What is Occupational Ed?

Happy Email of the Day:
What is Occupational Ed?
Answer:
My favourite and most often asked question about the 11 subjects!
In school, it’s that day in 4th grade when the doctor, police officer, and firefighter parents come in to talk about their work.
Fundamentally, it’s this: there are people in the world + they have jobs.
In our home, we feel our daughter’s computer usage, carpentry and farming and sawyering, music lessons (as she does not want to be a builder or a farmer, but rather a songwriter), permaculture design course, strawbale building course, training at the fire department (including things like CPR and first aid), all count toward her occupational education. When she was younger, I would have pointed toward her mini-internships with a florist and a caterer, a weaver and a spinner, her projects fencing, building tree forts, animal care, cooking, and learning the keyboard, etc. When she was a really wee one, our trips to farms, grocery store tour, candy maker’s tour, fire department tour, police station tour, fieldtrips to the courts and the gravel pit, etc. — things having to do with jobs of all sorts – these all count. (Looking at that list, I can’t help but think, “Wow! Look at all the occupational education she would have missed out on if she were stuck at school!”).
Here’s some ideas:
Power/Water Company
Library
Fire Station
Landmarks
Restaurant Tour
Skate Park
Grand Coulee Dam
Mt. St. Helen
Zoo
Orchard/ Farm Tour
Local Manufacturer
Sewage Treatment Plant
Grocery Store
Candy Shoppe
Seed Plant/ Grass Farm
Florist/Arborist/Nursery
Asphalt Plant / Quarry
Train Yard/ Refueling Depot
Bakery
Winery
Newspaper (journalist office and printing)
Theatre (and Cinema)
Walking Tour of Public Art
~ Jen GS, Advocacy Chair