“Astra inclinant; sed non obligant” – Latin proverb meaning “The stars incline us; they do not bind us.”

A few months ago I wondered aloud what kind of ideas and policies a Tommy Tuberville-led state government would bring into play.

After all, with no one having any name identification stepping onto the field to challenge coach Tubs in his bid to be elected governor, I began to question if he would have to generate any ideas altogether.

Here is where I do need to give him credit for actually throwing some actionable ideas on the table. One of these really grabbed by me the facemask because it would mark a striking shift in how the state’s public education system would function.

While still light on details, Tuberville has pitched the general idea of allowing students to end their formal education after the 10^th grade. Instead, their final two years of high school would be fully devoted to learning a trade.

Alabama Reflector’s Ralph Chapoco quoted Tuberville saying, “We need to start workforce development after the 10^th grade. Kids will have the opportunity to learn a skill or trade, whether it is welding or plumbing or as an electrician.

“We have to get in on this because if we don’t, we are going to have to bring people in from other countries to do our jobs for us. That is not what we want.”

It is not clear if he means all public school students should learn a trade during the last two years of high school or if students themselves could choose this path as an option or if every student not on a college preparatory path would do this.

Tuberville’s campaign website does not mention it as part of his education agenda. This could very well be a case of Tuberville running an idea up the flagpole to see if anyone salutes. If no one does, then he can try to move forward as if the notion never existed.

Therefore, we are dealing with a lot of ambiguity in trying to discuss this concept.

The idea itself is interesting. All of us know people whose interest in school waned the older they got and the more complex the material became. All of us have probably also heard the familiar refrain of, “When am I ever going to use this in real life?”

As a welder, you may never have to know in what year Napoleon lost the Battle of Waterloo. As a nurse, you may never have to calculate the sine, cosine, and tangent of an angle. And you can make a nice paycheck in these professions without this knowledge.

Here is where I think focusing only on practical skills after 10^th grade can be a problem. It forces you into a career path decision at age 16. Maybe you knew what career you wanted at that age. I did not.

Under Tuberville’s plan I would not have chosen my current path, and worse still, I also would not have been exposed to ideas in other subjects that could plant a seed to germinate later in life.

As an example, recently I have been listening to lectures from a college course on finance while driving to and from work. I don’t know much about finance, but I am trying to learn both about the subject and about the people who excel at it.

The people who do well in finance have an understanding of complex probability formulas; the nature of technology, agriculture, and natural resources; trends and unique phenomena that have taken place over time; and the nature of human emotions when it comes to making decisions.

That is math, science, history and literature all rolled into one. No one can be an expert in all these subjects but having at least some knowledge in each of the fields makes the job much easier and can make people a lot of money.

Let me add here I also do not want to downplay the importance of learning a skill or trade.

Yet, I think the system we have now where students have the option of spending part of the day learning the basics of a trade while also spending part of the day learning traditional academic subjects still works.

With the current system, no one is bound to one career path, and no one is denied the chance to learn about the wider world, even if one may not appreciate the value of that knowledge at the time. I think nearly any tradesperson would agree if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.