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IT High Schools Get Kids Networking

Many IT professionals are eyeing their retirement-bound colleagues—or planning their own withdrawals from the work force—and wondering who’ll keep the data centers humming when they’re gone. How do you replace decades of experience and industry perspective? Will exiting experts have a chance to pass on their wisdom along with their titles and responsibilities?

You may be surprised that young students across the U.S. are learning Web development, networking, Cisco certification material, and even business ethics and project management, before they take a single college course. Through magnet high schools and programs within conventional high schools, enterprise IT training can begin as early as grade 9.

For example, at Pathways to Technology Magnet School in Hartford, Conn., courses include Web design and networking; five technology labs include a business center; and clubs include IT leadership, technical support and robotics. At Omaha South High’s Academy of Information Technology, students can learn about programming logic and databases, and seniors complete paid internships.

Fanning the Flame

Kids who are drawn to IT programs are excited about popular technology they see every day, teachers say. Many arrive at Omaha South because if its video game design program, according to IT instructor Ryan Desch. Or they’re obsessed with Facebook, says Dennis Barham, technology teacher at Pathways. The trick, Barham says, is to channel that excitement into industry lessons. “Nine times out of ten, is Facebook relevant in the classroom? Only if you have the right topic,” he says. Barham integrated Facebook into his classroom by having his students assess the business value of a real client’s Facebook page. “We are going to this very popular place, with a completely different agenda,” he says. “Their charge was, now, you need to write me a set of recommendations because we’re gonna meet with the customer to tell her what she should do.”

Andrew Rothstein, chief academic officer for the National Academy Foundation, a nonprofit that operates 107 high school IT programs in 25 states (including Omaha South and Pathways), stresses the importance of exposing students to working-world specifics early their careers. “The number one thing is, get the students engaged as soon as possible in industry-authenticated work. And it’s from that inspiration, then, that curiosity about other things happens. And that’s when the need to know is there.”

Future Proofing

More than any other subject, technology challenges educators by changing vastly from one generation to the next. At IT-focused high schools, instructors think about this problem all the time. Barham, a 30-year veteran of the technology industry, tries to prepare his students to change with the times. He tells kids they’ll be relied on to figure out answers to questions no one’s ever asked before. He challenges them to tackle new problems without the fear of being seen as naive, which he’s seen stifle some professionals. “The truth is, we all get questions asked of us that are brand new territory. And the answer in the new-technology age, as things change, is we go out and we find the new solution. And you reinvent yourself.” Barham also turns this challenge into an incentive. “How do you feel about a job where nothing changes?” he asks his students. “One of the wonderful things about working in technology is there’s always something new.”

From a curriculum perspective, Rothstein says linking IT to all other academic subjects is vital for future-proof students. “It’s that broad-based, comprehensive education that will enable the student to be a lifelong learner. And to adapt to a changing world,” he says. “It’s not just the inventiveness of the field itself, but it’s that changing environment in which it swims.” He uses mobile apps as an example: Technical skills can only produce a marketable app if the developer knows of a real-world problem the app should solve.

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