Dude, if I decided to "get creative" with my electrical work and say, wire a 15 amp circuit with red black and green 22AWG as an homage to native tongues my studios would burn down.
Code exists for a reason and my contractors better damn well be thinking inside box so to speak.
That said, i have more respect for people in the trades than most people in academia.
I think education is important and all, but if I had another lifetime to live, I would be much happier working with my hands and being "creative." I would have made such a good apprentice shoemaker if I were male and living in 18th Century France. I was so creative in my teens and such a good writer when I was younger. I've really lost that edge since I now spend my weekends struggling with equations rather than some art project.
It's not too late to alter your path. Though I'm not sure there is much of a market for an apprentice shoemaker... but if you're "creative" enough, I'm sure you can make it happen.
It's not too late to alter your path. Though I'm not sure there is much of a market for an apprentice shoemaker... but if you're "creative" enough, I'm sure you can make it happen.
^^^truth
while there are a lot of slacker hipsters right now, this has been nothing new
it's just this generation's rehashing of Coupland's "Generation X"
there are plenty of hard working 20 somethings tho, I'd rather hear stories about those
there are also plenty of teen "web 2.0" moguls popping up all over
Oh for the love of God. And you can't decide between those two?!!?!?! Almond. Do you want to drive nice car, eat in fivestar retaurants all the time and send your kids to the Friends Academy. Or do you want to be a schnook?
^^^ I dunno dawg, my sister is an analyst and she doesn't drive a nice car, eat at five star restaurants or have kids, but she is saving up a ton of money to do those things someday I guess
It's not too late to alter your path. Though I'm not sure there is much of a market for an apprentice shoemaker... but if you're "creative" enough, I'm sure you can make it happen.
I'm no longer creative enough. I was destined to go to a good university and participate in cute little programs and stuff. I was such an elitist as a kid since I was really competitive academically, but I've always known that shit means nothing in the end.
No disrespect, Almond, but you're still a f**kin kid, you still can do whatever you want with your life. Youre using your education/upbringing as a cop-out.
No disrespect, Almond, but you're still a f**kin kid, you still can do whatever you want with your life. Youre using your education/upbringing as a cop-out.
That's why I mentioned teaching. I want to do that eventually. An MA will qualify me to teach higher level math or at the community college level. As well as put me at the higher end of a pay scale if I teach high school. Plus summer and holiday breaks!!!!!!!! One of my high school teachers traveled with his family to a new country each summer and then would make us all watch the home videos. Mr. Fritch still inspires me!
No disrespect, Almond, but you're still a f**kin kid, you still can do whatever you want with your life. Youre using your education/upbringing as a cop-out.
That's why I mentioned teaching. I want to do that eventually. An MA will qualify me to teach higher level math or at the community college level. As well as put me at the higher end of a pay scale if I teach high school. Plus summer and holiday breaks!!!!!!!! One of my high school teachers traveled with his family to a new country each summer and then would make us all watch the home videos. Mr. Fritch still inspires me!
The road to teaching is a long and winding one as I am beginning to learn. First I have to finish undergrad and take the Praxis during the summer. Then I have to take the Praxis II for my specific field of interest, which would be Elementary English. Then I have to take part in a Teacher Certification program while I'm in a grad school program, and then I'm contemplating between Teach for America or to take part in DC Fellows. I'm leaning more towards DC Fellows since I want to teach in DC anyway, but I think 2 years teaching elsewhere might be a rewarding experience. I hope your road to teaching is a successful one. Doing 2 years of Americorps and working with 3rd and 4th Graders was a life-changing experience, and that's why I always root for those wanting to become teachers.
That's great to hear, Jigsaw. My friend is doing T for A in Detroit and is loving it. My cousin teaches 5th grade and makes as much as a mid-level analyst at my work, plus she only works 9 months a year. However, she's disenfranchised by her "problem" students and their parents who consistently fail to give a shit.
all the posts i've read about tfa on other forums make it seem like an awful experience that crushes your soul before the two years are even up, but almond's friend is apparently enjoying it so ymmv i suppose.
For many years I worked in palliative care. My patients were those who had gone home to die. Some incredibly special times were shared. I was with them for the last three to twelve weeks of their lives.
People grow a lot when they are faced with their own mortality. I learnt never to underestimate someone's capacity for growth. Some changes were phenomenal. Each experienced a variety of emotions, as expected, denial, fear, anger, remorse, more denial and eventually acceptance. Every single patient found their peace before they departed though, every one of them.
When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again. Here are the most common five:
1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.
It is very important to try and honour at least some of your dreams along the way. From the moment that you lose your health, it is too late. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it.
2. I wish I didn't work so hard.
This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children's youth and their partner's companionship. Women also spoke of this regret. But as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.
By simplifying your lifestyle and making conscious choices along the way, it is possible to not need the income that you think you do. And by creating more space in your life, you become happier and more open to new opportunities, ones more suited to your new lifestyle.
3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.
We cannot control the reactions of others. However, although people may initially react when you change the way you are by speaking honestly, in the end it raises the relationship to a whole new and healthier level. Either that or it releases the unhealthy relationship from your life. Either way, you win.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.
It is common for anyone in a busy lifestyle to let friendships slip. But when you are faced with your approaching death, the physical details of life fall away. People do want to get their financial affairs in order if possible. But it is not money or status that holds the true importance for them. They want to get things in order more for the benefit of those they love. Usually though, they are too ill and weary to ever manage this task. It is all comes down to love and relationships in the end. That is all that remains in the final weeks, love and relationships.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called 'comfort' of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content. When deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.
When you are on your deathbed, what others think of you is a long way from your mind. How wonderful to be able to let go and smile again, long before you are dying.
Life is a choice. It is YOUR life. Choose consciously, choose wisely, choose honestly. Choose happiness.
I'd be miserable as hell if I had to spend my last weeks on earth with such a sanctimonious asshole.
This live life for today bullshit is all very well and good if you're born into a lovely trust fund but most people actually have to get on with living and supporting themselves and others most of the time and taking the opportunity to enjoy life around and within that structure.
Dude, if I decided to "get creative" with my electrical work and say, wire a 15 amp circuit with red black and green 22AWG as an homage to native tongues my studios would burn down.
Code exists for a reason and my contractors better damn well be thinking inside box so to speak.
That said, i have more respect for people in the trades than most people in academia.
i think i may get artistic next time im installing a dual check vacuum breaker on a 2" copper manifold at 95psi. what could go wrong?
it's actually refreshing to see the positive comments towards the trades in this thread. us dirty hands usually don't get any shine unless we're answering record shelving carpentry questions.
just to clarify, i think university is highly important for many and there isn't a week that goes by where i don't consider what may have been different had i gone that route. life is good though. who knows, i wouldn't be uncomfortable being the old fart in the lecture hall.
2) The debate around improving vocational education has been ongoing for years now but it's fraught with all kinds of political and ethical issues, least of all would be who the most likely students prompted towards them. We've spent the last few generations trying to encourage a supposedly egalitarian, class-less society (which, of course, isn't how things have remotely turned out but...) and hammering folks with the idea that college = the future. It's not that easy to change the direction of that momentum and try to convince students - *and their parents* - "hey, maybe a BA isn't really what you need. Would you consider training to be a carpenter or electrician?" My guess is that working class parents would think you're just trying to deny their kids a road to upward mobility while middle class parents would consider it a step down.
Mind you, I'm talking about *perception*. Regardless of whether those are good jobs or not in reality, as a society we've done a shit poor job of selling people on the benefits of so-called "blue collar work" even if the benefits of a so-called "liberal education" aren't exactly clear either.
I'm an agreement with Stacks' points and as someone who also teaches at a large public university, there's a definite mindset that we're supposed to try to get as many people as possible but it's a logic that goes rather unquestioned because no one wants to talk about what it would mean for our social ideals, let alone how you could implement a shift back towards improved vocational ed. I do think this current generation is going to have to be the ones to figure this shit out.
3) Related to that, I think we often forget how devastating deindustrialization in the '70s + outsourcing in the '80s was to American society. It left millions of American workers behind, many of whom had stable middle class careers despite doing blue collar work. The biggest job growth since the '90s has been in areas like service which are low-wage, low-skill and offer few opportunities for meaningful advancement. No wonder 20-somethings are dropping out: look at what they have to drop into?
4) Much as the bootstrap stories are appealing narratives, let's also keep in mind that in previous generations, the amount of gov't spending helped seed the growth of our current middle class. Between the GI Bill and the heyday of the FHA, you had billions of tax dollars being spent to help people go to college, get jobs and buy homes. Of course, those policies funneled the vast majority of that money to White folks and not anyone else, but the point being here, the wealth of the "greatest generation" and baby boomers didn't come out of thin air in many cases. People forget this all the time, creating the classic cliche of about folks born on 3rd base thinking they hit a triple...and then looking at the younger gen stepping up to bat and wondering why they're not getting on base (I'm torturing this analogy but you follow my meaning).
For the 10th-anniversary issue of The Chronicle Review, we asked scholars and illustrators to answer this question: What will be the defining idea of the coming decade, and why?
Camille Paglia
Vanishing of jobs will plague the rest of this decade and more. Meaningful employment is no longer guaranteed to dutiful, studious members of the middle class in the Western world. College education, which was hugely expanded after World War II and sold as a basic right, is doing a poor job of preparing young people for life outside of a narrow band of the professional class.
Yes, an elite education at stratospheric prices will smooth the way into law or medical school and supply a network of useful future contacts. But what if a student wants a different, less remunerative or status-oriented but more personally fulfilling career? There is little flexibility in American higher education to allow for alternative career tracks.
Jobs, and the preparation of students for them, should be front and center in the thinking of educators. The idea that college is a contemplative realm of humanistic inquiry, removed from vulgar material needs, is nonsense. The humanities have been gutted by four decades of pretentious postmodernist theory and insular identity politics. They bear little relationship to the liberal arts of broad perspective and profound erudition that I was lucky enough to experience in college in the 1960s.
Having taught in art schools for most of my four decades in the classroom, I am used to having students who work with their hands???ceramicists, weavers, woodworkers, metal smiths, jazz drummers. There is a calm, centered, Zen-like engagement with the physical world in their lives. In contrast, I see glib, cynical, neurotic elite-school graduates roiling everywhere in journalism and the media. They have been ill-served by their trendy, word-centered educations.
Jobs, jobs, jobs: We need a sweeping revalorization of the trades. The pressuring of middle-class young people into officebound, paper-pushing jobs is cruelly shortsighted. Concrete manual skills, once gained through the master-apprentice alliance in guilds, build a secure identity. Our present educational system defers credentialing and maturity for too long. When middle-class graduates in their mid-20s are just stepping on the bottom rung of the professional career ladder, many of their working-class peers are already self-supporting and married with young children.
The elite schools, predicated on molding students into mirror images of their professors, seem divorced from any rational consideration of human happiness. In a period of global economic turmoil, with manufacturing jobs migrating overseas and service-sector jobs diminishing in availability and prestige, educators whose salaries are paid by hopeful parents have an obligation to think in practical terms about the destinies of their charges. That may mean a radical stripping down of course offerings, with all teachers responsible for a core curriculum. But every four-year college or university should forge a reciprocal relationship with regional trade schools.
Camille Paglia is a professor of humanities and media studies at the University of the Arts, in Philadelphia.
Paglia makes some decent points but this is the wackiest schitt ever:
"Having taught in art schools for most of my four decades in the classroom, I am used to having students who work with their hands???ceramicists, weavers, woodworkers, metal smiths, jazz drummers. There is a calm, centered, Zen-like engagement with the physical world in their lives. In contrast, I see glib, cynical, neurotic elite-school graduates roiling everywhere in journalism and the media. They have been ill-served by their trendy, word-centered educations."
BTW - I blame the baby boomers for sucking America dry.
For the 10th-anniversary issue of The Chronicle Review, we asked scholars and illustrators to answer this question: What will be the defining idea of the coming decade, and why?
The humanities have been gutted by four decades of pretentious postmodernist theory and insular identity politics. They bear little relationship to the liberal arts of broad perspective and profound erudition that I was lucky enough to experience in college in the 1960s.
I wish Camille had bothered to explain the difference. This mostly sounds like some "back in the day" nostalgia.
she talks about it at length in her books and essays. let me see if i can find something that is more fleshed-out. this is basically a summary of her views.
edit: i can't find it on-line but her article "junk bonds and corporate raiders: academe in the hour of the wolf" is a good place to start even though it is about 20 years old now.
Manny....when you talk about improving trade education, what happened to it that brought it down to the level it is at today.
Both my Dad and myself went to Public Schools and had the choice of attending just about any type of "Trade" classes we liked, in addition to basic academic classes.
In both of our cases we pursued careers in the trade we learned in High School.
Were these phased out sometime post '80?? And if so, why?
I'm an agreement with Stacks' points and as someone who also teaches at a large public university, there's a definite mindset that we're supposed to try to get as many people as possible but it's a logic that goes rather unquestioned because no one wants to talk about what it would mean for our social ideals, let alone how you could implement a shift back towards improved vocational ed. I do think this current generation is going to have to be the ones to figure this shit out.
The current generation in college, and even the one in high school now about to enter, still for the most part believes college to be their "golden ticket" into the workforce, as it was for their parents (who have pushed along this myth) - there's a serious need to question what it means to "get a degree" and what that, independent of major or focus, really gets you in 2010 (particularly when compared with the financial cost). My two cents is that an undergraduate education from the top 10% of schools is still extremely valuable, not solely for the educational value but for the networking and the job pipelines that still do exist at many of those schools. For the majority of undergraduates? I just don't see how an Arizona State degree is really pushing you to the next level of employment opportunities...
That divide between Ivy-league (and equivalent) schools and those in the mid/upper-mid tier is gigantic, and a huge elephant in the room in many of these conversations, as is the divide in the orientation of a university - top schools are able to combine rigor in academia but with a focus on jobs, startups, professional school. But others (the entire UC system) do next to no career development, and the top students are generally pumped into post-doc programs, and the rest left to wander. It never ceases to amaze me how nearly everyone I meet from truly top schools (mostly East Coast) was part of at least one startup in undergrad, often with the direct support of their university, while the notion of doing anything that serious and adventurous was completely foreign to nearly everyone at the three UCs I attended in undergrad.
The lessons that the parents of current 20 somethings left for their kids are also a huge part of this - the vast majority of the folks I grew up with, their parents dicked around and just got by in their 20s, maybe hit grad school at 27, started getting serious when they hit 30, not unlike the article portrays the actions of current 20-somethings. The key difference is that our parents then went onto become professors, lawyers, buy houses, make good money, pay for tuition, etc etc etc. - that's not a possible future for current 20-somethings, and I think a lot of what we're seeing is a desire to fool around, travel, etc. in the years after college, but a recognition that what was possible before is no longer.
Manny....when you talk about improving trade education, what happened to it that brought it down to the level it is at today.
Both my Dad and myself went to Public Schools and had the choice of attending just about any type of "Trade" classes we liked, in addition to basic academic classes.
In both of our cases we pursued careers in the trade we learned in High School.
Were these phased out sometime post '80?? And if so, why?
I'm not an educational historian so I can only speak from personal experience but the classes that you're describing - say, woodshop - were barely still in place when I was in junior high and they were uniformly considered to be a joke or just a class to slack off in. I think vocational training got massively defunded, not just for the same economic reasons that art and music classes were as well, but also because there wasn't as much parental support to keep them around. Like I said before, at least from my generation (I was born in the early '70s), in both family, social circles and mass media, I've seen COLLEGE COLLEGE COLLEGE sold to us as the pathway to upward mobility, stability and security. The benefits of vocational training are never touted publicly though you may have had guidance counselors kicking that game on a one-on-one level.
Instead, what's happened instead is that the for-profit college industry got smart and began advertising themselves like vocational schools used too. All those ads for ITT or Devry have been replaced by the Univ. of Phoenix and their ilk, but whereas technical skills used to be the selling point, the for-profit colleges are selling "degrees." But in what? For what? I think this is part and parcel of this push towards the BA as the end goal even if no one really explains what one can do with that BA once you're actually in the job market.
I should also add, the class politics of America have always been pretty fucked up (though probably still an improvement over Old World aristocracies) but I'd say since the latter half of the 20th century, you've seen a real abandonment of any kind of positive valuation of blue collar work. Shit, if you explained to the average high school student that they could make six figures as a unionized longshoreman vs. one third of that working a desk job with minimal benefits and no job security, I'd bet most would still choose the latter.
I will say that I still believe in the ideals of a liberal education insofar as I would like the longshoremen and carpenters AND CEOs of the world to be exposed to a broader set of ideas, critical thinking and writing skills. I think college - as this unique bubble of a social space - still provides something of value beyond just preparing people to become workers. Maybe the solution is to build more trades training in conventional 4 year institutions. Maybe we build more liberal education ideals into trades schools. But I don't see the benefit in creating a two-track system with no overlap between them.
Comments
Code exists for a reason and my contractors better damn well be thinking inside box so to speak.
That said, i have more respect for people in the trades than most people in academia.
And like anything, there are schmucks and respectable people in both fields.
^^^truth
while there are a lot of slacker hipsters right now, this has been nothing new
it's just this generation's rehashing of Coupland's "Generation X"
there are plenty of hard working 20 somethings tho, I'd rather hear stories about those
there are also plenty of teen "web 2.0" moguls popping up all over
^^^ I dunno dawg, my sister is an analyst and she doesn't drive a nice car, eat at five star restaurants or have kids, but she is saving up a ton of money to do those things someday I guess
I'm no longer creative enough. I was destined to go to a good university and participate in cute little programs and stuff. I was such an elitist as a kid since I was really competitive academically, but I've always known that shit means nothing in the end.
I think I need to take a semester off. Or two.
That's why I mentioned teaching. I want to do that eventually. An MA will qualify me to teach higher level math or at the community college level. As well as put me at the higher end of a pay scale if I teach high school. Plus summer and holiday breaks!!!!!!!! One of my high school teachers traveled with his family to a new country each summer and then would make us all watch the home videos. Mr. Fritch still inspires me!
The road to teaching is a long and winding one as I am beginning to learn. First I have to finish undergrad and take the Praxis during the summer. Then I have to take the Praxis II for my specific field of interest, which would be Elementary English. Then I have to take part in a Teacher Certification program while I'm in a grad school program, and then I'm contemplating between Teach for America or to take part in DC Fellows. I'm leaning more towards DC Fellows since I want to teach in DC anyway, but I think 2 years teaching elsewhere might be a rewarding experience. I hope your road to teaching is a successful one. Doing 2 years of Americorps and working with 3rd and 4th Graders was a life-changing experience, and that's why I always root for those wanting to become teachers.
For many years I worked in palliative care. My patients were those who had gone home to die. Some incredibly special times were shared. I was with them for the last three to twelve weeks of their lives.
People grow a lot when they are faced with their own mortality. I learnt never to underestimate someone's capacity for growth. Some changes were phenomenal. Each experienced a variety of emotions, as expected, denial, fear, anger, remorse, more denial and eventually acceptance. Every single patient found their peace before they departed though, every one of them.
When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again. Here are the most common five:
1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.
It is very important to try and honour at least some of your dreams along the way. From the moment that you lose your health, it is too late. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it.
2. I wish I didn't work so hard.
This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children's youth and their partner's companionship. Women also spoke of this regret. But as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.
By simplifying your lifestyle and making conscious choices along the way, it is possible to not need the income that you think you do. And by creating more space in your life, you become happier and more open to new opportunities, ones more suited to your new lifestyle.
3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.
We cannot control the reactions of others. However, although people may initially react when you change the way you are by speaking honestly, in the end it raises the relationship to a whole new and healthier level. Either that or it releases the unhealthy relationship from your life. Either way, you win.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.
It is common for anyone in a busy lifestyle to let friendships slip. But when you are faced with your approaching death, the physical details of life fall away. People do want to get their financial affairs in order if possible. But it is not money or status that holds the true importance for them. They want to get things in order more for the benefit of those they love. Usually though, they are too ill and weary to ever manage this task. It is all comes down to love and relationships in the end. That is all that remains in the final weeks, love and relationships.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called 'comfort' of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content. When deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.
When you are on your deathbed, what others think of you is a long way from your mind. How wonderful to be able to let go and smile again, long before you are dying.
Life is a choice. It is YOUR life. Choose consciously, choose wisely, choose honestly. Choose happiness.
This live life for today bullshit is all very well and good if you're born into a lovely trust fund but most people actually have to get on with living and supporting themselves and others most of the time and taking the opportunity to enjoy life around and within that structure.
i think i may get artistic next time im installing a dual check vacuum breaker on a 2" copper manifold at 95psi. what could go wrong?
it's actually refreshing to see the positive comments towards the trades in this thread. us dirty hands usually don't get any shine unless we're answering record shelving carpentry questions.
just to clarify, i think university is highly important for many and there isn't a week that goes by where i don't consider what may have been different had i gone that route. life is good though. who knows, i wouldn't be uncomfortable being the old fart in the lecture hall.
1) According to this: http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/08/25/pm-survey-shows-world-shortage-of-specialized-labor/
...skilled trades workers are a missing component in growing economies around the world. Of course, this may not jibe with those who happened to be skilled tradesmen and women, wondering why they haven't found any work the last few years but...
2) The debate around improving vocational education has been ongoing for years now but it's fraught with all kinds of political and ethical issues, least of all would be who the most likely students prompted towards them. We've spent the last few generations trying to encourage a supposedly egalitarian, class-less society (which, of course, isn't how things have remotely turned out but...) and hammering folks with the idea that college = the future. It's not that easy to change the direction of that momentum and try to convince students - *and their parents* - "hey, maybe a BA isn't really what you need. Would you consider training to be a carpenter or electrician?" My guess is that working class parents would think you're just trying to deny their kids a road to upward mobility while middle class parents would consider it a step down.
Mind you, I'm talking about *perception*. Regardless of whether those are good jobs or not in reality, as a society we've done a shit poor job of selling people on the benefits of so-called "blue collar work" even if the benefits of a so-called "liberal education" aren't exactly clear either.
I'm an agreement with Stacks' points and as someone who also teaches at a large public university, there's a definite mindset that we're supposed to try to get as many people as possible but it's a logic that goes rather unquestioned because no one wants to talk about what it would mean for our social ideals, let alone how you could implement a shift back towards improved vocational ed. I do think this current generation is going to have to be the ones to figure this shit out.
3) Related to that, I think we often forget how devastating deindustrialization in the '70s + outsourcing in the '80s was to American society. It left millions of American workers behind, many of whom had stable middle class careers despite doing blue collar work. The biggest job growth since the '90s has been in areas like service which are low-wage, low-skill and offer few opportunities for meaningful advancement. No wonder 20-somethings are dropping out: look at what they have to drop into?
4) Much as the bootstrap stories are appealing narratives, let's also keep in mind that in previous generations, the amount of gov't spending helped seed the growth of our current middle class. Between the GI Bill and the heyday of the FHA, you had billions of tax dollars being spent to help people go to college, get jobs and buy homes. Of course, those policies funneled the vast majority of that money to White folks and not anyone else, but the point being here, the wealth of the "greatest generation" and baby boomers didn't come out of thin air in many cases. People forget this all the time, creating the classic cliche of about folks born on 3rd base thinking they hit a triple...and then looking at the younger gen stepping up to bat and wondering why they're not getting on base (I'm torturing this analogy but you follow my meaning).
Revalorizing the Trades
For the 10th-anniversary issue of The Chronicle Review, we asked scholars and illustrators to answer this question: What will be the defining idea of the coming decade, and why?
Camille Paglia
Vanishing of jobs will plague the rest of this decade and more. Meaningful employment is no longer guaranteed to dutiful, studious members of the middle class in the Western world. College education, which was hugely expanded after World War II and sold as a basic right, is doing a poor job of preparing young people for life outside of a narrow band of the professional class.
Yes, an elite education at stratospheric prices will smooth the way into law or medical school and supply a network of useful future contacts. But what if a student wants a different, less remunerative or status-oriented but more personally fulfilling career? There is little flexibility in American higher education to allow for alternative career tracks.
Jobs, and the preparation of students for them, should be front and center in the thinking of educators. The idea that college is a contemplative realm of humanistic inquiry, removed from vulgar material needs, is nonsense. The humanities have been gutted by four decades of pretentious postmodernist theory and insular identity politics. They bear little relationship to the liberal arts of broad perspective and profound erudition that I was lucky enough to experience in college in the 1960s.
Having taught in art schools for most of my four decades in the classroom, I am used to having students who work with their hands???ceramicists, weavers, woodworkers, metal smiths, jazz drummers. There is a calm, centered, Zen-like engagement with the physical world in their lives. In contrast, I see glib, cynical, neurotic elite-school graduates roiling everywhere in journalism and the media. They have been ill-served by their trendy, word-centered educations.
Jobs, jobs, jobs: We need a sweeping revalorization of the trades. The pressuring of middle-class young people into officebound, paper-pushing jobs is cruelly shortsighted. Concrete manual skills, once gained through the master-apprentice alliance in guilds, build a secure identity. Our present educational system defers credentialing and maturity for too long. When middle-class graduates in their mid-20s are just stepping on the bottom rung of the professional career ladder, many of their working-class peers are already self-supporting and married with young children.
The elite schools, predicated on molding students into mirror images of their professors, seem divorced from any rational consideration of human happiness. In a period of global economic turmoil, with manufacturing jobs migrating overseas and service-sector jobs diminishing in availability and prestige, educators whose salaries are paid by hopeful parents have an obligation to think in practical terms about the destinies of their charges. That may mean a radical stripping down of course offerings, with all teachers responsible for a core curriculum. But every four-year college or university should forge a reciprocal relationship with regional trade schools.
Camille Paglia is a professor of humanities and media studies at the University of the Arts, in Philadelphia.
http://chronicle.com/article/Revalorizing-the-Trades/124130/
"Having taught in art schools for most of my four decades in the classroom, I am used to having students who work with their hands???ceramicists, weavers, woodworkers, metal smiths, jazz drummers. There is a calm, centered, Zen-like engagement with the physical world in their lives. In contrast, I see glib, cynical, neurotic elite-school graduates roiling everywhere in journalism and the media. They have been ill-served by their trendy, word-centered educations."
BTW - I blame the baby boomers for sucking America dry.
for what it's worth, that really resonated with me. plenty of desk jockeys out there making big money with little intrinsic fulfillment.
I wish Camille had bothered to explain the difference. This mostly sounds like some "back in the day" nostalgia.
edit: i can't find it on-line but her article "junk bonds and corporate raiders: academe in the hour of the wolf" is a good place to start even though it is about 20 years old now.
http://www.jstor.org/pss/20163474
Both my Dad and myself went to Public Schools and had the choice of attending just about any type of "Trade" classes we liked, in addition to basic academic classes.
In both of our cases we pursued careers in the trade we learned in High School.
Were these phased out sometime post '80?? And if so, why?
The current generation in college, and even the one in high school now about to enter, still for the most part believes college to be their "golden ticket" into the workforce, as it was for their parents (who have pushed along this myth) - there's a serious need to question what it means to "get a degree" and what that, independent of major or focus, really gets you in 2010 (particularly when compared with the financial cost). My two cents is that an undergraduate education from the top 10% of schools is still extremely valuable, not solely for the educational value but for the networking and the job pipelines that still do exist at many of those schools. For the majority of undergraduates? I just don't see how an Arizona State degree is really pushing you to the next level of employment opportunities...
That divide between Ivy-league (and equivalent) schools and those in the mid/upper-mid tier is gigantic, and a huge elephant in the room in many of these conversations, as is the divide in the orientation of a university - top schools are able to combine rigor in academia but with a focus on jobs, startups, professional school. But others (the entire UC system) do next to no career development, and the top students are generally pumped into post-doc programs, and the rest left to wander. It never ceases to amaze me how nearly everyone I meet from truly top schools (mostly East Coast) was part of at least one startup in undergrad, often with the direct support of their university, while the notion of doing anything that serious and adventurous was completely foreign to nearly everyone at the three UCs I attended in undergrad.
The lessons that the parents of current 20 somethings left for their kids are also a huge part of this - the vast majority of the folks I grew up with, their parents dicked around and just got by in their 20s, maybe hit grad school at 27, started getting serious when they hit 30, not unlike the article portrays the actions of current 20-somethings. The key difference is that our parents then went onto become professors, lawyers, buy houses, make good money, pay for tuition, etc etc etc. - that's not a possible future for current 20-somethings, and I think a lot of what we're seeing is a desire to fool around, travel, etc. in the years after college, but a recognition that what was possible before is no longer.
I'm not an educational historian so I can only speak from personal experience but the classes that you're describing - say, woodshop - were barely still in place when I was in junior high and they were uniformly considered to be a joke or just a class to slack off in. I think vocational training got massively defunded, not just for the same economic reasons that art and music classes were as well, but also because there wasn't as much parental support to keep them around. Like I said before, at least from my generation (I was born in the early '70s), in both family, social circles and mass media, I've seen COLLEGE COLLEGE COLLEGE sold to us as the pathway to upward mobility, stability and security. The benefits of vocational training are never touted publicly though you may have had guidance counselors kicking that game on a one-on-one level.
Instead, what's happened instead is that the for-profit college industry got smart and began advertising themselves like vocational schools used too. All those ads for ITT or Devry have been replaced by the Univ. of Phoenix and their ilk, but whereas technical skills used to be the selling point, the for-profit colleges are selling "degrees." But in what? For what? I think this is part and parcel of this push towards the BA as the end goal even if no one really explains what one can do with that BA once you're actually in the job market.
I should also add, the class politics of America have always been pretty fucked up (though probably still an improvement over Old World aristocracies) but I'd say since the latter half of the 20th century, you've seen a real abandonment of any kind of positive valuation of blue collar work. Shit, if you explained to the average high school student that they could make six figures as a unionized longshoreman vs. one third of that working a desk job with minimal benefits and no job security, I'd bet most would still choose the latter.
I will say that I still believe in the ideals of a liberal education insofar as I would like the longshoremen and carpenters AND CEOs of the world to be exposed to a broader set of ideas, critical thinking and writing skills. I think college - as this unique bubble of a social space - still provides something of value beyond just preparing people to become workers. Maybe the solution is to build more trades training in conventional 4 year institutions. Maybe we build more liberal education ideals into trades schools. But I don't see the benefit in creating a two-track system with no overlap between them.