never visited the tech center, talked to a grad or even looked at the program offerings.
Amen Brotha! -- It should probably be noted that the tech center is it's own school district and isn't associated with the SSD. The Boy Scout up top must be living in one of those Padded cells to be that disconnected from the educational offerings available in Springfield! -- Oh and as to them teaching "Lawn Mowing" ... really? can you be that nieve? The program is called Horticulture, they train students in Sustainable Agriculture, Plant Science, Soil Analysis, Surveying, Logging, Forestry, Botanics, Green House Management, wildlife management, landscaping and thats just a sampling! If you think the best option for these students is remedial education you are flat out wrong. You are operating on an old stigma. Tech Center students are not the remedial students they are the innovators, the entrepreneurs, the artists, THE FUTURE.
ReplyDelete