Books Belong in the Shop, Part Four
It’s been a while since my last post. This tends to happen as summer fades and a new school year settles in. Part of it, though, has been that I’ve spent these past few months quietly investing in CTE Creates: Stories Behind the Skills. Something meant to help our students build passion projects of their own. I am writing now because I’ve finally reached a point where the work feels steady enough to share. Maybe not the summit, but a summit. I would certainly value any advice or feedback as it continues to grow. In a few weeks, as prospective National Technical Honor Society (NTHS) members are presented with the expectations for induction, I’ll be introducing this project as part of that conversation. I plan to take a few minutes to lay out the project, its parts, and what they can expect as it takes shape. I anticipate that there will be questions that naturally come with something new. Here, most CTE students are involved in one of two groups: SkillsUSA or the National Technical Honor Society. With SkillsUSA already at capacity in terms of bandwidth, the NTHS felt like the right space to pilot this work. This is what I am planning, and I welcome any feedback. I want to begin by framing it not just as an assignment, but for them to put a voice to the meaning behind what they have learned and their broader CTE experience. Students engaging with this project should not simply be completing a task, but should be making meaning. In CTE, particularly in the engineering technologies cluster (Auto Tech, Construction Trades, etc.), we’re always saying we don’t want students to simply be “installers” but problem-solvers. This work is meant to help them step into that. From there, I want to show them how the project works and what each part is asking them to think about. Some of this comes from a Diane Sweeney work I have been listening to as a school board member trustee, which keeps coming back to the idea that when you make thinking visible, you make it measurable in the sense that it can be understood and talked about. So, here is how I plan to introduce this to students. I want them to see immediately that this is not a project handed to them, but something guided. Something designed to lift up what they already know and care about. Maybe that’s why the term “doorways” felt right. CTE students step through so many literal doorways. These could be shops, clinics, kitchens, traditional classrooms, and salons. So, offering them a doorway into reading felt like a natural extension of the world they already inhabit. That’s why one part of the project has to come from a text. After working in both the humanities and CTE, it is clear to me how absent reading can be in the CTE world. So, the project requires at least one text, not as a hurdle, but because reading deserves to be part of the CTE experience just as much as the hands-on work. The “branches” come next. This is where students make their thinking visible by linking their text to the hands-on work and lived experiences that have defined their CTE program. If the branches show their thinking, the final passion project shows their unique CTE experience. Each branch represents a moment, experience, a text, or idea that has mattered to them, and the work is in showing how all of these pieces connect. With help from an Apple consultant who works with our district, we built the branches in Freeform so students can revise and rearrange anything except the text branch, which remains the one constant. From there, students move into drafting, where connections begin to take shape. To help with this, the project features a set of reflective questions that students can use to guide their writing and make sense of what these connections actually mean. All of this work leads into the authentic piece they create at the end. Something original that pulls together their text, their branches, and the parts of their CTE experience that matter most to them. The final project is where everything becomes visible. The thinking they’ve done, the connections they’ve made, and the CTE story that only they can tell. CTE Creates leaves the form of the project entirely up to students. The form should match the story that students are trying to tell. I also want to acknowledge a former and forever colleague who supported this work in countless ways and helped shape several of its components. We created a four-point rubric. It looks at clarity, connection, creativity, and reflection. It is not meant to carry tremendous grading weight or create pressure. It is simply there to help students make their thinking and their story visible. I am including the link to the full project below, and I’d welcome any thoughts or feedback. References: Sweeney, D., & Harris, L. S. (2020). Student-centered coaching: The moves (Audiobook). Corwin.
CTE Reads: The Stories Behind the Skills (formerly known as Books Belong in the Shop) Part 3
I’ve always had a whiteboard in my office. It helps me process, think out loud, and work through what are sometimes half-formed ideas. I also like that it’s inviting. A teacher will come in to talk through something, and before long, they’re up at the board, sketching it out with me. The ideas build in real time, and because they’re out in the open, people feel part of the process. But most ideas, especially the ones worth chasing, need more than a whiteboard. They need focused time, shared language, and a little structure to take hold. Not everyone will see it right away, but giving people a chance to shape it early on helps. Students are less likely to jump in when they see something on the board, but sometimes they do. I’ve had a few who couldn’t help but add a thought or ask a question, especially when it connects to their program. And because they’re students, they’ll sometimes draw something completely irrelevant like a smiley face, a random sketch. I leave those up, too. It tends to mean something to them to see it still there when they inevitably come back for something else. I ask their opinions as well, because at the heart of any of these ideas, whether they’re whiteboard sketches or full-blown plans, are students. That’s what’s behind what we are now referring to as CTE Reads: The Stories Behind the Skills. There will be an assignment. Eventually. Something reflective but simple, an invitation to connect the reading to the student’s CTE program of study, their plans, or even just a moment that stood out. But the point isn’t to turn the shop into an English class. The point is to build a bridge between what students are learning with their hands and what they might discover through someone else’s story. We’re still figuring out what that looks like — what’s required, what’s optional, and how to make sure it works for all learners. This work will continue throughout the summer. Earlier this week, I sat down with two of my teachers. Thoughtful, creative people who care deeply about their students. We talked through what CTE Reads could actually look like if we gave it room to grow. We kicked around everything from a teacher leading the whole class through one book, to weaving in a short reading and a quick activity each week. In later conversations, I found out that some teachers were already doing more than I realized, using articles and follow-up activities that fit naturally into their CTE programs of study. One of the things we kept coming back to was the need for a central place, somewhere the whole thing could live and be easy to access. That matters for students, so they can find it anytime. And it matters for teachers, who need a clear way to model and guide students through it. If we want every learner to have a good experience with CTE Reads, that means thinking about access, both in format and in content. We need texts that offer choice, that can challenge students, and that leave room for scaffolds where they’re needed. This should also lead to future work with as a department, sharing strategies for helping students engage with text in meaningful ways, whether that’s chunking a longer read, framing the right questions, or connecting what they read to what they build, and vice versa. Like Da Vinci sketching machines in the margins of anatomy notes, the doing and the reading should feed each other. For me, the doing was writing. When I was working on my dissertation, my advisor would remind me constantly, “Patrick, marry the literature to your writing.” That stuck. And I think the same could apply here. The hands-on work and the reading should be in conversation, not living in separate lanes.
Books Belong in the Shop Part 2
A former colleague and someone I had the good fortune and chance to hire and work alongside during my time as assistant principal in the NYCDOE, now leads the department we once shared. She recently sent me a summer assignment that builds on work we started together years ago. I think it’s a great counterpoint to the developing conversation happening now in the CTE arena. CTE isn’t just about meeting pathway requirements toward acquiring a technical endorsement, it’s about building a lived experience. Independent reading deepens that experience. A well-chosen book, grounded (or not) in a student’s program of study, doesn’t replace the shop floor — it adds dimension to it. But as Da Vinci’s notebook doodles and errand notes remind us, curiosity isn’t linear. Reading widely can strengthen the very habits that make great builders, creators, and technicians. Recently, I’ve introduced this idea of an independent reading assignment to three of the teachers in my CTE department. This is a new conversation here — very different from the work they are used to. Still, the early response has been encouraging. Each teacher I’ve spoken to has shown a real openness to the idea — if not full-on enthusiasm. No one questioned whether CTE students could handle it. Instead, they started imagining how it might work: which books might connect, how reflection could look, and what it might mean for students to see their technical field through a different lens. Years ago, as a school leader in the humanities world, I was part of a team that designed a summer assignment that asked students to read a book or article connected to the grade level content they were entering that fall and reflect on it through a structured journal. Over time, we came to see it as a pretty sophisticated model. We linked PDF versions of each text — whether a full-length book or article — that were freely available to ensure access for all students. Everything was housed on our department website. Members of our team also took on the task of identifying texts that might better support students with disabilities or English language learners, though nothing was made explicit. Every student was encouraged to make their own choice. Teachers also made it clear that they were available as a resource. Students weren’t left to navigate the assignment on their own but they were encouraged to explore. Every title had been read by a teacher beforehand, so guidance, when sought, came from a place of genuine familiarity. Like any good project, I expect this one to go through several iterations — both before it’s introduced to students and, hopefully, as it grows over time. When we first launched our summer reading model back in the NYCDOE, it wasn’t perfect. It even triggered a wave of calls from the Queens Public Library. Because we hadn’t yet linked PDFs for all the texts — and because of the size of our grade levels — students were checking out the same books in such high numbers that the shelves couldn’t keep up. That kind of unexpected friction also taught us that something was indeed working but that we might have needed a course correction. . This time, the project already feels different. A few of our CTE teachers are imagining ways to build toward a culminating moment — possibly during National Reading Month in March. That never existed in our earlier version, where the work was often handed in quietly at the start of the school year. This time, there’s the potential for something more visible, more communal, and more aligned with the kind of pride our students take in what they create. I’ve never believed that being “hands-on” means being “non-academic.” Our students show us every day that technical skill and intellectual depth are not opposites — they’re partners. This reading project is just one small way to affirm that. It says to students: your curiosity matters, your voice matters, and what you build — physically or intellectually — belongs in the classroom and beyond. If we get it right, the result won’t just be better writing or stronger comprehension. It’ll help students to see themselves as thinkers in their field.
Books Belong in the Shop
Leonardo da Vinci would’ve made a great CTE student.Circa 1500, when Leonardo was in his prime, reading and building weren’t separate things. Somewhere along the way, we stopped expecting our students to read.As if good hands don’t need strong words. In our shops, sparks fly, screens light up, scissors buzz.With all that activity, you’d think reading would be part of the picture. It usually isn’t.I asked one of our second-year cosmetology students if she ever reads outside of school.She smiled and told me she reads romance, and sometimes suspense, when she has time.During our conversation, she said a book about cosmetology might have brought people together, something they could all share. And still, even in a program built on community, she felt something was missing. Reading holds things together. It gives students context, confidence, and the words to tell their own story. They read a line. It hits. That’s it, they think. That’s me. While other students write essays, ours are already explaining procedures to clients and checking in patients. They build technical skill, yes, but they also build relationships. And that takes language. Disciplinary literacy tells us that every field—health care, digital animation and game design, and the construction trades—has its own language. Our students are already fluent in more than one. Walter Isaacson says calling Leonardo da Vinci a genius almost misses the point. He was largely self-taught. He studied, sketched, experimented, and asked questions. His to-do lists included not chores, but concepts: what he wanted to understand that day, and who could teach him.That kind of self-direction feels limitless in hindsight. But it started with time, space, and the belief that it was worth learning. What are we doing to encourage that kind of drive in our own students? They generally have the space and the time (CTE session usually go beyond one traditional class period. James Paul Gee calls this kind of exploration ‘mucking around’ and highlights the power of ‘horizontal learning’—moving across contexts, disciplines, and practices to construct knowledge without having to “race up the skill tree”. Could books, offered freely and purposefully, help spark some of that curiosity? I first read The Great Bridge years ago, but recently downloaded the audiobook again.Listening now, while walking around the track at the school where I serve as a district school board trustee, I keep coming back to one line: that this structure was not just the greatest engineering feat of its time, but a work of art. Roebling might not have sat in a welding booth or a game design lab, but he was a CTE student in every way that matters. And like CTE students, he didn’t work alone. McCullough reminds us: “Little of consequence is ever accomplished alone.” It took his son, his daughter-in-law, and thousands of workers to make the bridge real. At one point in The Great Bridge, McCullough notes that Roebling was sometimes called “a lesser Leonardo.” The qualities we revere in da Vinci didn’t vanish with the Renaissance. We’ve seen them since, in Roebling, and, if we’re paying attention, in our own students. What connects Leonardo and Roebling is more than invention. It’s imagination. The Brooklyn Bridge was the first of its kind. So were Leonardo’s flying machines, his anatomical sketches, his war devices. Both men studied, built, and reimagined the world around them. What they did was unprecedented. That’s what we should be preparing our students to do, not just to follow instructions, but to imagine something new. Leonardo da Vinci should remind us that education isn’t about knowing. It’s about questioning. Self-discovery is what we should be teaching our kids. This is what CTE should be at its best. Not as a separate lane, but as a path. Not a backup plan, but a full education, rooted in hands-on skill, shaped by academic depth, and driven by the kind of curiosity that once led a young artist to study flight, anatomy, and water pressure in the same week. We call him the original Renaissance man. But maybe he was just the first CTE student. This post marks the beginning of a new series on integrating reading into Career and Technical Education. As we pilot a choice-based reading assignment tied to both grade level and CTE content, I’ll be reflecting on the process, sharing resources, and highlighting what we’re learning along the way. References Gee, J. P. (2004). Situated language and learning: A critique of traditional schooling. Routledge. Isaacson, W. (2017). Leonardo da Vinci. Simon & Schuster. McCullough, D. (1972). The Great Bridge: The epic story of the building of the Brooklyn Bridge. Simon & Schuster.
