(lighthearted music) - [Narrator] Every parent worries about their child's future.

That future is less clear than ever before.

This has led a lot of parents to focus harder and harder on college.

But the reality we all need to acknowledge is college isn't a guarantee of a prosperous life anymore.

Maybe we should give young people exposure to more options so they can decide for themselves.

This is a normal high school in a normal town.

In this school, everyone has to take a vocational program to get exposed to what the world of work looks like.

So after high school, they're prepared to go wherever they want, off to college or straight into the workforce.

This is Winchester, Virginia.

Winchester is a medium-sized city about an hour and a half from Washington DC.

- Winchester and the broader, speaking our surrounding area of Winchester, is the fastest growing area in Virginia, right?

So jobs are a big topic of conversation with the Chamber of Commerce, bringing in industry, we're right on I-81, and so what's the workforce like?

- [Narrator] This is Jason Van Heukelum, superintendent of Winchester Public Schools.

Like every superintendent and every parent, Jason spent a lot of his time worrying about how to prepare young people for an increasingly unpredictable future.

- Most importantly, the draw for me to Winchester was a historic commitment to public education.

And that resonated with me as a leader.

So this is an old elementary school from 1970s and we remodeled it for about $17 million, just under $17 million.

- [Narrator] I met Jason because I was there to look at one of the crowning achievements of his tenure as superintendent, the Emil & Grace Shihadeh Innovation Center.

What makes the Innovation Center innovative is that it treats career and college prep as equally important for all kids.

It takes elements of career training and ties them to the classical subjects.

Because of that, it feels different than any school I've ever visited before.

- The first things we did was look at our data.

Only 45% of our students were pursuing a four-year college degree in general after graduation.

Nationally, only half of students who start college actually finish college.

And what we know is that high schools traditionally in this country are designed specifically and quite frankly only to send kids to college, right?

It's their primary focus.

We're not saying college isn't a good thing.

I went to college, I expect my kid to go to college, right?

But it isn't the end-all, be-all of your life.

- I like having the helmet on, like, 'cause it makes me feel, like, comfortable.

And then, like, it just, everything else goes away and you're just welding.

You're just in the moment.

Nothing else is bothering you.

I have ADHD, so I'm always, like, focused on everything really, or, like, I'm hearing everything and stuff.

And when I put on that helmet, it, like, drains all that out.

(dramatic music) It's like inner peace.

(helmet clacking) (upbeat music) (welding rod crackling) You're just in the moment, nothing else is bothering you, and you're just a hundred percent locked in on that, that beat that you're doing.

(flame blaring) - I started welding my freshman year.

I just thought it would be cool.

I did two years of welding and then I did a year of carpentry.

I think it's really calming and satisfying.

You know, it's just something to focus on that you're actively doing.

- [Interviewer] What do you think you might do with the rest of your life?

- I got a job welding here in Winchester, Extreme Steel.

And it's real fun.

It's what I wanna do.

- I'm not completely decided.

I'm looking at maybe law right now, but not totally sure.

- [Interviewer] Do you feel like it affected your college applications that you've done there?

- I think so.

I think it definitely made me a more well-rounded candidate for schools.

Major funding is provided by iCEV.

For 250 years, America was built by skilled hands.

Its future depends on them.

Finding the right job... Um... Is this accounting?

...is all about finding the right fit.

Woman: Yes, this is accounting.

Britebound helps students discover their strengths and find the careers they were meant for.

Additional funding provided by... (lighthearted music) (tool grinding) - The earlier we start our students looking at pathways, different pathways, you know, understanding that everybody has a different interest, we're all not the same.

- It's okay to try carpentry, to try welding, to try health sciences, and learn that you don't actually enjoy it, but at least it will give you a better appreciation for those things as life goes on.

- There are some people going to college that come out of college and they still do not have direction.

And I think vocational studies gives you a wide range of ideas.

You know, you may not stay in that field.

At least you have an opportunity to look at the field to understand, "That might be for me.

This might be something I can make my life."

- We're trying to make the Innovation Center such that it mirrors the world of work while maintaining rigorous academic standards at the same time.

- It is for everybody.

It is for the college-bound, it is for the workforce-bound, it is for the, you know, I need a credential to get where I need to be.

So that's why I love career and technical education, 'cause you give students an opportunity, while they're in high school, while it's free, to really dip their toes in and see what they want for the next steps of their lives.

- By talking about careers first, then kids can get oriented around what they like, what they don't like, and what they might see as a vision for their future.

And then they will ask that question, "Yes, I do need to go to college to be an architect, right?

But I may not need to go to college to do something else."

(upbeat music) - I didn't ever apply myself.

Well, I did, but not as much as I maybe could have in classes.

And I had no idea that I would like carpentry the way I did.

But when I started making my projects, it's like, this is kind of fun.

(circular saw whirring) (wood thudding) (circular saw whirring) (drill whirring) - He was prepared to go to college and take that route, although he did not want to.

So he signed up for a carpentry class and fell in love with carpentry and found his passion.

- Every little kid wants to be a veterinarian, you know?

So I imagined I would do that.

Then I took Intro to Health and Medical Science, and, I mean, it's not that I didn't like the class, but I was like, "This is way too much.

I'm not doing this."

Didn't know what I wanted to do at all.

So I was just playing it day by day.

- Even as an educator, my husband is an engineer by trade, we recognized that his personality lent him to what he wanted to do.

- [Interviewer] Was there anything you found in high school where it was easy for you to engage with it?

- Carpenter class is the easy answer.

- A college education is great, but it's not everything to us.

And quite frankly there's a lot of kids out there that don't have a job with a wonderful college education and thousands of dollars worth of debt.

- [Interviewer] So you never had a moment of doubt?

- No, not at all.

- [Interviewer] Wow, that's amazing.

- Not at all.

(lighthearted music) - The purpose of school is not to be good at school.

(chuckles) And so, you know, flipping that script, I think the purpose of school is to prepare students for life, to inspire, to expose, to allow students at young ages to experiment, get their hands dirty, and think about all the breadth of what the future could be.

At the end of the day, we're molding and shaping future adults, right?

And so to what extent is school helping them do that?

Every 90 minutes, a bell rings.

I go from math, to English, to science.

The different places I go have no connection to each other, let alone the real world that I experience as a human.

And so I'm learning this stuff for 90 minutes that I've been told to learn and we measure it with high stakes testing.

And then as adults and we look back, you know, how much of that stuff do we actually remember?

- [Narrator] You know, if you ask people about high school, you won't be surprised about the kind of answers you get.

- Boring.

All you did was wait for the lunch clock.

You know, when the lunch bell hit, it was, like, off to the races to eat lunch, blah, blah blah, blah.

- [Interviewer] Were you ever bored in high school?

- Well, yeah, you know, school's fun.

So classes, that get in the way.

(interviewer laughing) I mean... - [Interviewer] Did you like high school very much?

- We had our moments.

(Jamea and interviewer laughing) - I had the best time of my life in high school.

I didn't study.

(Rich and interviewer laughing) - [Interviewer] So teach me about blood pressure.

- So you'll need a blood pressure cuff and then a stethoscope.

- [Interviewer] Okay.

- And then you wanna go in and find a certain artery.

- [Narrator] So this is Savannah.

She just graduated high school and she's already been working in nursing for a year.

She got started in nursing because of a high school program.

Now, based on her experiences in that program, she has realized it is something she loves to do and the next stages of her life are mapped out.

- [Interviewer] Do you remember before you came to the Innovation Center what you were thinking about doing when you got out of school?

- Yes, I wanted to become a lawyer.

- [Interviewer] What made you wanna be a lawyer?

- I've watched a lot of "Law & Order: SVU."

- [Interviewer] So what was it like transitioning from wanting to be a lawyer to wanting to be a nurse?

- I realized that I couldn't get a headstart on my career, and I looked at what they offered here, and I decided on being a nurse.

People that I work with vary from the age 20 to, like, 40.

It feels kind of weird because you're doing the same work as them, but you're younger.

- From a very small age, I knew Savannah was gonna go far.

I knew she was gonna be smart and she was gonna go far.

- It's better if I do it to a different person, but... (lighthearted music) - So she's the reason I got my GED.

And then when she started taking the CNA class and she was taking it further and further, I actually went to Laurel Ridge and got my phlebotomy certificate.

In all honesty, she gave me hope.

- Once you hear that first one, 'cause you wanna release it slowly... - I'm just thankful for it.

Because without it, I mean, yeah, Savannah would've made something, but it helped her get a jumpstart.

Because other kids wouldn't have graduated with their CNA certificates.

And the CPR and everything, she already has.

- [Narrator] High school started more than a hundred years ago with one goal, getting workers ready for factories.

Over the last hundred years, high school has grown into something else entirely.

High school is now the place where students get sorted, sorted into those going to college and those not going to college.

Where did that divide come from?

From the start of American education, there's been a debate between classical and career focus.

Ben Franklin, printer, former apprentice, wanted a hands-on, craft-training model.

Thomas Jefferson, landowner, founder of the University of Virginia, wanted to focus on pure, eternal ideas.

After the Civil War, Booker T. Washington pushed hard for freed slaves to have access to career training.

But often, that career training was separate from and removed from college prep.

- As this starts to take hold, people like W.B.

Du Bois are saying, "Hey, why don't we educate Black kids, indigenous kids, all the children, in the ways that we educate wealthy white children?"

Do we want, as Booker T. Washington would say, to really focus on self-sufficiency versus do we want people to rise high enough so that they will be comfortable in the upper echelons of culture and society and able to converse?

Those tensions were at the heart of the very beginning of US education.

- [Interviewer] How do you feel, like, people felt about those students who went to industrial arts?

- Oh, well, (chuckles), clearly, the feeling was this was for the kids that had no other options.

You know, I remember we used to be kind of rough on 'em.

Oh, it's the opt class.

And I don't even know what that stood for, but that was what we always, it was disparaging, yeah.

- [Interviewer] Was there, like, a woodworking, or an automotive, or anything like that at your high school?

- There probably was some, but I wasn't in those classes.

- But the kids that were, like, less academic would go to a place called vocational high school, and it was looked down upon.

It was, like, tough kids, disproportionately African American and Hispanic kids there.

Sadly, you know, it's a very good school, if you went there, you were either a troublemaker or your academics weren't good.

- [Narrator] Another aspect to this story is the history of racial segregation in American schools.

African American schools had a strong history of career prep.

Integration was a good goal.

But one thing that frequently happened was instead of taking the best of both schools and combining them together, often a lot of the strengths of the African American schools were abandoned.

This left integrated schools entirely focused on college prep.

- This classroom used to be the third grade.

So it's so nice that they actually left some things historically, like this blackboard.

- Was this a real blackboard?

- This is the original blackboard.

- [Interviewer] This is what it looked like?

- Yes.

- [Narrator] This is Carmen.

Carmen is a Winchester native, member of the school board, and she's one of the community members who was heavily involved in helping get the Innovation Center started.

As a child, Carmen attended the Douglas School, the center of education for the African American community of Winchester, until its students were integrated into the nearby Handley High School.

The building has been renovated and is currently both a museum and the office for Winchester Public Schools.

- We understood the whole dynamics of integration 'cause people, our families, talked about it and the whole community talked about it, but we did not really fully understand what that meant, that there would be a change from what we were used to, you know?

It wouldn't be the same comradery with the neighborhood, like we had here.

- [Interviewer] There was a big career training program at Douglas.

- Mm-hmm.

- [Interviewer] What happened to all of that at Handley?

- Our shop teacher here, Mr.

Brooks, Mr.

Brooks was a craftsman.

He could build homes, really.

People were able to go into jobs in carpentry because his shop was, I mean, they built real furniture.

It was outstanding.

When he went to Handley, they wanted him to teach history.

And I don't think he ever liked it.

- [Interviewer] Do you remember how it felt the first time you heard that you weren't gonna go to Douglas anymore, you are now gonna go to Handley?

- I was almost ready to cry.

It's like I said, I was gonna join the glee club and the band.

It was exciting to go to high school here.

- [Interviewer] It's crazy to think this is the window you were staring out of in 19... - I know, I know, it's amazing.

- [Interviewer] '63, '64.

- Mm-hmm.

- You cannot integrate two groups if one believes it's superior to the other.

That requires African American students not only gaining something but then having to lose others, right?

There's always this opportunity cost.

- Very qualified Black teachers, some who had master's degrees, they were not able to find employment.

80% of Black teachers in the South who had been employed pre-Brown v. Board, 10 years later, were without jobs.

- The Brown decision was not able to really solve the problems of racial inequality, of racial discrimination and bias.

So I think that strand, right?

The mindset, the perspectives, the racist ideas, attitudes, and biases are still with us.

(pensive music) - In '83, a report came out called "A Nation at Risk" that just slammed public education and said we're shortchanging our kids because they're not getting out of school smart enough to compete in the world that's evolving.

And so there was a real push for standards.

Every kid had to go through the same rigorous 19th century Latinized academic program so they'd be ready for college.

Every kid had to go to college.

- What happens to American high school kids?

When we say all kid's college-ready, what really happens?

Well, let me tell you a little story.

We got a hundred high school kids in your average American high school, right?

Well, 90 graduate.

Who knows about the other 10?

Well the 90 who graduate, about 56 go to college.

Well, then the funnel begins to really narrow, 'cause out of that 56, only 22 have a degree six years later.

But here's the dirty little secret of our economy.

Of that 22, only 11 land a wage that is typical for a college graduate.

11 don't earn a BA wage, and yet they're graduating with an average of $37,000 worth of college debt.

- There aren't alternatives.

The only, you know, viable pathway within high school is one that leads you to the best college.

And that means that you're pushed into this honors AP track.

And you're pushed there because you're gonna get a higher GPA.

As a result, career and technical education has withered on the bind.

- Testing made it easy to determine if we're having an impact.

And the teachers began to realize their livelihoods might depend on their kids passing the test.

Teachers began to teach to the test because they would look bad if their kids did not do well.

- [Narrator] There are a lot of math problems that's very easy for a computer to solve.

And those are the same math problems we're testing and training students on.

- So there was Algebra 1, there was Algebra 2, there was trig and geometry, calculus.

It didn't matter what your interests were, it didn't matter what the labor market actually needed, because very few people need all that advanced math, frankly.

- We have a mismatch between what employers are currently seeking in terms of talent and skilled workers and what our education system is currently producing.

So, for example, we have 8.1 million unfilled jobs, and yet 52% of college grads are underemployed in their first job, meaning they're taking jobs that didn't require the degree they just spent years and hundreds of thousands of dollars earning.

So we're not educating and training or providing the level of talent that employers are seeking necessarily.

And it's about to get much worse with AI.

- We've got all these wonderfully intelligent kids who've gotten great test scores and great grades.

How have they done that?

By pleasing their teachers.

By never taking a risk.

So these kids graduate highly, highly risk averse, 'cause all they've done for so much of their life is to prepare this perfect little resume for this perfect little college and this perfect little job.

So they are totally ill-prepared for the expectations and demands of what I call the innovation era.

(lighthearted music) - We have to recognize that the world that you and I live in every day, the adult world of work, family, church, community, et cetera is nothing, and I mean nothing, like the seven hours a day that kids spend in school.

You could say to me, "Dr.

Van Heukelum, what's so innovative about the Innovation Center?

You're teaching carpentry.

That's not innovative.

We've been doing that for a long time."

What's innovative about the Innovation Center is the learning model, right?

It's not just go to carpentry and then go to your math class.

It's the three hours of time that the kids have here with autonomy and agency, and they are designing their learning environment that integrates a core academic class like math with a CTE class - [Narrator] At the IC, career classes are paired to subject classes.

- If all we do is CTE classes at the Innovation Center, then it will become a trade center.

And that stigma, again, going back to that stigmatization.

- And then what about sequence?

I know the nursing students, you guys had sequence.

- I needed something different, and I felt like if I did not, I would no longer be a teacher.

So now we're gonna get up, we're gonna head over to the electrician class, and they are going to show you guys sequence and, I think, problem and solution, okay?

So let's head on over.

As far as teaching at a traditional school, you're in a classroom.

At the Innovation Center, we don't necessarily have classrooms, we have shared spaces.

And so I can move my class wherever I would like.

If I want to go to a CTE classroom and collaborate with the CTE teacher, I could do that.

If I wanted the lecture in the forum, I could do that.

So it's a lot of mobility, a lot of options for creativity and collaboration.

Whereas in a traditional school, you don't have that so much.

- So my daughter, for example, is here as a freshman.

She takes technical drawing and she takes honors geometry, right?

And there are three hours, she's kind of, her day is different, you know?

When she needs to go all in on technical drawing, those of you who are architects, when you're really into your design process in CAD, do you ever have a bell that just rings and says, "Stop now, you can't go any further."

No, like, sometimes you wanna go all in for hours 'cause you're just all in on that design.

So when Maggie, my daughter, is doing that and she really is all in on that design, she can spend that time, more time than maybe a typical class, okay?

And she can free up time by being more efficient with her geometry or doing some of that at home.

- Before the Innovation Center, I would just go to school, zone out the entire time, just wait to go home so I could do something I wanted to do.

Innovation Center was probably the best thing they could have done.

It actually felt like I was learning something.

- We treated it like it was a college, where professors or the teachers would let the students out and kind of just do their own thing.

It just felt more freeing to be able to move around and do your work.

- In high schools, traditionally, you had two paths.

And even though we are a very diverse school, we were somewhat segregated in the school.

If you're going to college, you go to these classes, down this hallway.

If you go CTE, you go down this hallway.

And many times, that's segregating by class, by socioeconomic status, and ultimately by race as well.

(lighthearted music) We're a very diverse community in Winchester, 84% free lunch, okay?

43% Hispanic, 8% multiracial.

We're a majority minority school division.

And so we need spaces like this, where everyone's all together, right?

And they're learning from each other.

They're crossing those socioeconomic lines.

They're crossing cultural lines.

They're learning from their peers an array of different things.

And again, it keeps our community together.

- [Narrator] More than 90% of Handley students spend part of their high school experience learning at the Innovation Center.

It's as close to mandatory as you can get.

Why does that matter?

Because if your shop class is in the basement and only 20% of kids take it, the other 80% of kids are gonna be taking more AP sections and their applications are gonna look stronger for colleges.

If the average number of AP classes in your school is five and you took three, it looks like you aren't as serious about academics.

But if everyone in your school rotates through the IC, takes a smaller number of AP classes as a result, it's neutral on your college application.

- And we have the stories and the data to prove and show that not only does it not hurt a student's college application, it's not even neutral, it is a value add.

- So I'm just going to, like, paint a scenario for you.

So you're just at this random building and you find a person just laying on the floor.

And, I mean, they don't look like they're breathing or anything.

So first up, what you're going to do is you're going to walk up to them and you're just going to tap them on the shoulder, hit them pretty firm, and be like, "Sir or ma'am, are you okay?"

And, like, trying to wake them up essentially.

If they wake up right then, then you're all good.

You just apologize for waking them up and then you go on with your day.

I'm taking the EMT program here.

- [Interviewer] Is that your first Innovation Center program?

- No, I've had the Innovation Center for three years in a row.

(lighthearted music) - [Interviewer] What are your thoughts on college?

- College, well, I've got my number one picked out, but I don't really have much more picked out.

I've feel like two or three besides that.

- [Interviewer] What's your number one?

- [Hudson] UVA?

- [Interviewer] Why do you think UVA's number one?

- Because I wanna be a surgeon.

It's just a really good medical school and they have, like, I think they're, like, eighth in the country for surgery.

- You know, Hudson did it for the doctory experience is what he likes to say.

You know, he said he would love to be in the ER.

- [Hudson] I mean, hopefully, after high school, I go to, like, college or university and then I study to become a surgeon.

That's my ideal.

- [Interviewer] When did you realize you wanted to be a surgeon?

- I mean, surgeon itself is like a very broad term for me.

I mean, you get to open people up and mess with them.

- Hudson's funny because he is a little bit computer dorky, but, man, he gets out there and can really hold his own, which is good to see.

He definitely knows what he wants to do in life.

He definitely has his own personality.

But, yeah, he's a hard worker, he's a great student, and I know he's gonna be very successful.

- I've always been interested in doctors and stuff just because, like, thinking about yourself being called doctor is such a cool thing to me.

I want something that I'm called doctor.

- [Interviewer] Do you feel like any of your EMT skills- - [Hudson] I think that just the qualification itself is really good for medical school.

- [Interviewer] Got it.

- That's kind of why I took the class, 'cause, like, EMT is my backup job if I can't, like, get into a good college.

So I'll just do that for a few years probably because it also just pays well immediately.

- [Interviewer] How big of a risk was this to do?

- Yeah, I think we all were nervous, myself included, because, you know, I realized it was such a different paradigm of what school looked like.

I think the teachers were nervous.

I know the administration was nervous.

And certainly, parents were nervous when we got started.

They were nervous once they got into it about the learning model.

There weren't a lot of multiple choice tests.

It was project-based, it was deeper learning.

You had to articulate your learning.

- [Interviewer] Did you have any thoughts on the Innovation Center and college preparedness?

- I mean, I think it's life preparedness.

We sort of beat it into people that they have to learn to sit for really long periods of time.

I don't think it's natural for teenagers to sit for that long, but it's not natural for adults either.

But yet, by the time we are 30, 40, 50 years old, we've learned that it's what we should do.

We should sit in meetings, we should sit in interviews, we should sit in audiences and listen.

But in fact, as human beings, we are wired to be active.

- [Narrator] It seems obvious that getting up on your feet, moving around space, is gonna create better learning that sticks with you longer.

But we wanted to be sure, so we went and talked to a behavioral neuroscientist to find out exactly how different it is to learn on your feet.

- So that's what a behavioral neuroscientist does.

We're looking at the relationships among behavior, environment, and the brain.

So we started a program where we started to design a day where the animals would be exposed to three different things that they would look forward to.

So we're interested in extending the duration of anticipation.

- [Narrator] In this program, rats are given the ability to play, they're given treats, and they're given other various tasks to keep their brains busy.

The rats are split into two groups.

One of these groups of rats have these things spread out throughout the day and another group of rats get everything all at once.

- And our pilot work's suggesting that that is sculpting their brains and making them more resilient, emotionally resilient.

- [Narrator] The rats that are engaged throughout the day show more resilience and seem to have more fun and joy overall.

And here's the kicker.

The way they tell if these rats are learning is by teaching them to drive.

- If you're a rat and you sit in a cage all your life, it's kind of scary to be put into a driving arena.

So they're in this scary arena, they get into the car.

So that's a lot of learning and associations.

The ones in the enriched environments learn to drive faster.

In fact, in that study we published, the rats in the control environment never learned to drive.

So they were just very hesitant.

- [Narrator] The rats that are kept moving around and engaged all day learned to drive much faster.

The other rats, the ones who get a comfy life but have less movement, hardly learn at all.

- The Chinese proverb goes like this.

"I hear and I forget.

I see and I remember.

I do and I understand."

Our kids don't understand what they're being asked to learn.

And it's not that every kid has to work with their hands, but they do have to apply knowledge.

We have to place far less emphasis on the retention of academic knowledge that kids will forget immediately and far more emphasis on the development of core competencies, of the skills that matter most, which all involve the application of knowledge.

- [Narrator] Hands-on learning makes abstract concepts concrete.

Do you wanna hire an electrician to wire your house who has only learned about electricity at a whiteboard or do you wanna hire someone whose fingers have pulled cable, connected sockets and switches, and made it all work with their hands?

Both require understanding the fundamentals of how things work, but one requires putting it into practice, which is where real learning happens.

(lighthearted music) One of the amazing things about career education is that it gets students up on their feet out of the classroom, working together in teams and groups, and then having one teacher or mentor who can move from group to group sharing knowledge and information without having to have a one-on-one relationship.

- I brought the PT, OT classes out to Ride-On Ranch so they can get an idea of a different way that we can utilize physical, occupational, and actually speech therapy as well here.

- The teachers here are more interactive.

It's not just, like, lecture-based.

They actually, like, interact with you, and, like, talk to you, and, like, teach you about stuff.

(engine rumbling) (engine rumbling) - Right now, I'm in a firefighting class, and that's all I do here.

(lighthearted music) I really didn't have any interest in firefighting.

I just came to school one day and it was an option.

It was firefighting.

And I was like, "That sounds pretty interesting.

Let me try that."

Now I'm all into this firefighting stuff.

I mean, every day, I'm like, "Man, I wish I could go fight a fire."

- Grab that and go.

Now watch, when he grabs, see, let's go.

Right there, open it up, nice and easy.

(water sputtering) Alright, cool.

Take a piss.

Over here, hit the fire.

- I'd sit there and just think about things, like, how things would happen and what we would have to do.

Like, there's building structures, different type of building structures that we're learning.

For example, I mean, we have heavy timber or a Type 5.

And it's good to know the difference between the two because the way they burn and the building will hold up longer if it's heavy timber than the Type 5, which is just your ordinary house, which, if it catches on fire, more than likely it's gonna collapse pretty quick.

You get anxious when you're in there, but it's fun.

It really is.

Once you come out and you feel like you've done something, it really gets to you and it's like, man, you're really being a good person and you're helping your community.

(lighthearted music) Malachi's story, which was unique, was he needed guidance in life and discipline.

That's exactly what he told me the very first day.

So first of all, I took that in an earnest way that for a young man to recognize that, "Hey, my life's not going the way I want it to go and these are the things that I think could help me out."

After two or three weeks that we were in, we did station walk around.

So I took him to each one of the volunteer firehouses.

I introduced him to a very good guy out there.

He's a career man in Loudoun County.

And I said, "I think this guy would be a good fit for you."

So Malachi went over to him, they got to hitting, and now they're buddies.

And what he's not getting in here, he's getting in the volunteer house.

- Yeah, I love helping people, but I'm also meeting really good people and people that I can learn a lot from.

Like, all the guys that work for the city, they're great guys and you can learn so much from 'em.

So spending time at the station with them, like, I don't even have to go to run calls.

If I just go there to spend time with them, I'll learn stuff, we'll have good talking times.

I mean, it's great.

(lighthearted music) - When we start to initiate that connection point between students and industry partners who are adults that don't typically work with kids every day, there's always that fear factor on the front side.

And every single time, they come back and they say, "Wow, these kids are impressive.

These kids pushed us.

These kids, they have ideas and think differently than we do.

And they made us better in our own workplace."

- Thank you all for being here today.

Today we're absolutely thrilled to debut 1 of 10 bike racks that have been designed and created by the students at the Innovation Center.

- I thank everybody for being here today.

It's great that we had such a good turnout.

I didn't know that there would be this many people, so I'm a little nervous.

- When they came to me, they said, "We're gonna put a bike rack in."

I said, "Okay, cool.

What do I have to do?"

And they said, "Nothing."

"And how much is it gonna cost me?"

They said, "Nothing."

And I said, "Is this gonna look cool?"

And they said, "Yes."

And I said, "Done."

- How we turned just a few pieces of, like, long metal into that from cutting it and welding it together, that was pretty cool.

- Now I can look at the library or John Handley, and it's been here for a hundred years, and it inspires me.

I love it.

And one thing I like about this project is these kids, they can come back.

Once they're married and have their own kids or they go away to college, and they can come back and hopefully this is still here for many years to come.

And it's a thumbprint of their life here in Winchester.

And I love being a part of that.

- [Attendees] One, snip!

(attendees cheering) (attendees applauding) - CTE, in my experience, is a hundred percent bipartisan.

And it's one of the joys of really focusing on career technical education.

Whether it's local, the city council level, state level, or even the federal level, I think we all agree that there's a need for the future.

Our workforce needs a broader spectrum of workers.

And so it does generate a lot of bipartisan support and brings people together, which is fantastic.

- My name is Tyler Beiler.

I'm the owner of Beiler and Company Construction Services.

There is such a huge need for tradespeople.

We're seeing it in business over and over again, where, you know, we're having an issue with a subcontractor and we may be looking elsewhere.

And it's just hard to find people who are in the trades and do a good job.

- [Interviewer] How many people have you hired that have come through a program like the Innovation Center?

- I would say three now.

So far, everyone we've worked with has a really great attitude.

They wanna learn.

You know, they've got a lot of the things that you can't teach as far as character and work ethic.

(lighthearted music) Luis is kind of our guinea pig.

He was in the carpenter program here.

- Push it right on it.

- My occupation is general labor.

So that means I do a lot of the ins and outs.

Like, I do a lot of framing, masonry, some drywall work.

I do a lot of pickups and returns.

My role is really just to keep the process of building a home kind of just flowing.

- I always say, if you give me someone that has the right character, that's gonna show up on time, be honest, you know, stay busy, and work hard, that we can teach 'em the skills they need to really make a good career and life for themselves.

- I've been with them for a little bit more than two years now.

- I actually got it through the Innovation Center.

- You know, he has a van that's stocked with tools.

He makes his own schedule.

And just, you know, for a 19-year-old to have a company vehicle and all the freedom in the world, I mean, that comes with a level of discipline and accountability.

- The feeling of being in a traditional high school was mundane.

It was, in my own experience, for me, it felt boring for me.

When it came to the IC, I mean, I'd go there with a smile on my face because I had the freedom to do what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it.

I spent a majority of my time in the carpentry lab all the time.

Doing what I really had a passion for at the IC was more, it made me love it and appreciate it more.

(lighthearted music) - [Interviewer] Talk to me about your experiences, your journey with testing and measurement.

- Oh gosh, I don't wanna get into this.

That part's gonna get too political.

Damn.

- [Interviewer] It's hard.

- Right, mm-hmm.

- [Interviewer] Your numbers should be great.

These are the happiest students I've ever seen.

- But we're not measuring happiness.

(chuckles) I have seen some early data from, you know, our initial run of previous years into the new model, if you will.

And, you know, it's gonna show that some of our schools have a lot of work to do, right?

Our current model isn't perfect, but it certainly has a lot of safety nets for schools like Winchester, with 85% free lunch and 31% English learners, which means they don't speak English.

Let's be clear, a third of my kids do not speak English, you know?

The context of the school, poverty, English language learners, if we just looked at those two indicators alone and started to tier the comparison based on like schools with similar demographics in those buckets.

But we don't do that.

We compare my school to an affluent suburb of DC, right?

You know, greatschools.org and some of these other private kind of assessments, they just pull all this data and they flop a D on the school, right?

That's such a unfair comparison, quite frankly.

It's not measuring the work of the teachers, it's measuring the context of my families.

And that to me is something that we miss on, quite frankly.

(pensive music) I'm not afraid of accountability.

Accountability is not a bad thing.

Reading, literacy, math, those are very important things, but they're not the only thing.

And unfortunately, I feel, like, because of the way our accountability structures are designed, they have become the only thing.

- The real problem here is that our young kids are graduating with the primary skill being how to pass tests.

What happens in school?

They reward the right answers, not asking good questions.

So curiosity withers.

It's a muscle.

It has to be exercised.

It has to be developed.

And it's one of the few things that distinguishes us from AI.

(lighthearted music) - [Narrator] So all of this conversation happens in the context of a world that's changing.

Technology changes jobs.

Nobody is doing jobs that look the same as they did 200 years ago, or a hundred years ago, or 50 years ago.

Automation, and computers, and now AI and large language models.

Work continues to evolve.

- We have seen a, you know, virtually nonstop parade of really powerful technologies hitting our economies and hitting our societies, going back to the steam engine.

You can talk about the internal combustion engine, or electricity, or the computer.

And the problem that we face is usually not enough people to do the work that needs to get done, which is the opposite of not enough work for all the people to do.

- Going forward, AI is gonna be doing all that menial and grunt work.

So the expectation that employers are gonna have at their entry level workers will be fundamentally transformed.

They're gonna expect their entry level workers to be doing higher value client work, project work, from day one.

But the catch is you won't be able to do that higher value client work or project work without having prior work experience.

- Yeah, we've taken a stance here in Winchester to lean in.

We do that with most things.

We lean in to what's happening in the real world.

- I think it's gonna impact nearly every aspect of society and we've gotta learn how to coexist with it.

And if we simply block it, that doesn't mean that kids aren't gonna use it.

I think it will allow us to teach the kids how to use it as a tool instead of a workaround.

- The jobs that are most affected, most exposed, are remote jobs that deal with digital information.

Like, any job that you could fully do remote without using your physical body, most of that is gonna churn with this technology in the next few years.

You're gonna have to learn how to do it differently.

If you have to use your body to do your job, you're gonna see less change.

- It matters that we are curious, that we know how to ask really good questions.

That's the heart of critical thinking.

That's the beginning of real knowledge that sticks.

It matters that we know how to collaborate, to work with others, for our community's betterment, for productive work.

None of these things are things that we teach in school anymore, none of them.

So what does that leave?

We have no way of developing our human advantages, our human capability unless we transform education.

(lighthearted music) - I feel for our youth today.

The pressures are significant.

What we know from students is the dangerous single story of there's one path forward, there's one expectation.

It is to excel.

We know when we have choice and agency, it's like a fundamental human need.

When we feel that, we feel well.

When we take it away, we do not do well.

- When we give the message, all kids have to go to college, what happens to the 80% who don't go at all, or if they go, end up dropping out with enormous debt?

What happens to them?

They feel like discards.

They feel like failures.

They feel they've been told all their lives, "If you don't go to college, you're a failure."

And then what happens with that sense of failure?

I think it turns increasingly to anger and to resentment.

And that is what is actually polluting our political environment.

That anger and that resentment, which stems from all the way back in school, when kids were told that they were screw ups if they didn't go to college, if they didn't graduate from college, if they didn't get a prestigious degree.

I mean, really, we've created two classes of people, those who have in some way benefited from kind of a post-college society and those who haven't.

And they're more than half the country, and they're angry.

And I understand that.

And if we don't figure out how to give those kids their honor, their dignity, their sense of self-respect, we are never gonna survive this political crisis.

It's only gonna get worse.

(sighs) Hmm, I'm so upset about this, just, I'm sorry.

- Yeah.

(metal clanging) (brush rustling) - All right, so talk to me, not the camera.

Teach me something.

- Alright, so I'm Tyler.

I'm here to teach you about stick welding, also known as SMAW, or SMAW.

It stands for shielded metal arc welding.

- I think that Tyler made a decision on his own without feeling the pressure from any direction, even from his peers.

And he went with it.

And it's proven to be a very beneficial one.

- I could do a quick little bead right here for you guys.

The most important thing you want is your helmet so you don't go blind.

- [Interviewer] So Tyler said he has ADHD.

- He does.

His ADHD really came out more so in the classroom.

When he was home, he was just a typical, like, running around, playing in the dirt boy.

But classroom, he just didn't have the focus.

He was well behaved, but he didn't have the focus.

Learning wise, he really, really struggled for years and years.

It was a struggle for him and his self-esteem.

I could really see a downfall in his self-esteem because all his friends were kind of moving along academically and he was really, really struggling.

- [Interviewer] Do you feel like the welding helped his self-esteem?

- Absolutely.

I think he found an area where he wasn't so much focused on, "Oh, my gosh, are my parents gonna be proud of me?"

He was focused on, "Oh, my gosh, I'm so proud of myself."

It actually gives me goosebumps when I say that 'cause I had not seen that in him throughout his entire childhood.

- The parameters we put on youth are not serving them.

The tight expectations without wiggle room are not serving them.

And it starts so early.

Family members get sucked into the role of college pusher, of pushing the narrative around college as the one way to go, enough that they lose sight really of who their youth is, who their young adult is, which is equally detrimental to the youth, the caregiver, and their relationship.

- Here we have our oxygen tank and then here's our acetylene tank.

This is the fuel.

So I'll open this oxygen up all the way and then I'll crack the fuel just a little bit.

(flame blaring) Turn the fuel down a little bit.

And we wanna make sure there's no black smoke, so we'll turn that on until that goes away.

- [Interviewer] I met Liz.

Liz is great.

Liz is obviously a very academically-gifted student.

- [Marie] Yes.

- [Interviewer] Did you have any worry when she wanted to come up here and take a welding program that it would affect her college applications?

- Oh, I encouraged it.

I just wanted her to be a little bit more well-rounded and to, you know, get in there and say, "You know, maybe I like this.

Maybe there's an opportunity somewhere else."

Even if she decides to go to college, but doing some, you know, other things on the side.

So it was something that I really encouraged her to do.

- [Interviewer] So you saw an academically-gifted kid and you were like, "Let us also grow you in these other ways."

- Absolutely.

- When I think about youth who have family support or caregiver support, what I imagine that support to be is being able to show true self.

- [Interviewer] Are the kids happy?

- Yes.

That's been one of the things that we ask in our survey is how they feel when they're here.

It's been great to see that they feel they're respected when they're here.

And they're trusted.

You know, they're allowed to be anywhere in the building that they wanna be.

They feel safe, and this is a safe space for them.

They feel like they have more time.

- There is more meaning in that building for our students.

There's less discipline, there's more focus, there's more energy.

There's more excitement in that building than I have seen, I think, in my whole career of education.

(lighthearted music) - I think we're missing the mark if we pose the Innovation Center as a dichotomy between, do we send them to college or do we not send them to college?

And technology's coming for all jobs.

I think what the Shihadeh Innovation Center does that's remarkable, and I had three kids go through here, it reminds them of their inborn curiosity about the world.

It gives them a can-do attitude, whether they're in English class or a welding class, so that when technology comes for their chosen job field, they have the confidence that they can pivot to something else.

(lighthearted music) - [Narrator] So here we have two students who took welding at the Innovation Center.

Tyler on the left got a job in welding and is staying in Winchester.

Liz on the right has gone on to college.

- [Interviewer] Hi, Liz.

- [Liz] Hi.

- [Interviewer] Thank you for joining us today.

- [Liz] Of course.

- [Interviewer] It's such a pleasure to see you again.

How is your sophomore year going?

- It's going well.

It's been a good start, for sure.

I'm planning on applying for our Political Philosophy, Policy, and Law major, and then one of our Batten minors.

- [Interviewer] So you're gonna run for office?

- No, no, but maybe I'm thinking pre-law.

- Whoa, okay.

- Yeah.

(lighthearted music) - [Interviewer] Do you remember what the first thing you learned in welding class was?

- I think the first kind of welding we did was stick welding.

Oh, I know I was in my friend's apartment last week and I saw their table.

It had a metal base.

And I literally, I said it to them, I was like, "I feel like I can build that table.

Like, I could have built that table."

- Really?

- Yeah.

- [Interviewer] What did they say?

- They were like, "Really?"

And I told them just everything I did in high school with welding and then carpentry in my senior year.

But, yeah.

- [Interviewer] Gotcha, wow, that's amazing.

(upbeat music) (welding rod crackling) (welding rod blaring) - [Interviewer] How long have you been working here now?

- I'd say five months.

- [Interviewer] And how is it?

- It's real nice.

I love it, man.

I love welding here.

It's really nice, good environment.

I love the people I'm working with.

It's really great.

- [Interviewer] Have you talked to any of your friends who've gone off to college?

- Yeah, I'll text them every now and then, see how they are.

They're doing fine.

I think it's not as fun.

Like, I'm having a lot of fun here.

They're just in college, studying.

- [Interviewer] Who's got more money in their bank account?

- I do.

(interviewer and Tyler laughing) - When I go to Virginia Tech, NC State, Georgia Tech, those engineering schools, what do the professors tell me?

They say, "The best student I got is a kid who took AP Physics and welding, AP Physics and small mechanics, AP Physics and carpentry.

Those are my best students as a freshman," right?

And so we've gotta rethink that and shape the messaging a little differently for our kids.

- We've always swung back and forth since the dawn of public education in the US between this idea of the practical, the vocational, and the the scholarly, classical, or academic.

I think what that swinging and what that history teaches us is that we need both.

(lighthearted music) - Good evening, graduates, families, friends, and distinguished guests.

It is with immense pride and joy that I stand before you today celebrating the remarkable achievements of the John Handley High School Class of 2024.

- [Emcee 1] Malachi Devin Reed.

(attendees cheering) (attendees applauding) Tyler Sean Thomas.

(attendees cheering) (attendees applauding) - [Emcee 2] Savannah Aline Vasquez.

(attendees cheering) (attendees applauding) (lighthearted music) (graduates cheering) (lighthearted music) - [Narrator] Every educator, every parent, just wants to do what's best for their kid.

For a long time, that meant one thing, college prep.

But as we look at an increasingly complicated, difficult, and unpredictable future, that doesn't feel like the only answer anymore.

That keeps dividing the world into those who think and those who do.

But we know the future needs people who can think and do.

Even if you're gonna be a lawyer, you're gonna be a better lawyer, you're gonna deal with your clients better, and you're gonna be a better person if you understand the work other people do to put the world together.

These changes can start small in your community.

But we have to give students actual multiple choices.

Not just multiple choices on a test, but multiple choices for their life.

They need paths they can follow, not just bubbles on a sheet.

Because if they get to try it out hands on, they might discover that what they really wanna do is a complete surprise.

Major funding is provided by iCEV.

For 250 years, America was built by skilled hands.

Its future depends on them.

Finding the right job... Um... Is this accounting?

...is all about finding the right fit.

Woman: Yes, this is accounting.

Britebound helps students discover their strengths and find the careers they were meant for.

Additional funding provided by... ♪♪ ♪♪