Toys to Tools: Learning not to make stuff.....

I'm a big fan of Century of the Self and personally I see it as totally relevant. It's the tale of the rise of consumerism and its cohort advertising, formally known as propaganda. The idea of wanting it right now at the cheapest possible price whether you need it or not even if you have to use plastic has done more to change us from frugal self sufficient to keeping up with the tv Jones's. And it didn't really get going till the advent of tv. But nobody seems to care about the inordinate about time everybody spends in front of the tv and every hour spent, 15-20min is ads.
 
jwmay said:
It’s my opinion that while the way kids learn is changing, everything will be ok. Or at least as ok as it’s ever been. I guess I could tell an anecdotal tale of my own upbringing, but the point is that there are plenty of young people doing incredible things with their electronic gizmos and gadgets. The majority will always be barely average performers. There was only one Edison, and only one Ford...only one Bill Gates. Societal innovation doesn’t exist. It’s that one driven individual that finds a way to change the world. The rest of us are just waiting for him or her to think it up and make it happen. And I think those amazing, driven, intelligent young people are still out there. Toys or no toys. Then again, I’ve always been a glass half full type of person.
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Edison had an inventing factory packed with geeks ;)
 
stupoty said:
Edison had an inventing factory packed with geeks ;)
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Yup, and for a short time one of those geeks was Tesla. He tried to bring to Edison his inventions and 40 patents that basically gave us the 20th century. The AC motor and 3ph power, its generation and distribution and Edison refused to see it. And even savagely fought him to keep DC as the paradigm. It's very interesting the geek who changed the world was more or less lost to common knowledge until another innovator Elon Musk named his electric car line after Tesla. If I remember right, just like Gates, he didn't come up with it, but he had the capital and vision to promote it.

To me for every visible genius there are hundreds or possibly millions who don't break the surface and become known or are ripped off of their ideas. I'm constantly amazed by what I see folks come up with on this and other forums. And in the places where programming of Arduino and computers there are young folks doing amazing things.
 
My wife and I were discussing this. You go to a Park, the family sits at a picnic bench and they all have their smart phones or tablets. The art of social interaction is affected. I myself am socially retarded but that's OK.
We hired an apprentice technician right out of a local Community College 2 year AA program in Automotive Technology.
I asked him why he went into this field? he said, "my parents thought I would be good at it".
He could not figure out how to open the hood. He did not make it one day.
Exposure to hands on toys like tinker toys or an erector set, enhances young minds mechanical, structural creativity and adds to small motor dexterity.
The lack of these types of toys and the absence of shops in intermediate and high schools scares the heck out of me.
On a brighter note, I have heard some of the local school districts are re-introducing shop technology shops and classes including CNC and CAD of course.
Look at the demand for welders, electricians, plumbers, etc. I hope the higher ups in Education are paying attention.
My sons are in their 30's. They both loved baseball, basketball, Hot Wheels and Lego's.
One is an Electrician and the other is a Teacher.
 
When the communication satellites start falling down it will be Armageddon in the developed countries,
Shooting down satellites will be the new war, nukes are less affective
 
Janderso said:
My wife and I were discussing this. You go to a Park, the family sits at a picnic bench and they all have their smart phones or tablets. The art of social interaction is affected. I myself am socially retarded but that's OK.
We hired an apprentice technician right out of a local Community College 2 year AA program in Automotive Technology.
I asked him why he went into this field? he said, "my parents thought I would be good at it".
He could not figure out how to open the hood. He did not make it one day.
Exposure to hands on toys like tinker toys or an erector set, enhances young minds mechanical, structural creativity and adds to small motor dexterity.
The lack of these types of toys and the absence of shops in intermediate and high schools scares the heck out of me.
On a brighter note, I have heard some of the local school districts are re-introducing shop technology shops and classes including CNC and CAD of course.
Look at the demand for welders, electricians, plumbers, etc. I hope the higher ups in Education are paying attention.
My sons are in their 30's. They both loved baseball, basketball, Hot Wheels and Lego's.
One is an Electrician and the other is a Teacher.
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As a stone Luddite ( which if you look it up, they hated tech that took jobs away from Craftman and made them slaves to machinery. Not that they hated tech) I only recently started to use my cell phone that I've had forever. So this leads me to ask, are those people everywhere I see in public actually doing something or like me just staring at the stupid little screen and can't figure out how to do what I think I need the thing for?

The other day I got an email from a senator who was saying her contact with her corporate constituents has led her to want to push a bill for teaching industrial arts again. While on the face of it, and especially like I had it in 7th grade and up is a good thing for an introduction it sounds like a good idea. Anything above grade school the idea of us taxpayers footing the bill for what in the past was the company's apprenticeship program seems very inefficient to me. Every program I went through was years behind the field. It would make more sense to take in an apprentice like my German buddy down the street went through in the 40's and 50's and get EXACTLY the craftsman you need than have to retrain or untrain everybody who comes in off the street. It would be much more efficient to subsidize the company's wage to the apprentice program than to build and maintain a huge school that would be out of date by the time it's built and staffed. To get a glimpse of what my buddy went through I'm reading the biography of Robert Bosch. Now there was a real industrialist who knew his company was about people and the value of them and hard work.
 
I'll throw in 2¢ worth here.
1st ¢ - I'm very much in favor of teaching "manual arts" in public schools. I disagree with the increasingly popular notion that "EVERYBODY has to go to college" and get an academic degree. One size does not fit all. About the best anybody can do nowadays is to find a community college with a machining program.
2nd ¢ - It used to be that people would work for one company for many years, if not for their entire career. Nowadays, job hopping is the thing to do. This has probably done more than anything else to discourage, or even kill, company sponsored apprenticeship programs. Such a program is a big investment for a company. And when the newly "graduated" apprentice jumps ship for a few bucks' extra salary, the company has lost its investment. Unfortunate, and I have no idea what can be done about the situation.
 
Job hopping is one of the main reasons I am not in favour of the apprentice program.
I am a firm believer of full time trade college then climb up the ladder.
The full time training college gives a good training in many facets of a trade not limited just to the narrow facets of each business.
The broad background knowledge makes it far easier to assimilate new knowledge as it arrives.
Yes it will mean that a worker wont stay in one business all his life but thats what is already happening so the work force will have skills that can quickly be utilised in the new business.
 
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