A Morse High School student and member of Bath Regional Career and Technical Center was recently honored by the Maine Association of Career and Technical Education as student of the year. Tanager Karchens was awarded at the ACTE annual event in late April, and also received a $1,000 college scholarship.

Karchens will attend the University of Maine in Orono this fall and will study engineering.

Karchens said that he believes having the option to take CTE classes has helped him hone in on his interests, and believes that every student should have the option to take CTE classes if desired.

“I often think about how valuable it is to have a sense of attachment to learning,” said Karchens, who has taken two CTE classes during his senior year. “Some people say, ‘This class is boring,’ or aren’t very interested in a given class. A lot of classes are like that. I understand MORSE HIGH SCHOOL student Tanager Karchens and Bath Regional Career and Technical Center director Julie Kenny stand outside the school. Karchens was recently awarded student of the year at BRCTC by the Maine Association of Career and Technical Education. that to graduate from high school you have to have those core classes, your math, your reading and writing, but some students just don’t like those subjects. It’s nice to have the option of CTE.”

BRCTC offers nine classes — such as automotive, computer science and engineering graphic design — to students at Morse High School, Boothbay Region High School, Lincoln Academy and Wiscasset Middle High School. The classes require a more hands-on approach that school director Julie Kenny believes better prepares students for the real world than the standard curriculum, while also providing college credits.

“Students receive college credits for almost every course at CTE,” said Kenny. “They not only go to college but they have a better idea of what they are going to do when they get there.”

Kenny said that CTE classes in the past have gotten a bad rap when weighed against standard AP college prep courses, but have been proven to help students hone in on what kind of learning works for them.

“Tanager likes relevant learning, using his interests, and he’s spent a lot of time with us in the past couple of years,” said Kenny.

Karchens said that he has always been fascinated with sketching custom Lego parts and then building them from scratch. Karchens has been able to incorporate that into his engineering graphic design class, which he said is “very satisfying.”

“I would doodle and sketch things that I would want to add onto the project at home after school because it was interesting,” said Karchens. “When the passion is there it’s something that you want to do on your own time.”

Karchens said there was no option for CTE courses at his old school.

“If you wanted those options you needed to know a carpenter or a mechanic,” said Karchens. “At Morse you have those options. What electives you take aren’t set in stone. I feel like that engagement for students is important. I understand you can’t appease to everyone, but appealing to a large demographic — like with automotive, for instance — is the way to go. If you can find trends of how students like to learn, you can perhaps benefit the school.”

“A lot of reasons why certain classes don’t work for certain students is they cannot relate the subject to real life,” said Kenny. “This is why CTE is so great. If Tanager is thinking, ‘I love engineering, and I love Legos,’ he can use that skill to make the Legos. It’s a relevant way to utilize the learning.”

To learn more about courses and opportunities at Bath Regional Career and Technical Center, visit brctc.rsu1.org.

bgoodridge@timesrecord.com