Not quite OT : US education

[Roger O'Keeffe]

Picking up some themes from previous threads, I’d like to sound out people’s views on what is only an unsubstantiated hunch on my part. Transatlantic megaphonists please control yourselves.

I have been struck by the number of people here, of widely ranging occupational backgrounds, who clearly enjoy at least tweaking, and in many cases making, whistles or other instruments. And from some of the comments made, it is clear that
a) some people have quite well-equipped workshops and
b) in quite a few cases their “whistle-related programme activities” are on a professional or semi-professional basis.

What I’m wondering is whether the basic education which the majority of people get in the US includes workshop-based activities like metalwork or woodwork, and whether anything in the education system is explicitly designed to develop a sense of enterprise.

My own primary and secondary educational experience (Ireland 1950s to mid-60s) is probably not representative of present-day circumstances, but I do still have a fairly strong impression that there is a bias in favour of academic subjects, and “practical” skills are something that you may or may not pick up somewhere along the way outside school.

Certainly in some other European countries there seems to be quite an early segregation into academic and vocational streams, with little or no crossover between the two. “Comprehensive education” seems to be little more than an aspiration. At best you may have a modicum of lab work in chemistry, but I’m not even sure if this adds up to much.

Kids in many Irish secondary schools do take a “transition” year around age fifteen which may give them some work experience, and some may be lucky enough to have teachers who encourage them to get involved in activities like the Young Scientists’ competition, or running ‘mini-companies’ – experimental businesses set up as part of a business studies course. But I still suspect that for many, education largely involves strictly academic subjects and a sense of practical skills and enterprise is not really nurtured.

So does the education system in the US promote practical enterprise, or do the values which sustain it come from elsewhere? Is it something in the water?

[Montana]

It's something in the MacDonalds hamburgers.
In junior high (8th grade or so), many schools offer the option of taking shop class but it doesn't really teach the tweaking habit. For that, you have to want to change or improve something.
I think it depends on whether you grew up with a father (usually a father) who tinkered. Tinkering sometimes goes hand-in-hand with guys who liked to work on cars or work in wood. Or if you don't have much money, you learn to try to fix things yourself (the necessity-is-the-mother-of-invention concept). You have to get over the fear of breaking something (ignore the possibility of failure). And you have to have the confidence to think you can make it better than the manufacturer (which in this throw-away, get-the-quick-buck society is getting to be the case more often).
So basically I guess Americans inherit the ego to tinker.

[peeplj]

Hi. My name is James and I tweak whistles.

I took shop class in 8th grade also, it was almost a total waste. I did learn to "stain" wood with a blowtorch, other than that it was just another school day: meet interesting people, then run like hell from them.

My dad liked to tinker with electronics and amateur radio--maybe he's to blame.

Lately though on whistles I've not been much of a tweaker, preferring to play whistles like they come out of the box, faults and all.

--James

[chas]

My experience is basically what Montana just pointed out. We were required to take a shop class in jr. high. There was a public vocational school that served probably a 500 or so square mile area. (This was Connecticut, a fairly densely populated area, in the 60's-70's.) Our town sent probably a half-dozen kids there from each high school class, which would correspond to a few percent of the student body. It was a great thing for the kids who got to go; they were non-academic types with some skills. There also were a half-dozen shop classes available at the high school.

Unfortunately, vocational education is one of the first things to suffer in bad budgetary times. This really burns me up. I know someone who was a comptroller at a plant, and at one time (and this was not during the recent boom) they had 10-20 openings for machinists for over 2 years. These were good-paying jobs, but there just wasn't anyone to fill them. Meanwhile, the schools are turning out graduates with horrible reading and math skills, but with no other skills either.

It costs about as much to house a prisoner for one year as it does to put a kid through 4 years of VoTech school. It's almost a NIMBY situation: people bemoan the loss of skilled jobs, but at the same time, no parent wants HIS kid to go on the vocational path. Most also don't want to pay for others' kids to be on that path either.

I picked up mechanical skills from a variety of sources. I did a lot with my father growing up, from roofing the house to hanging sheetrock. I learned a lot about cars from a brother-in-law who for some reason loved Fiats. I picked up quite a bit from summer jobs, including welding, spray painting, silver soldering, some machining, and various types of cleaning. In graduate school I learned quite a bit more machining.

Woodworking, I'm pretty much self-taught. I built my first dulcimer at 15 and have built dozens of instruments since. I do a little furniture building, but don't have a lathe. Yet.

I'm also very curious to hear from our members from other parts of the world (and the US for that matter). This is a very interesting subject.

[lixnaw]

it might be a good idea to send a few of my relatives to america to teach tinkering.
they are irish settled travellers. besides horses, they're all in the scrap business

tinkering is good business in america, have a look http://foclark.tripod.com/gypsy/traveller.html
a village of irish travellers, murphy's village in south carolina

[RonKiley]

I went to school in the 40s and 50s. I took academic subjects and a number of shop classes. I took woodworking and we learned to do antique reproductions. My big project was a Pembroke drop leaf table. I also took printing. We had to learn the job case and hand set handbills, programs, and business cards. I also was/am a radio amateur and have built my own transmitters and receivers. I think Americans and Canadians like to learn a variety of things and change from time to time. I don't know if this is true of europeans.

Ron

[DCrom]

I'd go along with Montana on this.

My High School offered shop classes, but only a handful of students took them - and then, usually as an elective rather than part of the core curriculum. (I took metal shop during summer classes - I ended up using a cutting torch to make an anvil from a chunk of old railroad tie, so I'd have something to use for my SCA armoring). But at the same time I grew up watching my uncle and both grandfathers being able to do almost anything with their hands. (Not my dad - an excellent home brewer, but 10 thumbs for carpentry or mechanics)

I'm far from a fine cabinetmaker, but I'm an OK rough carpenter and (if I have to) I can take almost anything apart and put it back together. These days, most of the time, I'll pay someone else to do any work on my car beyond changing the oil and filters, but I've done (in the past) water pumps, belts and hoses, brakes, and (manual) transmissions. And I've done a bit simple plumbing (faucet and toilet repair/replacement, water heater replacement, etc) I'd guess most American men of my generation could say the same - but I learned it by doing it under my grandfathers' direction (both of them), not in school.

I really don't know if the meme is as common today - but back in the 50's and 60's, being "handy" (and the "I-can-do-anything" confidence that goes with it) was almost a defining characteristic for men in my rather rural area. Regretably, it was less common among women then, but far from unheard of (my mother, except for things needing sheer muscle power, is probably as good a mechanic as I am).

So - getting back on-topic - I suspect that it's more a social construct than an educational one.

[Roger O'Keeffe]

Thanks for those contributions, and keep 'em coming, even if they damage my rosy-hued impressions - maybe I was unduly influenced by the movie "Grease" .

Regarding Chas's comment that it costs about as much to house a prisoner for one year as it does to put a kid through 4 years of VoTech school, you might be glad to know that some colleagues of mine have commissioned a study to quantify the costs of non-investment in education. Clearly hard to know how conclusive it will be, but at least it will help to remind governments that what they save on one budget heading may end up costing them a fortune on another.

There is a lot of pressure, based on comparisons with the US, to increase higher education tuition fees in several European countries, but I'm a bit wary of this, because I have seen how a society and an economy like Ireland's was transformed by greatly widening access to very affordable higher education in the 1970s. I've also been struck by the number of references, in press reports on Iraq, to people like Private Jessica Lynch only being in the armed forces because it was the only way they could pay for a higher education. I'm not sure that that is an aspect of the US system that I'd want to imitate.

[missy]

one of the women chiming in here.......

Agree it's what you grew up around, NOT what you "learned" in school. I went to parochial (Catholic) school till 12th grade - and my highschool was all girls. I took the "college prep" tract, with heavy emphasis in science (took ALL the science the school had to offer). Went to "junior" college first, got my AS, then work and evening college for my BS.

But I grew up with a father who made no distinction that I was a girl. If something needed to be done around the house - I helped. Our house was hit by a tornado when I was 16, and I helped put on siding, shingles, etc (my dad built our house - TWICE, if you count the tornado). Dad was also an Ham radio operator, so I often helped him with wiring, soldering, etc.
My dad helped ME redo the first house I owned, from taking off half the roof, putting on a dormer, and redoing the bathroom.
Learned to work on cars from my first boy friend (back when you COULD work on cars!).

Now - my ex husband grew up in a home where HIS father called an electrician to change a light bulb. Needless to say, we didn't do many "projects" together. He just wouldn't LISTEN to me!!!

Missy

[Roger O'Keeffe]

Hence the "ex"?

[Walden]

I guess I'll break my posting hiatus, for this thread.

I attended a rural Oklahoma public high school, for two years, in the early 1990's (was living abroad the other years of secondary school). It used to be mandatory that all male students took vocational agriculture classes, and all female students had to take home economics. With so-called political correctness, these were no longer requirements by the time I was a student.

Still, vocational classes were very popular, and the school offered not only agriculture and home-ec, but programs in industrial education, which was the sort of class one would learn some of the skills needed in whistle making.

The state also had a system of vocational technology schools, which students could attend at taxpayers expense during their junior and senior year, in lieu of half a day's regular classes. Remedial students were permitted to attend Vo-Tech earlier than their junior year.

I never took any of these classes, though my parents took their required vo-ag/home-ec, and my mother attended Vo-Tech, in high school. I think my father won a state championship for crops judging, in FFA (Future Farmers of America-- the girls joined FHA, Future Homemakers of America), though he had tried to get out of joining, but it was required that all vo-ag students be members of FFA, and it was required that all male students take vo-ag.

[antstastegood]

In this area, there used to be quite a lot of that, but in the 1990's, this sort of thing was being eliminated from almost all high schools. So most people age 30 and up had some sort of practical classes, but the younger generation has much less. I'll stop here, because the politics section of my brain is starting to rev up.

[burnsbyrne]

I grew up in the 60s in a blue collar urban neighborhood. Went to Catholic school. Our parish was named after an Irish saint (St Mel), we always had priests with Irish surnames and the vast majority of parrishioners were of Irish descent. After 8th grade the kids separated depending on whether their parents could pay for Catholic high school or not. It was always my understanding that vocational education was for those who for some reason could not do college prep classes or who had, or were about to acquire, a police record. I went the Catholic high school route and when I graduated I did not know the difference between a hammer and an anvil. Somewhere along the line I gradually learned enough to install floors, replace toilets, repair plaster, do basic electrical wiring refinish furniture and weave cane seats. Besides, paying someone else to do all of that was out of the question.

Cleveland was once one of the capitals of precision tool and diemaking in the US. It seemed there was a tool and die shop on every other block. They are mostly gone now, perhaps because the public schools cannot afford to train future machinist apprentices.

Mike

[Chuck_Clark]

Others have more than adequately described the educational climate, which seemingly hasn't changed much since it was inflicted on me in the '50s and '60s. Like others, I spent 12 years in catholic primary and secondary schools and got a fine (if somewhat proscribed* ACADEMIC education. VoTech (we called it "trade school" in those days) was considered to be for for those who lacked the intellectual gifts necessary to get a college degree.

To speak, however, to the question of whence comes the tweaking/tinkering/do-it-yourself mentality, I think that there are two factors. First, many Americans still think of themselves as coming from self-reliant pioneer stock who just naturally turned their hand to whatever needed doing because there was no one to do it for them. Second, I think the American social climate not only accepts, but even encourages, the personality of the tinkerer/inventor/craftsman. This is NOT an educational thing - the ivory tower types often look down their noses at the hands-on mentality. This is something that falls outside of the formal educational structure.

* Catholic Biology: Starts with the amoeba, goes to the frog and then jumps to the angels.

[RonKiley]

Another aspect of this subject is the forum you are reading. These folks here are not a very representative group of Americans. Many Americans would never "play" a whistle if they could get someone to play it for them. Many could not imagine that one could build there own musical instruments. And many would not tweak a whistle. If it did not play itself right out of the box they would throw it in a drawer and forget about it. However, the people here are not like that. They want to no how things work, from politics to quantum physics. If a whistle is not exactly like we want it to be we try to improve it. I imagine that most on this forum took a clock apart when they were kids to see how it worked. Then they put it back together again and it still worked. (Maybe) I think it is fair to say that most on this forum have very wide ranging interests. About the only thing we have in common is our celtic heritage and that is not true in all cases.

Ron