Modern Vespa

Why did they do away with Industrial Arts?

Good question. More emphasis on college prep, most likely.

Last time I had a plumber out, he said he'd been lured back from retirement (he was 66) because there were no young people training into the field.

His employer was paying higher wages and bonuses to attract people, and the only people responding were older guys like himself.

Shame, really. Welders, plumbers, carpenters, electricians, mechanics, etc.--those folks built our world.

I think it's a shame, too, and not just because we need tradespeople.

I went to school in Beverly Hills, California. I went on to become a music teacher and a psychotherapist. In seventh grade, I had a year of mechanical drawing (drafting). In eighth grade I had a year of wood shop. In those days, these classes were just for the boys. The girls got cooking and sewing. These were required courses.

Learning to work with my hands has stood me in good stead throughout my life, as I continued to work with wood - remodeling my houses and other things. But, more importantly, it rounded me out as a whole person, with an appreciation for manual work and those who do it.

These forms of work and education actually develop parts of the brain that do not get developed from academics alone.

I also think it's a shame that physical education has gotten short shrift in many areas.

And let's add arts education to the list, as well.

The small company I work for needs a machinist trainee to run our shop when I semi-retire in 4 years 8 months.
The young adults available so far are cell phone zombies or headed for tuition indentured servitude.
I go to work for only one thing, to earn my pay. I take pride in the quality of my work. Seems like this country is obsessed with doing as little as possible for their pay, AKA sandbaggers!
My boss has contacted High Schools to offer the job to graduating students headed for trade schools but we are hitting a wall of apathy from councilors. It's as if high schools are obsessed with students going to college.

It's the Millennial Generation.
Everything can be done by using an app.
If there isn't one, they will sit down and write one.

A friend of mine emigrated to the USA.
(His wife is a US Citizen and a Veteran.)
He was a licensed paramedic in South Africa,
but is not permitted to work in USA without redoing all his qualifications.

So he now works as a plumber in Florida.

35 years of Educational history, oversimplified:
We shifted from "work-ready" and a graduating portion meeting college entrance requirements, to "College ready". College for everybody. Driven by slow shift in policy, funding and a response to rigor and testing.
Years ago, we still had a Junior College system that provided 2 years of transferable credit and an AA or AS, along with various certificate programs in many entry/career fields; dental tech, radiology tech, fire and police sciences, drafting, welding, nursing and etc.
As we transitioned to "College-ready" for all, more math, more science, more history, foreign language. We cut teaching "positions" to make room. Cut enough positions and programs die. Make more requirements and fewer electives needed to graduate. Now we have "College-ready" graduates. A few decades of this and "Houston we have a problem".
We now have a great, no brilliant "NEW" idea: STEM Education: educating students in four specific disciplines - science, technology, engineering and mathematics. OR STEAM , if your county or district thinks that the "ARTS" have value.

Bogus for-profit colleges, universities and trade schools, throwing in the "recent colleges admissions scandal" and we have an NSR thread for another day.

It's all about the Benjamins....

Who costs more, the classroom that can be used for math, history, Literature or the metal shop?

Yes, I was of the generation that was REQUIRED to take metal and wood shop, and all I can say is that it's amazing that we didn't kill each other in there. A bunch of 13 year olds casting molten metal? What could possibly go wrong? All the guys wanted to make ninja throwing stars, while the girls sewed aprons and a A-line skirt that none of them ever wore.

What happened (at least here in Massachusetts) is that the Industrial Arts went from a required course to a separate parallel high school system, where teens can study nursing, electrical, plumbing, etc. But you have to opt into that school and out of your local high school. And you have to take the regular academic courses (like geometry and American History since 1865) also.

And in my hometown on Long Island (circa 1977) we had one girl who decided she was NOT going to sew and cook.... she made a fuss about it and joined us in metal shop. A bit of a strange kid, my best friend's sister.

I taught High School math for a year, and the kids who were convinced they were college material were surprising.... deep seated learning disabilities to the point where there were accommodations for everything and they all thought they were University of Somewhere material.

Umm....me too. My mom still has half of all my wood and metal projects around.

The educational element was enhanced due to Ricky what's his name banging two hammers together joyfully. Of course we'd been warned about the safety hazard, but Ricky was always living on the edge. Actions indeed have consequences, as our shop instructor came up behind him in mid-swing and kicked him in the backside so hard his feet may have left the ground. Ah, the '70s.

Well, I have and continue to do both. I went to Medford Vocational Technical High School, just north of Boston, and studied furniture making for 10-12th grades. While I got a HS diploma, I never really took college prep classes. I never worked professionally as a furniture maker or carpenter or contractor but I have been woodworking for many decades. I build custom furniture and and outdoor accoutrements - see below for a few of my latest pieces. While I enjoy woodworking and furniture making, it is hard work. I generally have aches and pains after a full day of woodworking. It is also a solitary pursuit without a lot of intersection with others and generally not very intellectually stimulating tho I like the had-eye coordination. I have also built several houses doing the framing, electrical, gas, furnace, plumbing, shingling and finishes. It is a rare day when I call a contractor to come to my house to fix something. The last two times it was for fireplace cleaning and gas fireplace insert maintenance.

I also ended up in college when I was 20 studying math and electrical engineering, for 11 years. I always liked math but hadn't really done any since 9th grade. I have a BS, MS and PhD in electrical engineering and I'm on the cusp or retirement tho there are plenty of desires on my time professionally. I have to say, of all my schooling, graduate school was, by-far, my favorite. I continue doing engineering for money and the intellectual interest. Most of my professional life has been inventing and selling solutions to hard science and engineering problems. It has been a ball and I wouldn't trade it for anything. It is not hard physically, tho travel across the country regularly has not gotten easier.Sometimes your head hurts solving multi-dimensional problems. Mostly, I write and talk with sporadic time working in a lab helping other make the practice match the theory. I have worked as a professor at several universities and that was fun as well. Engineering pays about 10x more than the trades. Most recently, I've been working on investigating "machine learning" techniques to a specific business area.

If I had to choose one over the other, it'd definitely be engineering over the trades. I am always encouraging young people to go to college. You can always step away from a college-based career to the trades but its pretty hard, but not impossible or unheard of, to go the other way. By the time you are 30, its pretty hard to start college. By then, you are 10 years older than most of the other students and the social aspects aren't there.

Going to college is a lot more about just taking classes. Its meeting people and being exposed to ideas that you'd never come across just working in a trade. It helps you think, analyze, explore life in a wide variety of ways that are not easily available if you joined the trades out of HS.

There are plenty fo smart people in the trades and they have specialized knowledge that is invaluable and I salute them. But if a 16 year old asked me what I thought they should do, there's no doubt I'd recommend college. And when in college, take the hardest classes they can. You learn the most in those hard classes. And taking the hardest classes present the most future opportunity. Its hard to decide you want to go to med school but haven't taken freshman chemistry. Its hard to be a journalist if you haven't done a number of years reading books and writing papers. Etc, etc.

Honestly, given my experience, I'd be hard pressed to recommend a young person become a tradesperson. Its just my experience.

But honestly, doing both was the best of all worlds!

I'm truly sorry if I insulted anyone. It was not my intention. Just telling my story!!

Cheers
Miguel

PS: They no longer teach furniture making making at "The Voc", as we called it. The converted it to construction trades years ago.

Very nice work, Miguel. I've done enough wood butchery in my time to really appreciate your artistry and craftsmanship.

My brother is a sculptor who works in wood, and one son-in-law is also an artist who works in wood and metal. Oh, and my wife is an artist and art teacher. And one daughter is an art therapist.

Me, I take photographs and ride my scooter.

If I were young and just starting out, I'd learn how to repair robots.

Well to start off when I saw that art work Miguel has for a mail box I had to check where he called home! I was sure it was not in snow country like where I live that would not make it past the first snow fall!

To go back in time to the mid `60's like others have said for 2 or was it 3 years in Junior High the boys took Shop classes part of the year and the girls took "Home Ec". Then there was the rest of the year art and music as i recall!

Then just before my Junior year in High School they started what would be called a trade school for all the schools in the county. There were all kinds of different subjects. Building trades, auto body, auto mechanics, metal working, nursing, book keeping and so on.

I thought that sounded right up my alley, so I went to the meeting where they discussed all the options. I thought auto mechanics was the place for me so I filled out the form and turned it in!

Well a few days latter I got called down to the "Guidance Counselor's" office thinking they just wanted to go through to full procedure to sign me up. WRONG! I got told in no uncertain words I was not going to be going, Seems I was "College Material" in other words too smart to be a auto mechanic!

Well I did graduate and spent about 1 1/2 years at the local community college. Then I learned the quarry where my dad worked and I had worked two summer between high school and college and the year or so at college was starting a shop to do repairs for various branches of the company.

Well I applied for a job in that newly formed shop and despite never having a minute of formal training as a mechanic I was hired. Fast forward to 2015 at age 65 I retired from that shop and despite many changes, not all good, I left as the head mechanic.

As a side note to my story my older brother took a different route and after some college he enlisted in Air Force and after 20+ years retired from the service with a teaching degree as bonus.

After teaching math at a couple high schools he got a job as an assistant principal at one of those trade schools not far from the one I had tried to attend years ago! And one of the things he fought against was the same attitude that kept me out of that school more the three decades ago.

As he says too many "Guidance Counselors" still think of trade schools as a dumping ground for the trouble makers they don't want to deal with in the regular schools.

He would even go to the point of asking these people if they really wanted "Johnny dope head" to be the guy fixing the brakes on their little Suzy's car. they would say NO! Then he would say why then do you want to send him to my auto shop class? Not sure if it ever sank in but at least he tried!

That would be fitting.

One of them repaired me.

If you'd like to read a really excellent book on the subject, read "Shop Class as Soulcraft" by Matthew Crawford, the former director of a Washington think tank who left his job to open a motorcycle repair shop.

Miguel would have made a great case study for that book. Great work, Miguel!

I myself am a degreed electrical engineer, but I take greater pride in the 200 or so of these things that I built before my hearing went south:

Part of it is the push by schools for every student to go to college. Part of it is lack of opportunity. My youngest son has been looking for an electrical apprentice job for months. They all want a minimum of 2-4 years of experience which he doesn't have. His goal is to have his master electrician license by the time he is 30. At 20 he has the time to meet that goal IF he can find an apprenticeship to get him started. If my brother hadn't sold his business and let his license become inactive 8 years ago my son could have gone to work for his uncle.

Note, he's had 2 years at college but decided that computers which was his major wasn't interesting him nor finance that he had been tutoring his girlfriend in. Math was fine but didn't see himself doing it the rest of his life. We suggested he get an Electrical Engineering degree which my brother also recommended as a short cut to the master electrician's exam license but he says he would rather start with an apprenticeship for the experience.

Remember, if the women don't find you handsome they can at least find you handy.

-- Red Green

Well I am glad my only son did not follow me into the art of Plastering. I have been doing it for going on 43 years. Everything from stucco exterior to ornamental interior - all high end residential. And I am still making what I was in 1991. Regardless of all the stuff that is printed and talked about, the building trades are way, way behind on wages. My son walked into a video editing job, worked hard and passed me in wages within weeks. I'm proud of him, he gets there earlier than anyone, is the last to leave, and works hard. Thankfully after six generations of Plastering, it stops with me. There is just no decent future in it. Rant done, sorry.

Its not a rant. Its just true. Trades do not pay well over time. They used to. While it takes skill, and lots of it, it doesn't take that long for a newbie to pick up your trade and undercut your rates, even if they aren't as good.

Best
Miguel

SilverStreak, Luthiers are unbelievable woodworkers that came from another dimension.
I "used to be" a jazz/classical (metal) woodwinds musician but dropped it a long time ago.

I've been going to Annapolis for years for biz but haven't gone much in the last few years. Next time I do go, you are on my hitlist of people to visit.I buy the tequila and we talk for hours, promise.

Cheers!! Miguel

Robots are simple to repair: Robots connect mechanical motors (or actuators) and feedback sensors to electronics. The art in all of them is making it work through algorithms running on software in computers. Repairing them is like any other electromechanical system (modern PTW, cars, CNC machines, 3D printers, DeVinci remote surgery machines, manufacturing robots, ...). Diagnostics is either a sensor or a driver. The diagnostic elements is understanding the idiosyncrasies of the drivers (bad bearings, poor registration, ...) and sensors (failures to read misalignments) and bad algorithm/software behavior. OTOH, I've never had the opportunity to design or repair one. Its a legitimate and wonderful field to get into. But you will always just be a technician and not one fo the innovators.

Again, not trying to insult anyone, its just the truth. The real money, innovation and growth is in the design side, not the repair side.

Cheers
Miguel

Hah!! Ms Miguel is an artist, and an excellent one. Its a rare day that who don't consult on each other's project.

Best
Miguel

You're on. You may have to talk loudly, though. I'm now totally deaf in my left ear and about halfway there in the right.

I really like the designs of your pieces. Did you come up with them yourself? I'm a big Arts & Crafts fan, and your stuff looks like it is definitely influenced by Greene & Greene and Japanese woodworking traditions. Cloud lifts forever!

kshansen,
Thanks for your story. It is truly interesting. The guidance councilor guiding troublesome youth into the vocational school wasn't my path there but i completely understand. tho i was a troubled youth, it wasn't really a dumping ground. Many there were quite smart and intelligent. Given different guidance, they likely would have been leaders. Many of them probably became so.

I'd encourage you to volunteers somehow and pass along those valuable skills. I've been trying to figure out how to do that to pass along my woodworking skills.

Good on ya!

I have said over the years that if I influence and inspire only a dozen or so people though life in a truly positive way, that will enough.
Miguel

Absolutely.

One of the fellow members of my "Old Liberal White Guys" book club (as I call it) is Dr. Russell Taylor of Johns Hopkins University, who is considered to be the father of robotic surgery.

He's doing quite well.

SS!! You nailed it!! Here's the back end of there t story. When I attend "The Voc" (Medford Vocational High School, just north of Boston, for 10-12 grades of furniture making school), the influence was all 17th and 18th Century colonial furniture. While I did it, building hutches, grandmother and grandfather clocks, and other stuff, I really wasn't inspired. I know a lot of people are and I do not want to distract from their inspiration. There are lots of tastes in woodworking appreciation.

When I decided to continue on from a Masters to a PhD (my Masters advisor told me one day he'd just gotten a $150K grant and asked if I want a PhD?), I decided to move but needed furniture. Fortunately, the campus (University of California at Davis) had an excellent woodshop and I built some furniture. The first I'd done in years.

After graduate school, I lived in Palo Alto (home to Stanford University at the north end of Silicon Valley) with a grad school friend who today is still one my best friends. My last weekend living there, I went to a bookstore and discovered the Greene Brothers (Greene and Greene) furniture and architecture. I was SO blown away!! I felt I'd found my tribe. I'd been designing, building and living in the arts and craft tradition and asian design aesthetic ever since but my wife and I design in our own fashion. But it incorporates many of the Greene Bro's language. They are so incredible. Its sad and hard to believe they died relative paupers. They are perhaps the best known American Arts and Crafts designers and builders of the last 100 years.

Thanks to your recognition of them, I've included a few images of their houses and furniture below or other to enjoy and be inspired by.

Miguel!!

For the record, I just linked to images instead of putting them directly on the site because linking is easy and putting them the site is time consuming. And Greene and Greene images are readily available.

BTW, whats wonderful thread for those of us in the trades or trained in them as young people. Thanks for the memories.

Miguel!

I have ridden with a South African guy that immigrated here long time back-he was an engineer in S Africa but has his own survey company here due to license issues.
As a guy who has many, many hours of skilled trade training I could literally write a book on whats mentioned above. I also grew up around those who had much hands on skill in trades and the arts of all types. Carpenters, mechanics, electricians, bakers, engravers/jewelers, music, professional sports, science I lived around all that growing up.
I don't mean to "lord over" this subject but just too much I could say overall as it's my career choice on both ends.
At age 30 I left my trade to complete college and 3semesters later I had a BS in Vocational & technical ED and another year later a masters in counseling then an Educational Specialist degree & principals certificate.
Adjusted for inflation there's little question I'd have earned far more in my trade than the educational jobs I had thereafter!
The "Dirty Jobs" TV guy Mike Rowe pretty much touches my personal views on the world of work and educational pursuits in general.
CDwise- many of our 2 yr electrical students went into apprenticeships after completing our program. The apprenticship I served had nearly 500 people who I competed with on the test. I then worked alongside people who in a few cases had less actual previous skill training and experience than I already had. They "got in" due to a father who already worked there.
Generally speaking only in large cities does that option become open to follow and typically testing is quite competitive too. Students vary in tech training like any other pursuit and the better students get the better jobs-most of the time as it's performance based work. In my regional area of low wages many industrial jobs want a "know everything skilled trades person" who they are unwilling to anti up the wages for. Teachers I worked with would literally hang up the phone on some employers who were wanting a rock star for low pay.
Some skilled trades have seen wages degrade from "certain other workers", willing to work for much less. I am trying to remain polite.
I whet my hands on thirst via hobbies as a woodworker, mechanic on my PTW's and have zero interest in entering a school of any kind, ever again- except to see my grandkids graduate...

Today in Beverly Hills, the boys are taught sewing and the girls are taught shop.

JK. I learned to sew because if I wanted a backpack or something made from canvas or denim, I knew we didn't have money for it, so I made it. I loved sewing!
I wish now I'd have learned welding, but it's never too late!

One of the Eagle Scout projects my older son was involved in was repairing flood control barriers. The older boys were all arguing over who got to do the welding (with instruction and supervision by one of the parents.) So interest is there but sadly it is rarely encouraged.

The last person to repair my AC at home was a young Asian guy. He was so articulate and described the problem and solution so well, I asked why he wasn't a doctor.
He answered, "It's odd you say that, if I wasn't doing this I was going to attend medical school!"

That Asian kid failed the preppy test? Just because he's smart sure doesn't infer that he should be a doctor? Is that where all the smart folks go?
My own son's are blessed with high intelligence but their aptitudes lend them all to technical fields (Engineers all one is a FT test pilot), not medicine. My wife ran a colllege advising program and our kids chose what they wanted. Like me they might have chosen differently had they know what lifes brought their way. All 5 of my careers took me to today.
It has become in vogue to say we need more plumbers and how it pays well and all that talk but when it comes down to many people's own kids they want to tell others their kid is going to whatever has "special place" as they would have it, well maybe that's true? The gold standard for higher education has pretty much stayed at the "50% are gone bye bye" figure after two years since I switched to education career in 1974.
Weirdly, I went back to school in July 1973 and was I was teaching on one side of the campus street in an Area Vocational Education Center by November 1974 while getting a Masters in counselling up the same street.
Like my hero Mike Rowe I am one of those rare bird counselors who has had dirty hands skilled experience and much training there while sharing such world of work my students. Most of them go into counseling as a ticket out of the classroom, not that they might not be working hard in their own way...
Most secondary counselors are judged by the % of seniors who are college bound and the $ amount of that groups scholarship money.
Many still send (or try to send) special students who are not candidates for most technical education. I'll leave that one alone as it's hard to play nice and be respectful to those children with special needs and I do respect them!

You nailed that one on the head CDwise!

Did away with Home Ec too.

Not really, many states have it (my KY as one e.g.) but it's been sort of "re-purposed" into the kind where you don't cook or sew. My wife (me too) grew up around people who could sew anything, I mean anything! They also cooked up a storm and grew large gardens,etc..
My baby brother who is 55 years old (20 less than me) he took Independent Living in KS. it came in about the time he was in HS and the Home Ec switch was on. My wife in college was a Home Ec. minor and she was amazed to learn that she could out cook any teacher she had in what is still a regional university cranking out teachers.
That same university stopped the Drivers Ed teaching certificates in 1975-go figure on that one. BTW, it happens to be one of my favorite rants.
The recent news about the big money to gain admissions is in some ways old news as the children of the rich and famous have been gaining admission to the so-called (my way of thinking,HA!) elite schools for many years. In fact, much longer than I've been around.
My twins both hold supervisory jobs in science/engineering and hire people. neither of them looks much at where the applicant went to school, more so toward what other experiences and the whole person. You might be surprised how many easily rejectable applicants they view who come from Ivy league and so on. Of course, not that they're all bad either.
We are currently several generations into a society that can't sew on a button, hem their britches nor hang a picture on the wall (and much much more)-so to speak.
My "technical degree" was centered on machines, process and teaching the same, as in trade and technical analysis and so on. Now a technical degree is puters.

[quote="Kantuckid"] Well I can do all that but at just shy or 69 years old guess I may not fall into that generation you are talking about.

Just this week I sewed some patches on my old jeans I use working around the house and replaced the stitching in the old slippers I wear around the house.

I actually got my start on a sewing machine that was treadle operated and wish that one was still around. Now I'm using the electric machine my mom used back in the early 1950's.

Just remembered I do have a broken button I need to replace on a good flannel shirt. Do they still sew the spare buttons on the bottom of shirts, this one is old enough so I'm good to go on that one!

Sometimes they still do.

My oldest son is 26 is pretty good at ironing courtesy of ROTC.

Yes.
Lighten up.
I asked and he said he would have considered it.
He didn't say, "Why do you mean a doctor, what are you a racist because I'm Asian? I was going into engineering!"

Well even though this one had a "spare button or two" I cheated and because the left cuff still had two and my "manly arms" are too big to use the second one I just clipped the one of the left and moved it over to the right. Good to go now!

Hmm...we actually have at least one thing in common. (two, actually.)

My comment was not racial at all! (that;s not me at all) but focused on the inference that "smart people" should be a doctor. A similar equation is: smart equal college vs. smart equal vocational/technical training, which was sort of the thread to begin with. Along comes someone with tech training who seems pretty smart and the equation jumps to a university sourced occupation-that's what my point was about.
Lots of careers need intelligent people, that's all I was saying and not at all intended to be a snarky comment.
I know a couple of folks who have made well in the HVAC service business. We do live in a service oriented society.
Ohio does a great job in some locales with their "comprehensive high schools".
My current wood project (nearly done) is a drop leaf table made from wormy chestnut, reclaimed wood. Has 3x3 legs, 28 x 48 main top and two 12" leafs. I used an old technique on the wood similar to what was called "fuming" by swabbing the wood with high strength ammonia. It causes a reaction to the acid in the wood and creates a darkening appearance similar to antique, old wood. It began in England where stable wood was seen to change colors from horse urine. Gustav Stickley used it on oak furniture to simulate English "brown oak". The color is down in the wood enough to allow re-sanding after the grain raises some.
I used ammonia on many of the chestnut furniture pieces in our home. It's great as used on Craftsman style furniture built from white oak.
FWIW, I got a B+ on the sanding block I made in Mr. Andersons 7th grade industrial arts class ~1955. I'm learning.