Lessons from Soviet Educator A.S.

Makarenko
About Improving the Effectiveness of American Workforce Education

Carsten Schmidtke, University of Arkansas

Abstract

Despite numerous initiatives over the past few decades to modernize workforce education and
make it more effective, educators hear the same complaints from industry about how new
workers keep lacking in the areas of work ethic and so-called “soft” skills. The growing need to
have a higher level of education and different knowledge, skills, and attitudes than in the past
brought on by globalization makes the task of preparing workers for tomorrow’s workplace even
more daunting. This paper argues that in the search for more effective approaches to teach
young people the skills necessary to be successful in the workplace of the future, workforce
education can benefit from studying the findings of Soviet educator A.S. Makarenko.
Makarenko’s work in training young people to become productive workers includes several
concepts and methods that may be useful in improving today’s workforce education system.

Introduction

The National Commission on Excellence in Education sent shockwaves through the

educational establishment in 1983 with the publication of its report A Nation at Risk, a scathing
indictment of the quality of American schools and a dire warning about the future of the
American economy if student achievement did not improve. The report particularly warned that
the education American students were receiving no longer guaranteed that they and the nation as
a whole would be able to sustain a competitive workforce in an economic environment that was
more and more becoming globalized.

A common line of reasoning has been that globalization of the economy puts pressure on
the workforces of industrialized countries in three major ways. First, new technology requires a
different kind of familiarity with technology from today’s workers than from earlier generations
(Szul, 2002). Second, adjustment to rapidly changing workplaces forces employees to acquire
improved human relations skills such as teamwork, systems improvement, and problem-solving
skills (Overtoom, 2000). Third, workers often become unemployed when a foreign competitor
can provide a product or a service at a lower price. Globalization does provide opportunities for
economic development, but only if workers are sufficiently trained to respond to new challenges
with increased productivity and flexibility (Bloom, 2004).

Workforce education, therefore, has to respond to the higher expectations employers now
have of their workers and provide initial training as well as retraining to ensure that both workers
and school graduates are trained for jobs in industries that still are competitive or are given skills
that give them an edge with foreign competition. In particular, workers have to be able to deliver
products or services not available elsewhere or become so productive that they can offer higher-
quality products at a competitive price (Gray & Herr, 1998; Smith, 2002).

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 Subsequent to A Nation at Risk (1983), a number of reports were produced that sought to
establish comprehensive inventories of the skills students need to compete in the workplace of
the future. These studies included the Hudson Institute’s Workforce 2000 (1984) by A.E. Packer
and W.B. Johnston; Workplace Basics: The Essential Skills Employers Want (1986) by the
American Society for Training and Development (ASTD); The Forgotten Half (1988) by the
William T. Grant Foundation; America’s Choice: High Skills or Low Wages (1990) by The
Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce; and What Work Requires of Schools
(1991) by the Secretary’s Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills, generally known as the
―SCANS Report.‖ Most of these studies were immense undertakings and involved extensive
input from business and industry leaders. The ASTD report, for example, identified 16 skill
groups, and the SCANS Report outlined 36 skills, which were distributed over 5 competencies
and 3 foundational skill groups (Overtoom, 2000).

To respond to employer concerns, a number of follow-up studies to the earlier reports

were then conducted to determine which skills employers valued most and where the gap
between skills currently taught and skills desired by employers was widest (Ball, 1998; Centko,
1998; Clagett, 1997; Conrad & Leigh, 1999; Harris, 1996; Morgan, 2000; Rojewski, 2002;
Smith, Jones, & Lane, 1997; Smith, 2002; Wilhelm, 2002). Unfortunately, despite all the skills
that had been identified, employers kept grumbling that job applicants were no better prepared
than before and that the level of employability skills actually appeared to be declining (Lakes,
2003). The results of the Workforce 2020 study by Judy and D’Amico (1997) were equally
worrisome. According to the findings, 50% of American adults exhibited reading and math skills
below the 8th grade level, and 78% of corporations reported problems with their employees’ lack
of writing skills.

Despite these warnings about the need for new knowledge, skills, and attitudes in the
workplace and the ongoing discussion about which changes in curriculum content and
instructional methodology in general and workforce education in particular had to be made,
Smith (2002) felt compelled, after two decades of research, to repeat the same mantra we have
been hearing since 1983: ―[T]he nation’s standard of living and its capacity to sustain itself as an
economic power is increasingly at risk of losing strength‖ (p. 5). How can over twenty years of
work have amounted to so little? The answer to this question, according to Wilhelm (2002) and
Smith (2002), is to teach workplace skills ―differently,‖ but they remained mum on what exactly
that means other than to provide admonishments that both schools and workplaces must change.
This writer believes that it may be time to expand our horizons in the search for answers, and he
further believes that we can find some guidance in what may possibly be one of the unlikeliest of
places, the work of Soviet educator A. S. Makarenko.

Background

Anton Semyonovich Makarenko (1888-1939) (pronounced something like /mә’karyenkә/

with the stress on the second syllable) was a Ukrainian rural school teacher considered to be one
of the founders of Soviet pedagogy. In 1920 the authorities charged Makarenko with developing
a reformatory for children and adolescents who had been orphaned or displaced by the Russian
civil war and who in many instances had turned to crime as a means of survival. Makarenko took
over a dilapidated camp near Poltava in the Ukraine, and through many trials and struggles and

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much hard work on everyone’s part, he helped transform the camp into a functioning and self-
sustaining youth colony known as the Gorki Colony and his students into qualified workers.

Makarenko’s military approach to organization, discipline, and punishment soon raised

eyebrows within the Ukrainian People’s Commissariat for Education, and conflicts over matters
of pedagogy and politics ensued. In the search for a new Soviet approach to education, the
authorities had championed an educational theory known as ―pedology.‖ This theory, which was
heavily influenced by the work of American educator John Dewey, emphasized individual
human development and project learning. Arguments centered on whose methods could truly be
considered most in line with the requirements of a new communist society. Makarenko was
accused of ―command pedagogy‖ and in turn retorted that he regarded his critics as ―residents of
the pedagogical Mount Olympus,‖ removed from a true understanding of daily work in the
schools (Makarenko, 1973). In 1928, Makarenko’s continued inability to convincingly articulate
the need for and advantages of his approach and his open disdain for his superiors led to his
removal under a charge of fostering non-Soviet attitudes (Bowen, 1962; Wittig, 1969).

However, Makarenko had already become involved with a similar undertaking known as
the Dzerzhinsky Commune near Kharkov, Ukraine, founded and supported by the infamous
Cheka (later GPU) state security organization, and ended up as the commune’s educational
director. Once again, conflict with the leadership ensued over methods and curriculum, and
Makarenko left his post in 1935 to first become a government administrator and then turn to
writing and lecturing full time. His experiences in the Gorki Colony are chronicled in his book
The Road to Life (1935), his experiences in the Dzerzhinsky Commune in Flags on the
Battlements, also known as Learning to Live (1938). Makarenko died of a heart attack in 1939
before he was able to synthesize his findings and experiences into a unified theory, so today we
have to extract bits and pieces from his writings and his lectures and contextualize them
ourselves. This process leads to the discovery that three of the pillars of Makarenko’s approach
to workforce education are production work, the development of perspectives, and the
relationship between work and school.

Pillar #1: Production Work

To Makarenko, production work was important in education and character formation as

well as for personal development, and it became the centerpiece of his system (Froese, 1979;
Edwards, 1991). Makarenko (1973) admitted that it may be unusual for this type of work to lead
to advanced qualifications, but it forces students to be proficient in basic academic skills,
organizational issues, and work processes. His assumption was that people must always be
taught good work habits, and production work leads to a better work ethic and skills such as
dedication, pride, exactness, attention to detail, conscientiousness, and reliability as well as the
development of soft skills such as teamwork and supervisory skills, applied math, organizational
skills, creativity, and critical thinking (Makarenko, 1967e). Work makes students better able to
make an informed career choice than if they were to start a specific career program early and
spend most of their time in training rather than at work (Edwards, 1991; Makarenko, 1973;
Struck, 1979).

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 Work according to Makarenko should always be focused on producing useful goods and
services that are needed in the community, and good education for work is possible only through
the creation of something of value (Heimpel, 1956; Wittig, 1969). The focus on the local
economy exists to develop the right attitude among students and allows them to see the results of
their work (Makarenko, 1973). In the Gorki Colony, for example, students grew and prepared
their own food, raised their own livestock, built and maintained their own buildings, repaired
their own machinery, and helped out the townspeople. The Dzerzhinsky Commune contained
workshops and factories where students worked and whose output was part of the governmental
economic plans; if the students did not produce, the result would be local shortages of certain
products. If this focus is absent, work does not positively contribute to education because the
training would be seen simply as play and as an activity that wastes material rather than creates
products (Toeda, 1979). If there is real production, students will be interested, save materials,
and develop an understanding of the complexities of work processes (Pawlowa, 1977).
Productive labor, Makarenko said, provides a goal outside of education for students, grounds
them in the real world, helps them set and achieve goals once they become accustomed to being
relied on, and exemplifies for students the importance of educating themselves. Work is the path
to personal improvement; getting things done and being productive lead to dignity and self-
respect—people cannot develop a more positive attitude and mindset if they are not integrated
into a value-added process from which others benefit (Baker, 1968; Caskey, 1979; Edwards,
1991; Froese, 1979; Khillig, 2002).

Work must also allow students to develop their creative impulses (Froese, 1979). People
want to be creative workers, and educators are called upon to teach and enable such creative
work (Makarenko, 1967a). Makarenko asserted that all students have the basic desire to please
others, to do well, and to improve themselves and that work plus classroom learning leads to a
desire to want to learn more (Müller, 1958; Pawlowa, 1977). This willingness translates into
creativity and proactive behavior at work, which in turn makes people happier, more productive,
and ready to accept challenges (Makarenko, 1967a). In this context then, Makarenko was clearly
in line with Lenin’s discussion of the importance of creativity and joy in work (Medynski, 1954).

As real learning takes place through the full inclusion in the work process, students must
immediately be integrated into the production cycle of a real enterprise to become acquainted
with the demands of work (Makarenko, 1967d). It is important for creativity that students be
involved in research and development and be given limited power to decide how to execute their
tasks—simply performing repetitive production tasks, as important as it may be to do those
without complaining, runs counter to a desire to develop qualified workers (Makarenko, 1967e,
1973; Medynski, 1954). Students then expand their knowledge, develop mastery in certain skills,
find an occupational niche for themselves, develop a positive and creative attitude toward work,
and acquire both access to and a desire to engage in further education (Pawlowa, 1977).

Pillar #2: Perspectives

According to Froese (1979), Makarenko’s pedagogy can best be defined by his idea of
perspectives. Two conditions have to apply to these perspectives: (1) they must be work
perspectives, and (2) they must be realistic and reachable considering the students’ abilities
(Edwards, 1991; Pawlowa, 1977; Struck, 1979). Makarenko’s basic idea is that students will

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learn better and develop a more positive attitude toward work in general if they always have
something to look forward to, if there is a positive outcome from their efforts, and if they can
feel pride in their accomplishments (Edwards, 1991; Makarenko, 1967, 1973). Developing and
relishing such feelings does not come naturally and must be taught. Furthermore, perspectives
must always be extended; more complex and valuable perspectives must be built on already
existing ones, and instructors must be keenly aware of the right time when a particular student
needs a new challenge to keep educational momentum going (Baker, 1968; Edwards, 1991;
Froese, 1979; Heimpel, 1956; Struck, 1979).

In the Gorki Colony, Makarenko first started his students on near perspectives, tasks that
would lead to quick results such as peeling potatoes to help prepare a meal for everyone or
cleaning a dormitory; they then graduated to middle perspectives such as helping plan an event
or a trip; and finally he hoped for the development of far perspectives, an understanding that
sustained effort was necessary for social and economic development that would benefit everyone
in the future. Being given the opportunity to develop new and more advanced perspectives for
themselves, Makarenko argued, will encourage many to apply themselves to their studies and go
beyond their original educational aspirations for the benefit of society as a whole.

Decisions on perspectives are made in conjunction with students, and if students do not
agree with the perspectives set for them, they should not be enforced (Müller, 1958; Struck,
1979). According to Froese (1979), perspectives allow a more student-centered approach to
teaching since instructors must design perspectives and goals individually for each student and
link them to societal values in a way that motivates this particular student. Schools that shield
students from such delayed gratification and effort will lead not to a self-actualized person but to
an alienated one (Makarenko, 1969). To accomplish such an approach, faculty members must be
highly qualified and up to date in their field, something emphasized by Makarenko (1973), who
was clear that students respect only those instructors or mentors who are confident, precise,
knowledgeable, highly skilled, good with their hands, and willing to lead by example to teach
work ethic.

However, students will become overwhelmed if perspectives are too complex right from
the beginning (Makarenko, 1967c). A workplace experience can help students make the
transition from simple to more complex tasks and also show them new perspectives that they
may not have known existed for them. Students may begin carpentry work by sanding chair legs,
graduate to drilling holes and assembling chairs, and finally work on measuring wood and
operating the saw. Students determine the transition to a more complex step by the quality of
their work and their desire to learn more; sanding, for example, may develop an interest in
carpentry or lead to a distaste, but without this original work, students will never be able to make
informed decisions about their occupational futures.

Pillar #3: Relationship School-Work

As mentioned earlier, Soviet educational researchers and authorities had been grappling
with finding an educational model that would suffice the dual requirements of a complete
departure from tsarist predecessors while being compatible with communist ideology. To

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accomplish that, they took their cues from American educator John Dewey and his concept of a
combination of education for life with education for work.

Faced with the task of building a new social, political, and economic order, Dewey’s
ideas of combining intellectual and manual labor seemed a perfect fit. Named the ―complex
program‖ in the Soviet Union, the new approach combined production work, courses that
integrated academic and vocational learning, and teaching content that was focused on the
present (and thus considered relevant). Ultimately, Dewey would be rejected because his
emphasis on autonomous, individual development ran counter to Stalinist demands for a focus on
the collective and for clear political and ideological supremacy in the development of a new
Soviet citizen (Michitarjan, 2003).

Makarenko would agree with a number of the above contentions about the usefulness of
academic and vocational training, but he went a decidedly separate way in one major aspect,
claiming that students will reject anything that is obviously teacher-driven (1967d) as advocated
by Sears and Hersh (1998) and Howey (1998). Both work and classroom learning are important,
but Makarenko (1967e) insisted that the two not be formally linked. In case of a linkage,
education and work will not be used to their full potential; they will be expected to make
allowances for each other, which leads to needless complications in the educational process and
insufficient learning on both sides (Makarenko, 1967e).

Students must experience on their own how disinterest in classroom learning will have
repercussions on the job—if such consequences are orchestrated by instructors, students will not
take them seriously. Only associations formed by the students themselves can make classroom
learning relevant, and students can realize only on their own how their learning gives them more
occupational flexibility and stability for the future (Baker, 1968; Edwards, 1991; Heimpel, 1956;
Makarenko, 1967d; Pawlowa, 1977; Sauermann, 1988). The key is not to link, combine, and
contextualize school and work but to exploit both to their full potential and then let students
create the appropriate context (Sauermann, 1988; Wittig, 1969).

As a result, Makarenko consistently railed against and rejected the complex method and
kept school and work separate. In the Gorki Colony and the Dzerzhinsky Commune, students
spent part of the day in school and part of the day at work. They were encouraged to excel in
both, but no effort was made to create a formal connection. Work matters were kept out of the
classroom, and academic issues were not introduced into the workplace unless students
themselves desired to make the needed connections to solve problems at work.

Why Makarenko?

What exactly is the attraction of Makarenko? The main issue is most likely that both
colonies were largely able to turn young people from, as they are called in Makarenko’s writings
and lectures, ―street waifs‖ and juvenile delinquents, into successful and responsible production
workers and school graduates. Many of them later had successful careers in government,
business, academia, medicine, and the military. If he was able to transform students who today
would be considered ―at risk,‖ there may be value in Makarenko’s ideas and methods that ought
to be explored for our own improvement of workforce education. However, not everyone agrees.

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Those who have previously evaluated Makarenko’s work in terms of applicability can be divided
into three broad camps that do overlap in some respects:
1. Makarenko is interesting but unique to his time and context and thus irrelevant to us.
2. Makarenko is obsolete because he was never able to elevate his ideas to a theory. All his
decisions and approaches are based on experience; thus, he cannot offer anything to the
different context in which we live today and the different experience we have.
3. Makarenko should be considered to find solutions to our own problems. This writer considers
himself to be part of this third camp. Struck (1979) agreed and clarified that despite any
distaste one might have for communism, useful ideas should not be discarded simply because
of this association. Looking at the pillars of Makarenko’s pedagogical system once ideology
and political aims have been stripped away, a number of ideas can be deduced that may be
useful for career and technology education even in today’s time and place.

In more precise terms, this paper argues that Makarenko’s findings about what works and
what does not in training successful workers suggests that the models of employer-linked charter
schools at the secondary level and business-education collaboration at the post-secondary level to
increase the number and improve the quality of technicians for today’s workforce needs deserve
further study and possibly ought to be expanded.

What Can Makarenko Do for Us?

This section of this paper first wants to introduce employer-linked charter schools and
industry-college co-operations and then discuss how Makarenko’s pillars of production work,
perspectives, and school-work relationships can be seen in these two models.

The Two Contemporary Models

An employer-linked charter school means that one or several employers partner with a
school and subsequently have a voice in school administration, budgeting, and curriculum. Such
schools teach a curriculum based on what Grey and Herr (1998) have called ―work ethic‖
(attendance, punctuality, friendliness, tact, honesty, appropriate dress and appearance, loyalty,
dependability, patience, willingness to learn, cooperation) and ―advanced workplace literacy
skills‖ (self-directed learning, problem solving, teamwork, computer skills, systems design and
improvement, and the ability to function in a multicultural environment). Schools are located in
the vicinity of industry partners so that students have the opportunity to visit workplaces often
and even to work there, and employers can easily provide feedback on workplace trends and visit
the schools to speak with students. At the same time, this model allows smooth articulation, even
to the point of providing the first two years of post-secondary education on the school premises
to allow students an easier path from one level of education to the next (Lakes, 2003).

Business and industry collaboration at the post-secondary level often means that
companies, in an attempt to find better-qualified technicians, sponsor programs at two-year
colleges. In these programs, the companies are actively involved in shaping curriculum content
and often even provide desired outcomes and teaching materials (Zinser & Lawrenz, 2004).
Students generally spend part of their time in class and part of their time at work for a company

7
or a dealership and are paid for their work. The programs are thus similar to dual-system
apprenticeships at the post-secondary level. They then graduate with a degree in a technical field
but have a specialization in one particular company. At the Oklahoma State University Institute
of Technology, for example, partnerships exist with General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, Toyota,
Caterpillar, Komatsu, Kenworth, Manitowoc, Aggreko, the Gas Processors Association, and the
SouthWestern Association of farm, industrial, and outdoor power equipment dealers. Students
spend alternating blocks of seven weeks in class and on the job, and they graduate with, for
example, an A.A.S. degree in Automotive Technology—Ford ASSET or an A.A.S. in Heavy
Equipment Technology—CAT Dealer Prep (OSU-IT, 2009).

These two models have operationalized many of the aspects of workforce education that
Makarenko claimed are crucial for training qualified workers (e.g. reliability, dedication,
teamwork, organizational skills, etc., as mentioned earlier), and Makarenko further offers
pointers for us on how both models can be used to educate and train successful and effective
workers. However, it should be remembered that workforce education poses complex problems
that do not lend themselves to easy solutions; this discussion is not designed to offer a panacea
but instead to support programs and practices that are already being undertaken and to contribute
to the discussion of possible alternatives when current approaches do not seem to work for
everyone.

Production Work

The list of knowledge, skills, and attitudes given by Makarenko (1967e) (see above) is
quite close to what employer-linked charter schools try to emphasize and employers demand
(Gray & Herr, 1998; Lakes, 2003), testifying to the fact that educators continue to struggle with
issues such as absenteeism, tardiness, or inability to accept authority. Furthermore, if the ability
to visit workplaces, interact with employers, and engage in productive work can have positive
influences at both the secondary and the post-secondary level, industry and business connections
with schools can greatly facilitate student access to the workplace and help them develop
relationships with employers. Schools have attempted to create experiences such school-based
enterprises, but these can feel contrived and be seen as not an integral part of the local economy.
Only if students are part of the community and are needed in the community, Makarenko (1967c,
1973) claimed, they will change. Charter schools and business-education cooperation with
industry partners from the community can provide students with that experience.

The suggestion to be derived from Makarenko here is to include real work in the student
experience. According to Lakes (2003), charter schools limit themselves to activities such as
field trips and visits from industry partners, and at the post-secondary level, workplace
experience often happens in the form of internships whose purpose is to be part of learning.
Makarenko, on the other hand, saw those activities as ancillaries to classroom learning; the
workplace can unfold its full impact only if students are fully integrated into the production
process of a company. Ways should be explored for both charter-school and college students to
become paid employees of the industry partners and experience work on its own terms, not as an
extension of the classroom. That, Makarenko (1967d) asserted, serves students best and produces
the best results, and productive work by students could provide solutions to the issue of learning
transfer.

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 At the same time, not only students but also employers are required to change their
attitudes. While employees must become more centered on learning, employers simultaneously
must support more participatory learning. Kincheloe (1995) argued that the view of workers as
disposable, as itinerant resources that can be hired and fired as needed separates workers from
their creativity, their need for self-expression through work, and their desire to feel pride in their
accomplishments. In other words, he takes issue with the idea of a post-modern worker for
whom work is simply a mean to an individual end. Makarenko had already advocated a stronger
commitment by businesses to the welfare of the nation, and one of these commitments would be
to allow vocational students to be not just apprentices or interns but fully integrated production
workers responsible for their own portion of company output. Kincheloe (1995) agreed with this
concept, stating the true strength of an economy does not lie in lowering production costs as
much as possible but in the productivity coming from worker interdependence, the commitment
to improving life in the community, and the understanding of work not just as an economic but a
social process.

In this regard, Makarenko’s ideas counteract the American pattern of pushing more and
more vocational education into the schools and feeling less and less responsibility for one’s
workers. Granted, in a capitalist framework focused on profits and razor-thin margins,
companies cannot allow unskilled youth to produce low-quality products, but a different balance
could be found between society and industry in preparing young people for work. Kincheloe
(1995) argued for a connection between worker empowerment and improved productivity,
morale, and motivation, and the parallels between him and Makarenko are at times quite
surprising. Even though Kincheloe’s idea of more worker involvement in company management
seems counterintuitive at a time where cheap products from abroad put pressure on American
manufacturing, Makarenko’s thoughts can help develop the concepts of authenticity and joy both
writers see as necessary for making workers both competitive and productive.

A second suggestion concerns workplace readiness and workplace literacy skills. Charter
schools have been created to emphasize these skills (Lakes, 2003), but post-secondary workforce
education tends to focus on technical and academic knowledge. In many colleges, headcount
supersedes other factors, and students even in industry-sponsored programs face few if any
consequences for absenteeism, tardiness, failure to complete assignments, or inappropriate
behavior toward their instructors. In conjunction with the workplace, colleges should explore
ways to continue to instill employability skills in their students, to develop jointly acceptable
standards, and to find ways to enforce such standards without either driving students away or
abandoning all expectations.

Greater involvement with employers can also make sure that faculty members have the
required qualifications, and Kincheloe (1995) argued that businesses and schools overcome their
mutual distrust and find more areas of cooperation and that academic and vocational instructors
collaborate more. According to Makarenko, all technical instructors should be required to have
substantial industry experience. Are there ways to recruit instructors from industry partners?
Many states have already created routes toward alternative certification; can such routes be
expanded, for example in terms of creating special programs for new instructors that teach them
instructional design and classroom management? Can four-year universities be part of such

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cooperation, and if so, how? On the other end, can cooperation lead to better and expanded
professional development for current instructors? Can industry partners set up training courses
and instructor externships to upskill current technical program faculty?

Perspectives

Struck (1979) and Edwards (1991) both suggested that perspectives could work best with
inner-city youth who often live in despair and have no positive view of the future. For this
population, students who may have lived in despair and hopelessness their entire lives and tend
to become discouraged easily, the small steps advocated by Makarenko may be more effective
than being confronted with the entire learning enterprise at once. If these students are given
realistic perspectives and experience the joy of reaching them, they may be more willing to then
set more and more complex and long-term goals for themselves and in turn benefit their
neighborhoods and communities.

Schools for their part must focus on articulation. Makarenko (1967a) insisted on formal
schooling through the tenth grade while providing well-articulated further education
opportunities. This meant either advanced technical training or further schooling in grades 11
and 12 with the goal to prepare students for post-secondary study. These transitions had to be
smooth in that the same institutions that offered 10 grades should also offer the advanced
training and further schooling and make sure that anyone opting for further schooling was
prepared for university entrance (Frolov, 1979; Makarenko, 1967a; Pawlowa, 1977; Sauermann,
1988).

Employer-linked charter schools have already been exploring the idea of offering the first
two years of post-secondary study on site in collaboration with community and technical
colleges to ensure that students were prepared for the workplace as well as for transfer to a four-
year college (Lakes, 2003). Articulation agreements among high schools, career and technology
centers, and two-year colleges already exist through formalized programs such as TechPrep and
should continue to be pursued and expanded so that their effectiveness may be studied.

Even with a less formalized curriculum and program structure, it may be of value to
further explore articulation between colleges and career and technology centers. For example,
students who take courses at a career or technology center that is articulated with a two-year
college can earn college credit for the technical coursework they are enrolled in while working
on their diplomas, even while still in high school. This then gives students a head start for a
technical two-year college, which in turn is articulated with four-year colleges so that students
can move from one level to the next without much impediment and transfer credits easily, and it
gives colleges the flexibility to build programs as needed. Such articulation agreements could
eventually be extended to include proprietary career colleges as well as on-the-job training.

If Makarenko is correct, increasing the ease of transfer and the ability to remain in the
same institutions instead of changing locations all the time could lead to higher college-
participation rates, better attitudes toward learning, and higher completion rates.

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Relationship School-Work

In the final two decades of the 20th century, the reason for employer complaints about
unprepared workers was seen in the lack of an obvious link between what was learned in school
and what was needed in the workplace, leading to a lack of motivation and disinterest in
learning. The solution in turn was a return to Dewey’s ideas in the form of contextualized
education, which has been defined as follows:

Contextual learning is teaching that enables learning in which pupils employ their
academic understandings and abilities in a variety of in- and out-of-school
contexts to solve simulated or real-world problems, both alone and in various
dyad and group structures. Activities in which teachers use contextual teaching
strategies help students make connections with their roles and responsibilities as
family members, citizens, students, and workers. Learning through and in these
kinds of activities is commonly characterized as problem based, self-regulated,
occurring in a variety of contexts including community and work sites, involving
teams or learning groups, and responsive to a host of diverse learner needs and
interests. Further, contextual teaching and learning emphasizes higher-level
thinking; knowledge transfer; and collection, analysis, and synthesis of
information and data from multiple sources and viewpoints. CT&L includes
authentic assessment that is derived from multiple sources and is ongoing and
blended with instruction. (Sears & Hersh, 1998, pp. 4-5)

Sears and Hersh (1998) further elaborated that full cognitive development was possible
only if classroom learning could be applied in real-world situations at work or in the community,
and Howey (1998) added that learning happens only when all social, cultural, physical and other
contexts are considered. Teachers must employ strategies to help their students connect to these
contexts and develop a desire to learn to help solve complex work or community problems.

The alternating blocks of school and work as practiced at some colleges can help students
understand the importance of school for effective and successful work on their own. However,
some changes may be needed. Despite many efforts on the parts of educators and advisory
committees to make curricula integrated and relevant, many students continue to show little
interest in academic subject matters, no matter how well integrated with occupational skills, and
are focused only on acquiring those skills with an obvious and direct connection to work tasks
(Grubb & Cox, 2005).

At the Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology, for example, students follow a
schedule of seven weeks in class followed by seven weeks at work. The upside is the regular
exposure to and participation in the workplace; the downside is that students are forced to be in
class for up to 30 hours a week during their school blocks, and faculty members have
complained about student apathy and misbehavior, low quality of student work, defiance toward
non-technical learning even if it is linked to students’ careers, and a lack of time to ―let things
sink in.‖ Makarenko essentially followed a half-and-half schedule where students spent half the
day at work and the other half in the classroom, but unless the work is on the premises of the
school, this approach may present logistical problems. In addition, the half-and-half schedule

11
was also used at federal Indian boarding schools in the United States, and working on school
premises often meant that school took a backseat to work requirements (Riney, 1999), a problem
Makarenko also had to grapple with.

The lesson to be learned is to not look for a one-size-fits-all solution but to explore
alternatives and shape them according to local needs. For example, the German Universities of
Cooperative Education use alternating 12-week blocks of work and school (Duale Hochschule
Baden-Württemberg, 2008). That way, two semesters can still be fit into an academic year, and
students and instructors are less pressed for time in the classroom. Experimenting with different
timeframes is possible only with the close cooperation of schools and businesses, but such an
effort may reveal which length of each instructional block is most effective for students.

In this context, the current trend toward contextualized learning may also have to be re-
evaluated. Sears and Hersh (1998) claimed that contextualized learning leads to academic
progress, helps students make connections between school and work, prepares students for entry
into the workforce, helps students apply classroom learning, and makes them better citizens,
students, and workers. Makarenko rejected such notions because of the association of
contextualized learning with instructor control. Instead of buying into such an approach without
reservations, it may be possible that not all students will respond to contextualized learning;
some (or many) may indeed do better and become better workers when work and school are
separate and they have to make the connections between the classroom and the workplace
themselves.

At the same time, this is not a call to abandon contextual learning but to explore methods
that allow students to take the lead in projects they developed from the experiences they have
had at work, make certain the project benefits the community, and be responsible for the
outcome. To make this effective, instructors have to build on students’ desires. Instructors do
that by simultaneously putting demands on their students and encouraging them (Makarenko,
1973). Makarenko’s thinking is that respecting students means expecting them to always do their
best work, to use their abilities to the fullest, and to make the necessary connections between
classroom learning and work (Edwards, 1991). However, as soon as possible, instructors should
step back and let students make demands of themselves and others; students will excel when they
see that they and everyone else benefit from their work (Edwards, 1991; Pawlowa, 1977). Such a
compromise approach, as it were, still puts the emphasis on the learner and impresses on students
the need to learn to complete work that others count on (Hill, 2002).

Conclusion

It may seem strange that the idea of an educator from an authoritarian communist state
can be of any use in the twenty-first century, but Makarenko did in his own way what workforce
education is called on to do today. With the changes in the workplace as the result of
globalization, it is hard to say if Makarenko’s usefulness comes from the fact that he was ahead
of his time or that globalization created accidental parallels between then and now. In both cases,
workers need skills and education levels they have never needed before to remain competitive,
and many workers who in the past may have never even considered earning a college degree or

12
even completing high school now need to do so to remain competitive in the job market.
Makarenko had a student population that also needed to experience how education could lead to
better lives personally and economically, and therefore, the bases of his findings have value for
today. Makarenko’s plan was to equip students to raise their standard of living in an
impoverished and devastated country. According to Smith (2002), we have a similar task in
helping some people raise their standard of living and others maintain it.

What does become clear in Makarenko’s writings is that despite his political agenda, he
had a keen insight into human nature and workplace education needs, and he based his
conclusions not on theory but strictly on practice, on what worked. For him, production work,
perspectives, and the appropriate relationship between school and work served to turn around
young people whom many others had given up on. Therefore, Makarenko’s principles deserve to
be revisited to guide today’s efforts in designing workforce education programs for young
people.

Therefore, looking at what Makarenko did and accomplished and how he accomplished
it, this writer believes that Makarenko’s experiences make the case for paying more attention to
using employer-linked charter schools and business-college cooperation to educate and train
better technicians for the future. The strength of both models is that they do not place the burden
of workforce education with either students or employers but with both; both sides must be
actively committed to the process. Kincheloe (1995) said just as much, and the parallels between
his and Makarenko’s ideas serve to reinforce the potential usefulness Makarenko can have for
workforce education in the 21st century.

13
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Author

Carsten Schmidtke is Assistant Professor of Workforce Development Education in the

Department of Rehabilitation, Human Resources, and Communication Disorders at the
University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, 101 Graduate Education Building, Fayetteville, AR
72701. Email: cswded@uark.edu, Phone 479-575-4047, Fax 479-575-3319.

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