Adjusting Our Lives

Dr. Frank’s articles appear in this space every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Severe competition for jobs makes it more necessary now than ever that society assist the individual, particularly the adolescent, to select for himself or herself the occupation most suited to the given person’s capacities. This social obligation was realized some twenty-five years ago in the United States, before any other country took cognizance of this new branch of social-educational activities. Vocational guidance, as a scientific theory and practical craft, is thus a distinct contribution of America to our modern civilization.

Now, vocational guidance is the process of assisting the individual to choose an occupation, prepare for it, enter upon it and progress in it. This aim, of course, presupposes a knowledge of the person, a knowledge of all possible occupations and a power of relating one to the other. In the circumstances of our rapidly changing economic scene, vocational guidance also must stress the development of the self-reliant individual. Such a one can adjust himself to the changing industrial world, and understands not only the requirements of his job, but the larger implications of vocational life, the roads to job success and economic security.

A YOUNG MAN’S DILEMMA

Although a factor in American school life and adult education, the possibilities of vocational guidance have yet not made a deep impress upon the mentality of the young person himself. He is still bewildered by the immense variety of possible trades and occupations among which he has to grope after this or that one. So, for instance, a perplexed reader of this series has written to me as follows:

Dear Dr. Frank:

I am a young man or twenty-two, high school graduate, with two years of evening college. After spending two years in the so-called higher seat of learning, I decided to give up the hopeless and unprofitable struggle of trying to make the grade in any of the overcrowded liberal professions, and instead learn a skilled trade which would offer me a more or less secure economic future. And here I’m facing the greatest dilemma. Agents of private trade schools have showered me with glittering promises. I, however, have little faith in their talks. Some of my friends suggested to me mechanical dentistry, others linotype operating. Is it wise to learn one of these trades? Are there any schools where skilled trades are taught free of tuition fee ? Daily, for that matter, new trades are being opened to the ambitious youth.

Would you kindly show me a way out of my present uncertainty, for which I would be eternally grateful to you?

Respectfully yours,

N. N.

AN INDIVIDUAL PROBLEM

Well, though a preference for one or the other of the skilled trades, as compared with the liberal professions, in the circumstances which a Jewish young man in America has to face, is justified (unless special and quite exceptional gifts were in favor of a profession), no specific advice as to the preference of this, that or another trade can be given in an off-hand manner.

Success in any trade and occupation hinges on individual fitness and adaptability to the job’s requirements—physical, psychological, educational. In this particular case, mechanical dentistry, like the watchmaker’s and optician’s craft, is suitable for a person in whom, among other traits, attention to the finest detail and precision in work are outspoken characteristics. Linotype compositing, on the other hand, makes very different demands upon the physical and mental constitution, as well as the behavior pattern, of a person. So, his lungs have to be invulnerable to lead-dust, he has to possess what psychologists call “visual” memory, and in his behavior there must be an inclination to a sedentary job.

CONSULTING GUIDANCE EXPERTS

First of all, then, high school or public school graduates, who intend to take up a skilled trade for a life career, have to consult an expert in vocational guidance, a practitioner in this new field of applied psychological science. These “counselors” are to be found in nearly every school or college where a vocational guidance department exists.

Again, it is very advisable to secure an interview with the guidance experts of the Vocational Service for Juniors Scholarship Department, 122 East Twenty-fifth street in New York, a privately supported non-sectarian agency.

This organization, furthermore, has published a manual, “Opportunities for Vocational Training in New York City,” with a supplement and revision issued in 1932. From this book, sold at a very reasonable price, the aspirant for a skilled trade is able to get a bird’seye view of an immense field with wide opportunities for a prospective craftsman.

LIMITATIONS OF VOCATIONAL

As could be seen, vocational guidance is fundamentally concerned with preparing and helping people make wise decisions, to solve vocational problems intelligently, to meet vocational situations effectively—tasks involved in planning and living a life.

But, as should be remembered, a career cannot be planned and mapped out in advance, especially in the ever-shifting economic conditions of our times, and more especially in view of the handicaps imposed upon the Jew by a hostile world.

No career can be chosen, though a trade or occupation can be. Careers are dynamic not static, and success in them depends upon a series of adjustments. Adjustments not only to work, but to the general social conditions of work, and to working conditions other than economic and social (as getting on with superiors and associates, etc.) In this way maladjustment and failure, through wrong courses of action can be prevented.

Dr. Frank’s articles appear in this space every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.