The conceptual goal of an education has always been to prepare young minds for a career once they reach adulthood, utilizing guided instruction and book learning to provide a solid foundation for their various ambitions.

For long-tenured Mt. Hope High School teacher Ryan Garrity, who instructs everything from engineering and robotics to construction and household wiring, preparation for employment in trade professions is most effective when you place the tools needed for the job directly into students’ hands and put them to work — beyond conceptualization and into actual implementation.

Last week, on a sunny Friday afternoon at the Pete Sepe Pavilion in Warren, a chorus of children enjoying one of the first beautiful days of spring served as a cheery backdrop to the seven Mt. Hope High School students who assembled under the pavilion’s shade — seated at two handicap-accessible picnic tables they had recently built as part of their construction curriculum.

To Garrity, the tables serve as a tangible proof of concept of the benefits that can be generated from teaching students the skills needed to perform a job, providing the guidance to safely carry out that job, and giving them the confidence to put it all together.

“It’s about teaching them interpersonal skills and setting them up to be able to communicate with others in a timely manner and making sure the job is handled,” he said of the school’s construction program, which is currently in the process of being approved as a certified career and technical education (CTE) program through the Home Builders Institute.

Aidan Lima, a senior student and member of Garrity’s construction management class (the highest level of construction classes at Mt. Hope currently), led the project as a type of student foreman — from starting the initial discussions with Warren’s Parks and Recreaction Director Tara Thibaudeau, to sourcing the lumber from a local company, and making sure the project stayed on track. The project was also cross-cohort, as engineering student Rocco Ferlito digitally designed the tables that would eventually be fabricated by the construction team.

Prior to the picnic table project, the construction classes worked to create a new lifeguard chair that will be utilized during the upcoming summer at the Warren Town Beach. They’re the kind of hands-on projects that Garrity wants to see expanded into the main goal of the construction curriculum.

“Each student could get their own project to lead,” he said. “Next year I might tell the kids that they have to come up with their own community project, or take a role on a project at least.”

It’s an endeavor that the students showed enthusiasm for — visible both through their words and the fact that seven high school boys showed up after school on a sunny Friday afternoon just because Garrity asked them if they were interested in sharing the story.

“Even if you’re not going into the profession, it’s a great life skill to know,” said Zachary Janke, one of the construction students. His senior classmate, Jared Hughes, agreed, saying that the construction program has provided him the opportunity to get hands-on experience in a field that he envisions joining once he graduates later this year. Lima is already being recruited by a company in the field.

Opportunities for more community projects have also begun to materialize. Garrity said that he has already received interest from the Town of Bristol to construct five picnic tables and a half dozen or so sets of cornhole boards. Once the program receives its CTE approval, the students will be able to receive professional certifications that can immediately give them preferential selection when they enter the workforce.

“I want to build the program even bigger and better and do even more things with the kids. The whole idea is industry partners having the kids working with people in the field,” Garrity said. “With these credentials it could put them in a higher bracket to be able to get hired by someone over somebody else.”