Working with your hands

“Dilbert,” “The Office” and similar portrayals of cubicle life attest to the dark absurdism with which many Americans have come to view their white-collar jobs."

"High-school shop-class programs were widely dismantled in the 1990s as educators prepared students to become “knowledge workers.” The imperative of the last 20 years to round up every warm body and send it to college, then to the cubicle, was tied to a vision of the future in which we somehow take leave of material reality and glide about in a pure information economy. This has not come to pass. To begin with, such work often feels more enervating than gliding. More fundamentally, now as ever, somebody has to actually do things: fix our cars, unclog our toilets, build our houses."

"The 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.” Nor can the Indians fix your car. Because they are in India."

"If the goal is to earn a living, then, maybe it isn’t really true that 18-year-olds need to be imparted with a sense of panic about getting into college (though they certainly need to learn). Some people are hustled off to college, then to the cubicle, against their own inclinations and natural bents, when they would rather be learning to build things or fix things."

"A gifted young person who chooses to become a mechanic rather than to accumulate academic credentials is viewed as eccentric, if not self-destructive. There is a pervasive anxiety among parents that there is only one track to success for their children. It runs through a series of gates controlled by prestigious institutions."

"The trades suffer from low prestige, and I believe this is based on a simple mistake. Because the work is dirty, many people assume it is also stupid."

Try the link to this article by Mathew Crawford. It's titled "THe Case for Working With Your Hands. It explores why some of us are drawn to working with our hands and that maybe it is meant for us to except that. But, often the "hand" workers are viewed as lower class compared to those who e emphasis pure intellectual academic life paths.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/magazine/24labor-t.html?pagewanted=1&em"

I remember growing up in school that I wanted to take shop class and auto class but those were reserved for the "not so bright kids." I think it is true when it was stated in this article, that “in schools, we create artificial learning environments for our children that they know to be contrived and undeserving of their full attention and engagement. Without the opportunity to learn through the hands, the world remains abstract and distant, and the passions for learning will not be engaged.”

How true is that statement? Kids know that the school environment can be contrived and undeserving of their full attention! I'm sure I learned a lot more than I realize from my dad and mom than I realize. Watching my dad fix stuff. Family camping trips. Does anyone feel like they learned much in high school? Yes, we learn the three R's maybe. I felt like I didn't start learning until I had experiences that were often associated with things outside of school. Boy Scouts, athetics, youth groups, etc. Actually doing things in the world. College seemed to open up the world of being on one's own and being a Outdoor Education major I was exposed to a way of teaching that is hands on and experiencial. My professors understood that riding the bus downtown with earplugs, to simulate being deaf, to purchase a candy bar offered more education with regards to adaptive recreation therapy.than the final exam with multiple choice answers.

Anyways, working with your hands is not a bad thing. I hope to get on "Dirty Jobs" someday.

DJB