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Sparks Fly When Superintendent Visits Welding Class Celebrating CTE Month
Description
February is CTE Month, a time to celebrate the value, achievements and accomplishments of Career and Technical Education programs across the country including right here in Jordan School District. On this episode of the Supercast, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey celebrates CTE month by visiting one of 25 Career and Technical Education classes offered at JATC North and JATC South.
Listen to the sparks fly when Dr. Godfrey gears up and finds out what it takes to learn the art of welding from students in the welding program.
Audio Transcription
Anthony Godfrey:
Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. February is CTE month, a time to celebrate the value, achievements and accomplishments of career and technical education programs across the country, including right here in Jordan School District. On this episode of the Supercast, we celebrate CTE month by visiting one of the 25 career and technical education classes offered at two locations in the District at JATC North and JATC South. Listen to the sparks fly when I gear up and get an up close and personal lesson on what it takes to learn the art of welding from students in our welding program.
We're here in the welding class at JATC South with teacher Blair Jensen. Tell me a little bit about what just happened.
Blair:
You just had everybody clocked out at the end of the class.
Anthony Godfrey:
I've never seen that happen. Yeah, I did.
Blair:
So, I run my welding shop as close to an actual welding shop as I can. The main focus in this place is on career centers on building soft skills. And so clocking out, or you might've heard me talking about, then signing up for a job next week. When we have days that we're working in the shop, they also have jobs that they have to do in addition to their welding duties. It's teaching them some of the career focus that they would have in a welding shop. Things like maintaining cleanliness, observing safety standards, and just making sure that they're building those career skills that their future employers are going to be looking for.
Anthony Godfrey:
In addition to the welding skills they're learning in the class, it sounds like there's a lot beyond just welding that they get to experience. And they come out ready to work, not just with the skills, but ready to be a great worker.
Blair:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Like I said, career skills I think is my main focus. As I talked to people in industry, a lot of them will tell me we can teach them to weld. If you can get them to where they can run a bead and they can analyze their defects, we can teach them and certify them for what we need. But the things that they struggle to get kids to learn, that they need to be learning while they're in high school, are those soft skills. They need to be learning to show up on time, to treat their coworkers with respect, to communicate with their coworkers and their managers, learning all the stuff that goes into the welding, the blueprint, reading the map, that's all very valuable.
Anthony Godfrey:
I see a group of students over here. This looks like a crew that you want to have on your side. I noticed that all of footwear is much more durable than mine. I look like I'm about to walk the mall before it opens in the morning, and you guys look like you're ready for action. Tell me your name.
Student:
My name is Skylar Stephenson.
Anthony Godfrey:
And Skyler, why are you taking welding?
Student:
I took welding because I thought it was cool. I've always watched YouTube videos on it and thought, I want to do that someday. So I decided to take this when I found out about it.
Anthony Godfrey:
Now that you're taking the class, what do you think of it?
Student:
I think it's super fun and it's a good experi