Oregon High School Discovers Hidden Benefits in Shop Class
Come to think about it, I've used all the skills I learned shop class, woodworking, metal fabrication and electricity.
Did you have shop class?, do your kids, and what did you build.
Did you have shop class?, do your kids, and what did you build.
http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/bl...
If your mantle of virtue is embroidered with ignorance for art, music, and philosophy, and all you want to do is rant at liberals, the choice is yours."
You just can't lay aside the impulse to be demeaninig, dismissive and insulting can you. I think it is reasonable to call you now a liberal as you so label youself. This dismissive and high handed attitude is why the trupster won the election. We Plebes in flyover country unfortunately still have the vote.
Ayn Rand only touched on this briefly in Romantic Manifesto and it was only a line in Atlas Shrugged. She was a writer and did not come to spatial art until her husband took it up. But it has not much to do with emotions, but with understanding. By Rand's theory of epistemology, emotions are automatic summation of your ideas: thinking defines feeling.
In my family, my brother and I were always college bound while our cousins were blue collar. It was a class distinction that held into middle age. Then, when working in robotics with Ford Motor Co. as my employer's primary customer, I stopped in to visit my cousin who was 30 years into his time at Ford as a welder. We had not seen each other in decades.I called him to let him know that I was coming over. When I got to his house, he was just pulling into the driveway. In the 45 minutes it took me to get there, he had changed the transmission on a car. I would have spent those 45 minutes with the owner's manual. Moreover, he showed me his old Bridgeport milling machine. "I can only do thousandths," he said, "but it is good enough." He made custom parts for dragsters. But... he was surprised to learn that I checked his address in Cleveland, by stopping in at a branch library in Toledo while driving down from Lansing. He had no idea that libraries had telephone directories. The last time he was in a library was when they took the class in the 3rd grade. I realized that we just knew different stuff. When I returned to work, I had a new perspective on my work as a technical writer and trainer.
If your mantle of virtue is embroidered with ignorance for art, music, and philosophy, and all you want to do is rant at liberals, the choice is yours.
I never liked practicing the piano, or the coronet, or the French horn, though I did learn to read music. My cousin did practice and said that going to a bar and sitting down at the piano was a great way to get picked up by women. "I just play mechanically," he said. "I have no talent for it." He seemed pretty talented to me...
You have some valid points . I will say that we are given this 1 life to live. With that said , fill your life to the brim and experience all that practical knowledge with the pleasure of self reliance.
Be happy.
Creativity is very visible in art.
To start with a blank canvass , my paint , my brushes , my hand , my eyes ,and my mind and to
Turn that into cash. To create a value , it is a very satisfying Accomplishment.
As Samuel Butler said "Any fool can paint a picture , but it takes a wise person to sell it."
I believe art also encompasses music , design, literature , theater , dance.
Taste in art is as taste in food , widely varied.
But creativity is an enabling force in improving all human life.
By the way.....just so I am not misunderstood....I do not believe that "art" should be entirely eliminated. It is just that "Shop" seems to have been eliminated in favor of art. I can understand why...Art is easy....no one can look at the little darlings effort and say...that is a POS you didn't get it right....because there is not the same absolute standard of success in art as there is in changing the proverbial oil. If you don't do the oil right you blow the engine. And god forbid that anyone would ever point out to little Johnny that he didn't do something right!
In closing let me say Art is nice but should only come after the practical things have been adequately covered.
We can further see that you are in fact greater than me because you tell me ...."..in the..... 1980s, being able to care for your own car was important for the average person. But I have not bothered with that for 30 years."
Gee willikers...I guess that as one of the unwashed knuckle dragging plebeians I must totally accept your argument.
http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/20...
Raymond Loewy
http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/20...
Objectified
http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/20...
(Several others there, also...)
https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...
Some books relevant to this:
A Whole New Mind - It talks about how so much value is in the industrial design (ID) (i.e. look-and-fee).
Linchpin: Are you Indispensable? - It talks about the more easily a task can be automated or put into a simple set of instructions, like changing oil, the more commodiatized (less valueable) it becomes
The Lean Startup - First chapter is about how we have the ability to produce more than enough of the basics, and now the heard thing about business/investing is finding new ways to create value, not more efficient ways to make food and shelter.
The Innovator's Dilemma - More tangentially related, but I love its discussion of the cycle of commoditization/demcommoditization.
There is great value in art. As a simple example from my world, companies sometimes spend more money and effort on ID than the hardware or software development.
As the world gets more specialized, there is less value in learning a specific task like changing oil. It's not at all bad to learn. It's better, though, if you can learn to create inventions (e.g. elements of the look-and-feel of an iPhone) than how to preform tasks.
My paintings on a commission basis. I sell to people looking for a special gift to give , I also sell to realtors a painting of the house they just sold or bought as a closing gift for the customers. Many very emotional reactions creating a long term connection and referrals for future business. I paint realistic images trying to match the subject as best I can.
I am also a stockbroker. Both jobs require planning , preparation , and problem solving
Those junk boxes sure come in handy...I have three in my workshop at home...can make or fix a lot of stuff better that it was in the first place.
Additionally, all these activities build brain connections that are timelessly important, not to mention a "seat of your pants" feel for things.
I worry about the coming "driverless" computer driven cars...I think without the "Choice" to drive or ride, not to mention the lack of safety measures in a catastrophic failure scenario we might loose something very physiologically valuable in the long run.
I can see a business opportunity here though...maybe a recreation area for the average folks, (not professional sports) to gain and enjoy these skills. ( I realize there are such things now but far and few between- sounds like an opportunity to expand these business).
Our junior high - high school (7 to 12) had electricity classes. I did not take it then, but I did have a couple of electronics classes at a community college in the 1970s. One was general and I dropped it halfway. The other was Circuits and I completed it, and got the most out of it over the course of my life, working with computers and factory automation.
So... I took our 2005 Civic to a local Honda dealer for a broad tune-up. I took over the car from my wife and I was willing to spend several hundred on a lot of small stuff. At 150,000 they wanted to change the spark plugs, but at $479 for that, I balked. Apparently, that pissed off the mechanic. (In case you don't know, they are often paid by the job, based on fixed pricing that they bid against. Depends on the state laws and union rules.) The car ran rough. I could get it to smooth out, but any accel or decel and it shook a bit. At the auto parts store, I discovered what I did not know about spark plugs. Not like my 1972 Pinto, these puppies are like aircraft magnetos with induction coils. And the coils cost extra...
Removing the spark plugs, I found one with two coils jammed together and one with no coil. The mechanic had slapped it back together.
Easiest and cheapest thing for me, I cleaned everything up, found wire in my junk box of almost the right gauge, and made my own magnetos.
Would you deny music? Philosophy?
As for the oil change, yes, back in the 1960s and even the early 1980s, being able to care for your own car was important for the average person. But I have not bothered with that for 30 years.
I do agree that having learned the basics made a difference in some cases, when I patched something that the dealership screwed up. That does not invalidate the critical importance of Art and Music to the development of a young person's Self.
That said, you do not need to be good at something to benefit from exposure to it. In college, I took art electives: B+ in Art History; D in Studio. I am not an artist, but I know good art when I see it -- and I know what it takes to create it (which I cannot).
and here
https://www.ted.com/talks/gever_tulle... )
I wrote this up for the Gulch some time back.
https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...
but it did not get any comment.
funny, those old typewriters had a lot of play in the keys...very similar to a cheap warped guitar, only it is easier to lower the action on a guitar than shortening the throw on a typewriter.
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