Women in Technology Education
Teaching Students Life is Full of Options

Judith Hawthorn
Department Chair, Technology Education
Cedar Cliff High School, Camp Hill, Pa.

Choosing a career or occupation can be very threatening to any student in high school or college.  Asking our children to choose a lifelong career at the young and tender age of 17 or 18 is probably one of the most idiotic yet traditional things we do as educators and parents.  Still, we wonder why young women, who are very capable, aren’t lining up to be rocket scientists, engineers or for that matter, Technology Education teachers.  I read the last TEAP Journal highlighting "Women in Technology Education" and was quite pleased to see the effort made by Dr. Stan Komacek, Mrs. JoAnn Trombley and Dr. Joe McCade to get our members thinking in this direction.  In my career of 21 years, people are still surprised at my curriculum choice in the education profession. Many of these people are women.

As Technology Education teachers we have an obligation to our students and the profession to "mentor our replacement, before it's too late" (as was suggested by Dr. Ken DeLucca at a workshop at the 1997 TEAP Conference).  Why not mentor young women as well as young men?  And, in that mentoring, teach them that security in any chosen profession is a thing of the past.  The very best thing we can do for our students is to help them develop the tools necessary to explore all options and make changes in their lives when necessary.

Traditionally, we expect students to make choices that will impact their entire life and then enter into a very expensive training center (college) to fulfill what they think will be their occupational choice for the remainder of their lives.  They, like most of us are slotted into a box in which they feel compelled to stay.  I know many teachers who shouldn't be in education any longer and others in professions that they have no zest for at all, they are merely putting in their time.  But, they can't or won't make a change because they don't see themselves as ever leaving the 'box' they chose many years prior.  One reason they don’t leave their box is fear of change.

Many people don't take time to realize all of the options available and change for some is very difficult.  Before we change the statistics of young women entering traditionally male careers, we must change the mindset of equating 'making a change with making a mistake'.  Teaching young people that 'it's okay to change', and instilling in them the 'courage to change' is part of our job as teachers and parents.  It takes courage to make those decisions!   If we as educators provide the tools for our students, they will in turn be reminded that ; LIFE IS FULL OF OPTIONS!