Lit up

[twall]

Boy, JD's parts post really fired me up.......So, I'm going to rant a tad here, too - since what I have to say isn't directly related to his thread. Feel free to chew me out for my opinions if you like...

What exactly is this "new service-based economy" supposed to consist of? People going to college so they can be data entry clerks, and make minimum wage, because the market for that is so saturated? Are we ALL supposed to be 'professionals'? What about auto mechanics, factory workers, machinists, small farmers, and a plethora of others supposed to do? Just fade away? "Re-educate" themselves to fit into a college-educated crowd? Should we go to college and owe thousands, so we know the physics behind the grill on which we're flipping burgers?

Don't we still need someone to till the land, grow crops, build things, make machines, service machines, manufacture things that the quality thereof is unmatched? Why, all of a sudden, are people who work with their hands considered second-class citizens?

It's NOT 'all of a sudden'. This has been going on for 20 or more years. We've been moving away from people working with their hands to working with their brains. The former actually makes a physical something (something of value) and the latter only tells the former what to build. Now, they're tellin people in other countries what to build, because they work cheaper. Not that we don't need engineers, and managers, and data entry, etc......but we DON'T need to saturate that market. We need far more people with 'street smarts' in the workplace.

All about the freakin almighty dollar. Make the top that much richer at the expense of the rest of us. Really fries me. This isn't political, either. It's just how our society in general is changing, and I don't think that change is any good at all.

I'll stop now. :frown:

 

[JDgreen]

Boy, JD's parts post really fired me up.......So, I'm going to rant a tad here, too - since what I have to say isn't directly related to his thread. Feel free to chew me out for my opinions if you like...

What exactly is this "new service-based economy" supposed to consist of? People going to college so they can be data entry clerks, and make minimum wage, because the market for that is so saturated? Are we ALL supposed to be 'professionals'? What about auto mechanics, factory workers, machinists, small farmers, and a plethora of others supposed to do? Just fade away? "Re-educate" themselves to fit into a college-educated crowd? Should we go to college and owe thousands, so we know the physuics behind the grill on which we're flipping burgers?

Don't we still need someone to till the land, grow crops, build things, make machines, service machines, manufacture things that the quality thereof is unmatched? Why, all of a sudden, are people who work with their hands considered second-class citizens?

It's NOT 'all of a sudden'. This has been going on for 20 or more years. We've been moving away from people working with their hands to working with their brains. The former actually makes a physical something (something of value) and the latter only tells the former what to build. Now, they're tellin people in other countries what to build, because they work cheaper. Not that we don't need engineers, and managers, and data entry, etc......but we DON'T need to saturate that market. We need far more people with 'street smarts' in the workplace.

All about the freakin almighty dollar. Make the top that much richer at the expense of the rest of us. Really fries me. This isn't political, either. It's just how our society in general is changing, and I don't think that change is any good at all.

I'll stop now. :frown:

Man, for a CNC machinist, you sure can stir up the masses. What you refer to as "street smarts", well, I have a different way to describe those. I have met a lot of people in my lifetime who had so much college education they were practically oozing their knowledge out their pores. Yet what struck me about the majority of them, they didn't have a whole lot of common sense. I tend to refer to those kind of folks as:

"Book smart and life stupid"....

 

[twall]

Man, for a CNC machinist, you sure can stir up the masses........

:laughing: It's your fault.......go ahead and hit my hot button.....LOL:laughing:

 

[Ric]

Sounds Like someone is watching the Ed Show on MSNBC :laughing: Watching what's going on in some other states. Hey I'm not trying to be smart because you're 100% right :thumbsup: As Ed would say That's what punching my Hot Button tonight folks.

 

[twall]

Sounds Like someone is watching the Ed Show on MSNBC :laughing: Watching what's going on in some other states. Hey I'm not trying to be smart because you're 100% right :thumbsup: As Ed would say That's what punching my Hot Button tonight folks.

Naw....just responding, and the "cue words" I used tipped me off. :laughing: Guess it's not really JD's fault....but kinda :wink:

I'm not a union guy, or advocating for it. That might actually complicate the problem, as what's happening elsewhere. (teachers protesting like they're coal miners, while real coal miners are treated like poor lil dummies who can't find anything better - something just don't wash there...) But, society in general has almost been trying to relegate we who will do nothing other than work with our hands to 'idiot' status. If we're idiots, if our families starve, who cares? It's our "own fault" for not going to college.

This is what makes me steaming mad.....don't think ed is gonna help here.......don't particularly care for him. Used to listen to his talk show, until his contradictions made me (and the station) turn him off -

 

[BKBrown]

I have always felt that if someone has a real desire to go to college for a specific reason and what they want to do for a living requires college, fine, but if there is no desire and no need --- why send them?

I had a next door neighbor that I watched grow up - he started by getting bikes from anywhere in parts and making complete bikes and then mowers and then cars. When he was about to get out of High School his parents wanted him to go to college - he had no desire - I told them to let him work for a dealership in the service department (he was doing that evenings and weekends). The Dealership put him thru school and sent him to seminars at their expense and he earned $ as a mechanic for the 4 years his friends were in college and he had a good job he was happy doing. Most of his friends either dropped out or finished college and didn't end up with jobs.

I did go to college and was a "shop" teacher for 30 years, but would not have been happy in some office somewhere.

Some of the "smartest" people I have ever met, were not college graduates. Brains, common sense, and education don't always go together !

 

[twall]

Since you were a shop teacher, I'll tread lightly here......

I think teachers are really kinda part of the problem. Not to kiss butt, but shop teachers (as well as vocational teachers) didn't fit into this mold. Lemme explain:

Throughout my entire high school career, I had teachers trying to pound propoganda into my head. "you'll be nothing [if you don't go to college]!" They'd say over and over in just that wording and tone. Another looked me in the face and said "well, you could collect garbage in NYC and make more money than I do....but what about your job satisfaction?" (He was equating my desire to go to vo-tech for auto mechanics with a garbage collector) It was a recurring theme, over and over, at every level of school. I was too smart to get my hands dirty. I should be educated, and allow lesser life forms to do this kind of menial laborious blah, blah, blah............

I always wanted to work with my hands. Oddly enough, my intelligence let me work BETTER with my hands..,...a direct contradiction to what school had always said!

I guess the point is, that the school crowd is right - education truly DOES change society. Now look at what we've got. I hope they're proud.

 

[jd335]

it took me along time to figure out why the younger generation is the way they are no one wants to work they have no intrest in any thing but i pads i pods mp3's and games no one is intrested in what makes things do what they do. i work among alot of people each day and it is amazing how lazy and none careing 99 percent of them are and here is why they feel that way the public schools are teaching the kids today that they don't need to work all they need to do is stay in school as long as they can and atend every protest and march they can put on by people who want more goverment asistance and don't want to loose any of what there getting. bottom line is the schools are telling the kids the goverment will take care of them and this is being echoed the whole entire time they are in school.:thumbdown:

 

[BKBrown]

I agree that most "educators" push college too much and I had that discussion with many educators, parents, and students. My own High School told me I was "college material" and should not waste my time taking shop and mechanical drawing, but I insisted on taking them (with Dad's help) and found a college that had Industrial Arts (never planned to be a teacher) . That profession just happened because it was a Teacher Prep. Major and Teaching degree. I hope that over the years I helped some students see that book smarts did not always equate to being "smart". I always tried to show that what you should always do is THINK things out and apply it to yourself.
Many of the teachers today have been brainwashed by liberal socialist professors. The best thing Parents and Grandparents can do for kids is teach them to think for themselves and learn from REAL history (not just what they see in school).

Since you were a shop teacher, I'll tread lightly here......

I think teachers are really kinda part of the problem. Not to kiss butt, although shop teachers (as well as vocational teachers) didn't fit into this mold. Lemme explain:

Throughout my entire high school career, I had teachers trying to pound propoganda into my head. "you'll be nothing [if you don't go to college]!" They'd say over and over in just that wording and tone. Another looked me in the face and said "well, you could collect garbage in NYC and make more money than I do....but what about your job satisfaction?" (He was equating my desire to go to vo-tech for auto mechanics with a garbage collector) It was a recurring theme, over and over, at every level of school. I was too smart to get my hands dirty. I should be educated, and allow lesser life forms to do this kind of menial laborious blah, blah, blah............

I always wanted to work with my hands. Oddly enough, my intelligence let me work BETTER with my hands..,...a direct contradiction to what school had always said!

I guess the point is, that the school crowd is right - education truly DOES change society. Now look at what we've got. I hope they're proud.

 

[twall]

it took me along time to figure out why the younger generation is the way they are no one wants to work they have no intrest in any thing but i pads i pods mp3's and games no one is intrested in what makes things do what they do. i work among alot of people each day and it is amazing how lazy and none careing 99 percent of them are and here is why they feel that way the public schools are teaching the kids today that they don't need to work all they need to do is stay in school as long as they can and atend every protest and march they can put on by people who want more goverment asistance and don't want to loose any of what there getting. bottom line is the schools are telling the kids the goverment will take care of them and this is being echoed the whole entire time they are in school.:thumbdown:

Well, that's kina my point, kinda not. Preoccupation is just preoccupation, and we have a lot of neat toys kids tote around with them that are DESIGNED to be distracting.

My point was more that schools want to steer kids to the professional, college road, while dissuading them from 'real' work. They think they're doing them a favor, but they're causing a big problem. These educators largely don't realize just how much of their pretentious crap really sticks. (Some do, and they are just evil.) They are trying to apply things with a sledgehammer, when a little tap'll do.......


Just like BK said, if they wanna go, by all means, find a way. But just because a teacher thinks they oughta, isn't good enough reason. We need these smart kids with a wrench, a welder, a hammer and saw, or a bag of seeds in their hands if we are to truly remain America.