The Associate of Occupational and Life Skills Degree
June 21, 2008 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
Four students who recently graduated from Bellevue Community College are the first to receive an Associate of Occupational and Life Skills (AOLS). To receive an AOLS, students Bergen Delisi, Leah Brand, Anna Harnois and Trent Marshall completed a 90 credit-curriculum of college level courses that are designed to prepare them for the workplace with courses in basic subjects like social studies, science, math and writing, and also in topics such as global perspective, citizenship and volunteering. Students in the program have Autism, Asperger’s Syndrome, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Attention Deficit Disorder, and other learning disabilities. Today’s Bellevue Reporter (WA) describes the four-year-program more:
To cater to the variety of learning styles and abilities that make up the classroom, the teachers use a hands-on learning approach and repetitive instruction to help the students remember the course matter. The classrooms also reflect a social environment where student interaction is encouraged. The general degree is geared to help the students become more self-sufficient where they learn about themselves, their disabilities, talents and skills.
Harnois hopes to work as a child-care provider; Marshall seeks a career in customer service; Brand hopes to pursue a paralegal certificate. Here’s more information about the Venture Program for Unique Learners—-and congrats to the graduates.
I don’t know how I feel about this. I can see a time when students with Asperger’s or ADHD might be automatically “tracked” into this sort of vocational program, and I don’t like it. I can see the plus side to a bit of “life skills” work in college, but my initial response to the idea of a separate four-year program is not very good–it smacks of separate-but-equal, first of all. Second, why would the conditions listed above make a vocational rather than academic program appropriate?
I’m going to check this out right now, but my initial response is to shake my head and hope these don’t proliferate. It’s hard enough to get some administrators and professors to understand and accept the idea of providing the needed accommodations for these conditions; the last thing we need is the option of just sending “those people” the “special college.”
Yeah, sorry, no.
On their website it said it was academic, vocational, and social/life skills. So it didn’t exclude academics, and it would probably give more chances to someone who wanted to pursue college but didn’t yet have the skills for a regular college program (the site said the program took people with writing skills from a fourth grade level up, so you’d need further academic preparation (such as this program) before doing college English 101.
In fact, I think if I didn’t have the talent and interest in the sciences like I do, I’d probably pursue something like this.