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The Case For Working With Your Hands
theodp writes "At a time when the question of what a good job looks like is wide open, a book excerpt in the NY Times magazine says it's time to take a fresh look at the trades. High-school shop-class programs were dismantled in the '90s as educators prepared students to become 'knowledge workers' in a pure information economy. Was this a huge mistake? A gifted young person who chooses to become a mechanic instead of accumulating academic credentials is now viewed as eccentric, if not self-destructive, complains Matthew Crawford, who took his University of Chicago PhD and opened a motorcycle repair shop. Princeton economist Alan Blinder argues that the crucial distinction in the emerging labor market is not between those with more or less education, but between those whose services can be delivered over a wire and those who must do their work in person or on site. The latter will find their livelihoods more secure against outsourcing to distant countries. As Blinder puts it, 'You can't hammer a nail over the Internet' (never say never). Guess we all should have paid more attention to Nicholas Negroponte's landmark-in-retrospect Being Digital (ironically, no Kindle version)."
I don't have any regrets with my path and have had a long happy IT career but if I had to start over I would definitely get a couple of trades. So many opportunities to start your own company and thrive if you are good at it. Lots of hard work but the possibilities are endless. Look at the big expensive houses in your area and I bet there are quite a few "company" pickups with construction company advertising on them in the driveway. Of course you have to enjoy what you do, but how many kids today would have loved this kind of work, but didn't consider it because they were discouraged to?
So, with an undergrad degree in CS, and a masters in EE, and just about to get an MBA... I still am a shit cook. That's right, I am a horrible cook. I know some of you out there are probably excellent cooks, but I also think there are a LOT of us who think we are really smart, but still can barely make macaroni and cheese, fish sticks, or grill some chicken properly.
Why has my entire educational experience skipped out on something so basic. Yes, it may seem that it is basic and a common activity that we should "just know how", but really.. sometimes you just need instruction on vital things that you wouldn't otherwise grasp. (such as hygene, or balancing your bank accounts, or.. maybe social etiquite or public speaking)
They make us great engineers, but they completely skip over the parts of how to be good, well rounded human beings.
A skilled trade is an excellent way to make a good living; and is a way to do what you enjoy. cars need to be repaired, plumbing fixed, houses built and repaired. Those skills are both valuable and not easily replicated if you do quality work.
Of course, many trades require a pretty solid eduction as well. Mechanics once needed mechanical aptitude and the ability to work well with their hands; today it requires that plus an understanding of computers and advanced electronics / electrical theory.
Unfortunately, people tend to look down as anything not requiring a college education as lesser work.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
"the latter will find their livelihoods more secure against outsourcing to distant countries."
No, no they won't. Sure it's not as easy to push manual labor elsewhere - that doesn't mean it can't happen: Look at the engineering and textiles industries in Britain. Sure, there were lots of them, and their staff did work "in person and on site" - but that didn't stop the industry being screwed over by workhouses in distant countries that could produce the goods for cheaper. While the British equivalents may well have 'survived' to some extent, the shops and companies wanting the goods produced weren't willing to pay the cash to produce in Britain, and bought their goods elsewhere (Chinese textile mills, for example). Voila: your job is gone, whether you're manual labor or working via a wire.
No one want to discuss the fact that "average intelligence" means that half the people are at and below average intelligence. The idea that everyone must graduate from high school and go on to college is the root of the problem.
A simple example......it used to be you could stop at a gas station and a couple of guys would come out, fill up your car, check your oil/water and clean your windshield. They didn't need a BA in business. What are these guys supposed to do now?
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
The reason education shifted to producing knowledge workers over trade skills is because those jobs were disappearing in the 80's and 90's. They haven't come back and are still shrinking as a part of the economy. When we had a construction boom, much labor was imported. Our desire for cheap meat means most of the employees at meat packing plants are immigrants. Automation and cost effective foreign labor is driving most factory jobs away. Technology in autos is creating a situation where you rely on computer diagnostics to fix cars. The slack from not having trade in high school is being taken up by community colleges, and most HS graduates need strong math and verbal skills to do the remaining blue collar jobs. Now that a large number of knowledge worker jobs can and are being outsourced because it is cheaper, we must adjust education again to create the next generation of workers once we figure out what they are. The early 80's made us shift education in the 90's, the late 00's will make us shift in the late 10's. We'll have to wait to see what innovations come out of this downturn to figure out what the next job boom will be. Sorry, there are just not enough plumber, mechanic, or carpenter jobs being created that we can all move back to the 1960's.
There were two problems with HS in the late 90's I know I was there. The first problem was this weird stigma attached to anyone who was interested in the industrial technology or shop courses. They certainly were viewed in a negative light by most of the administration. The instructors of those courses were treated badly compared to the other teachers as well. The pervasive view was that that those courses were offered for people who could never complete enough credit hours in academic courses to graduate any other way. This certainly was true for some of those students, Having told my parents and guidance there pleas to avoid these subjects were falling on deaf ears, I know that there were plenty of other plenty smart people in those programs who like me could breeze through just about and HS course except maybe a subject or two that did not come entirely naturally.
The next problem was that they scheduled shop courses so they were only offered in periods that would conflict with the upper level academic courses. You could not take honors English and drafting, for instance. There was no way to schedule electronics and AP physics ( which ironically cover much the same materials ). The entire system was built to separate students into two groups and make sure that they never met again.
Well after being on the college preparatory side of the wall for the first two years, in possession of a 3.9+ GPA, I elected to jump the shark. I am not going to pretend there was not some adolescent neo-punk motivations as well driving me in what I was being lead to think was a radical direction. I could always read whatever literature the honers English group was working, all you had to do was visit the library. I did that, I still had friends over there so I knew what they were doing. I could not as easily afford a serviceable O-Scope or a drafting table and tools. It made far more sense to me to "run with the tough crowd." I could just as easily grab a calculus book from the school library and build on the math skills I had. Which again I did because it let me understand things in my electronics course.
I found most of the instructors of those courses were better teachers too. They had lots of problems the other instructors did not have. The biggest being all those kids who did not want to be there that had been put there for under performing in the other programs. Still if you were interested they were largely willing spend some extra time with you and go into the subjects in greater detail or let you work on your own more advanced projects for credit. They also were tell you when you made a mistake. They had all been there forever had tenure and nobody they could impress even if they were trying except us students. It was a much more honest and much more educational environment if you were as a student willing to participate and invest a little in it.
Despite the warnings from the establishment, shunning for the other prep students, I turned out ok. I went on to attend a good liberal arts college, where I graduated with honors. I never regraded or felt I had done myself an disservice by my decisions in high school, much the opposite.
We as a society need to learn some egalitarianism about knowledge. Its always good to know things. Sometime its more useful to spend your time learning one thing than another but knowledge is never bad. I am not some sorta hick because I can rebuild an automobile engine, frame a house, or any other odd skills I might have picket up. I can know those things still write SQL as well as one while I grow pale sitting in an office chair.
People are generally better at things they are interested in doing. It takes all kinds to run a society and we should value all skills.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
The trades weren't pushed out of high schools because they were "retooling" they were pushed out because there was no money to teach them. Teaching trades requires expensive equipment that must be kept up and insured against accidents. Teaching IT requires obsolete donation computers that cost nothing and have very little upkeep. If Moore's law slows the donation computers will probably dry up too and then there will be nothing at all.
Too many IT people have no clue when it comes to basics like stacking equipment, safely handling heavy loads, threading cables, or airflow. Worse, they're positively dangerous with screwdrivers, wrenches, or wire cutters. And basic mechanical skills lend awareness for programmers to the concepts of "big bulky modules that you have to leave space for", "leave enough slack in the interfaces for you to be able to put things where you need them", "leave in accessible test points where you can check your signals". And I'd vastly recommend basic electronics classes in "why clock signals lie" and "why you use _one_ voltage, _one_ data format, and synchronize to _one_ clock signal throughout your system". The lessons of "why would I do this as a bulky, parallel transfer rather than a serial transfer" are also illuminated by having to run your own wires.
Like system security, such physical constraints are best learned early, rather than brought into the design after the fact when you've already laid out your circuits or your data flow.
I mentor HS students. Most that I deal with are so incredibly incompetent that I am truly afraid for our society- these babies will be asking their parents to carry them out into the world with no prep.
There are kids that don't know what a screwdriver is or how to use it. Seriously. I had to hold a session on how to use a screwdriver. Gave them a drill with a bit in it and they could not figure out how to drive the screw into the wood.
This is also the group that would intentionally break their cell phones so their parents could pay the 50$ 'insurance fee' to get a new one. Just repeatedly drop the thing over and over and over and over.
I also watched one of them stare at the table saw blade as it was rotating- asked him what he was doing- and he said he knows he's not supposed to but he was wondering if he could tap the blade while it was spinning- if he was fast enough (look up table saw finger injuries- you'll understand why I was sickened).
Shop class, like gym class, should be mandatory for all students. So what if all they turn out is a crummy pencil holder- they did it. Want to make shop more interesting? Show them how to do CNC on wood- that's programming and wood working all in one go.
Right now this generation is nothing but consumption- they'll play their ipods, their little online games, and they go on to college coddled the entire way without a single original thought in their body.
Then again, perhaps I only see the stupid ones.
Yeah, but really, we should *all* be doing that. I mean, the body part in question is typically completely covered up from the time you shower and only exposed for the events in question (and certain other events that most people don't do throughout the work day). It is, therefore, much cleaner than your hands are.
I for one wish every Engineer, and every Mechanical Engineering student had to spend a year as a mechanic. Once you realize how bad some things are designed from a repairability aspect, it changes your perspective on design. I've torn into many a machine, and seen bad designs first hand. Overcomplicated parts, too many parts, too many different size bolts and nuts, parts placed so close together you have to remove 10 things just to change a belt.
The same could be said for any designer. I feel before you're able to design anything, you should be forced to use it, fix it, and understand the consequences of bad design. It would improve the quality of things that do get built.
Now if I can just find my way to put all of this together like Steve Jobs did with his background, I'll be good to go.
You need a brilliant patsy whose work you can take credit for.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
"High-school shop-class programs were dismantled in the '90s as educators prepared students to become 'knowledge workers' in a pure information economy. Was this a huge mistake?"
Machines need maintenance. Buildings need building and repair. Pipes need plumbing. Trucks need driving. Plants need growing. Packages need delivering. Photos need taking and film needs developing.
Hell, somebody needs to make a mug so I can put tea into it. Oh right, somebody needs to make the tea, too. And build and maintain the infrastructure that lets me get water out of a tap, start a fire under a pot (that I bought at a store that somebody built and somebody else stocks and inventories and keeps records for...), take the tea bag wrapper and put it into a landfill (assuming I bought tea bags this time)...
Sure, theoretically we can automate all that. But who is going to build the machines to supply the automation in the first place? Somebody has to sling a wrench.
What happens when 100% of our children are knowledge workers? Well, then we get 100% unemployment, because nobody is building the bloody computers for them to work on. Oh, they'll have to haul their own garbage, too...
You could say that I think this is short-sighted and ignorant. How about bloody stupid? No, but you're getting close.
See me? I'm an embedded software engineer. Firmware programmer, if you prefer. See, I like to work right down to the bare metal, and that means that I work with the hardware, too. I know how to solder and use multimeter and a 'scope. And wire-wrap, which is passe these days.
And what did I just finish doing 15 minutes ago? I fixed the screen door so it would close properly so the dog couldn't just push it open and get out. Guess what body parts I used for that? No, go on, you'll never guess.
I think EVERYBODY should have some shop time. Elective, my ass, at least a minimum should be mandatory. And what we used to euphemistically call "home economics" should be as well, everybody should get at least the basics of cooking and sewing and so on.
I don't particularly enjoy sewing, but I can do it. By hand or by machine. And I'm no chef but I can make a few simple dishes and follow a recipe. Want my recipe for Bachelor Chow?
What are we going to do, give all the non-knowledge jobs to illegal immigrants?
Even if we do, I want to revisit my earlier remark about the unemployment rate. So for a few years there's a big surge in, hmm, let's say, yoga. "Yoga's the big thing, that's where all the money is! We can't see an end to it!" Advisors start directing everybody towards being a yoga instructor. A few years later we get a graduate class of nothing but yoga instructors, and guess what? THERE'S NOBODY TO INSTRUCT. Why? First, because the fad passed and everybody is doing Tai Chi. Second, because EVERYBODY IS A YOGA INSTRUCTOR AND DOESN'T NEED TO BE INSTRUCTED.
Sheesh. It's like our entire society is suffering from clinical depression or something. Think, people! We need all kinds of thinkers and workers, not just one kind of person. OK, today we need a few extra specialists, but things are constantly changing.
And not everybody can be good at the same thing. One problem you get when you turn everybody into a specialist at one thing is that you get a lot of really mediocre specialists. The ones with the native proclivity will take the best jobs and the rest will end up unsatisfied or unemployed.
Don't plan for a specific future. When it doesn't happen, you're going to be stuck high and dry. Find out where your skills are, hone them as best you can, and find a place to use them to their best advantage. Not just your top skill or your favorite, but all you can find. Narrow specialties can be very lucrative, but if there's no call for yours, it's good to have a fall-back. And most people prefer a life with some variety.
And I don't mean flipping burgers.
How can such smart people be so incredibly stupid? Open up the damned shops again. Get the kids working with their
Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult.