Wednesday, September 07, 2011

Publik ejucashun

http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/08/25/why-your-teenager-can’t-use-a-hammer/

5 comments:

  1. I learned academics in school and my dad taught me how to use a hammer.

    Perhaps you should teach your kid how to use a hammer?

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  2. Similarly, I once read a newspaper article saying there were a few med students who were actually trying to do certain medical procedures based on having watched the TV show ER.

    As much as I enjoy playing video games, I don't know that video games can help regain some of this hand-eye coordination, manual dexterity, etc.!

    I think losing manual dexterity is part of a bigger picture. There seem to me to be fewer and fewer leaders (e.g. politicians, businessmen) these days who genuinely know what it's like to have to rely on manual labor or the like as their primary source of income for a more than say a year or two. To really do something where they have to get their hands dirty - literally. Whether that's plumbing, carpentry, farming, picking fruit, drycleaning clothes, scrubbing dishes, bathing nursing home patients, untangling cables in server rooms, cleaning public bathrooms, etc.

    Take someone like Obama. I suspect one reason he's so far removed from and out of sync with what most Americans want is because he's never done any sort of hard labor with serious financial as well as other consequences for him if he couldn't do the work. I suppose he may be eloquent (as some say though I'd beg to differ here as well), but he can't connect with most average Americans, I don't think. He's lived a privileged life and it shows in how he thinks, speaks, and acts. He keeps trying to push America to adopt his elitist policies. He's closer to an ideologue born out of entitlement and privilege. A far cry from someone like Teddy Roosevelt.

    Speaking for myself, I'd rather see a leader who is humble enough to willingly stoop down to scrub the feet of even some smelly fishermen.

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  3. This is made worse by the fact that some schools no longer teach cursive and opt to only teach typing. Cursive develops fine motor skills in the hand. Some of these kids may grow up not knowing how to sign their own names onto legal documents. They'll have to print their names!

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  4. RYAN ANDERSON SAID:

    "I learned academics in school and my dad taught me how to use a hammer. Perhaps you should teach your kid how to use a hammer?"

    Aside from the fact that public school is a rotten place to learn academics, as long as taxpayers are footing the bill for public education, why shouldn't our schools teach kids practical, marketable skills? Why not less politically correct indoctrination and more vocational, hands-on learning?

    ReplyDelete