Saturday, March 19, 2022

Conversations

The weather for the baby shower is expected to be 55 F and sunny.

There will be 22 grown women here and two men.

And it is a safe bet that we not be able to find anybody to make us a sammich when we get hungry.

Life is hard.

Chit-chat in the living room

 Southern Belle is a teacher in southern-Florida.

Discussion turned to teaching methods.

The earliest part of the Industrial Revolution was fueled by labor from the agricultural sector migrating to cities

Power from a central water-wheel or steam-engine were often distributed to the factory floor via overhead shafts and belts.

Increased automation reduced the need for labor. A single 20 horsepower steam engine, for instance, can eliminate the need from the muscle-power from a hundred humans per shift.

Suddenly, there was a surplus of workers and mandatory education was a way of removing the 6-through-12 year-olds from the labor pool.

In time, education became a self-perpetuating phenomena. The biggest proponents believed that every task could be reduced to very basic elements and that it was possible to teach more complex tasks as combinations of those elements.

"Possible" is very different than "Efficient". There are still many tasks that are best taught as training rather than education. For instance, the sound of frying bacon when it is time to flip it over, how a pear feels when it is ripe and ready to pick, the sound of a baby when it needs to have his diaper changed. These signals don't translate well to black ink printed on paper or pixels on monitors.

Ten-times-five equals fifty. My first-grade class picture (1965) had 35 students in it. Progress!
The fact that theoretically based Education is not always best for transferring knowledge was offset by the fact that it is very cost-effective to have one, 17 year-old woman educating 30 students. It was a cheap way to keep the kids out of the labor pool and enough kids were able to make the leap from theoretical-to-practical to keep the economy growing.

It has been fifty-five years since the introduction of The Pill and the start of the Feminist Revolution. The time to review Education as a Sacred Cow is long over-due. We do not have a surplus of workers. We have a surplus of jobs.

What is the benefit to society to incarcerating every child until they are 18 (or 22) years-old? What is the benefit of using the standard, "Education" modality of learning for professions like nursing (one example of many) when an apprenticeship path might be twice as efficient AND provide immediate relief to healthcare which is pummeled by labor shortages?

To answer the question, the Education industry and Labor unions benefit and they contribute heavily to political candidates. But society in general loses. Hard questions need to be asked and if not answered, asked over-and-over again.


7 comments:

  1. Great posting , Joe. That is a matter that seems to be totally beneath the radar. Several years ago I got a book "The Machine in America. A Social History of Technology." by Carroll Pursell. It begins with pre Revolutionary War industry and up to the time of publishing in 1995. It discusses this matter in detail and it really impressed me with the writer's insight. I highly recommend it. ---ken

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  2. Here in the UK, we had ROSLA (Raising Of the School Leaving Age - to 16) in 1973 - It introduced comprehensive education and kept a lot of unwilling kids in school. Coincided with the loss of 'blue collar' jobs and accelerated the rush to 'white collar' beaurocracy. Look where we have ended up!

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  3. Good points.
    This also coincides with pushing children to be children longer, delaying and ultimately eliminating responsibility.
    It also coincides with an increasing focis that puts money above all else.

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    1. You are exactly right Jonathon H. Education now just prolongs adolescence and puts materialism ahead of character.---ken

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  4. There are millions of able bodied people being paid to NOT work by .GOV.

    That is a real problem.

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  5. I'm sure Social Security could use the boost of longer employed persons who contribute to them. I was at a local gun show this past weekend and there were two tables run by the same family. One of the tables had both parents (firearms) on that particular table. The other had two of their children selling books lain out. I don't know what each earned, but it was refreshing to watch an 8 year old making conversation with the potential customers. If a question was needed, one of the kids was a 'runner' who relayed the message, saving both parties time.

    A good use of a resource I think. I've traveled to interior of Mexico and saw many children running a 'hole in the wall' stand by themselves, making change and ringing up sales (cigar box register). They were polite and to the point - very responsible I thought. T

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  6. "...when an apprenticeship path might be twice as efficient AND provide immediate relief..."
    ==========

    I'm a strong advocate of this method because I am a result of it and it's the way things were done for a very long time. I didn't become an architect by sitting in a classroom for 6 years but rather 13 years of mostly apprenticeships in a wide variety of roles and some professional education. I didn't have the luxury of wealthy parents nor did I want to go in debt but I had a goal and I worked hard at it for a long time and made a living for my family at the same time. I graduated from HS and vo-tech at age 16 in 1972 and finally became an architect in 1985. I've been self employed ever since. My job isn't just something I do, it is a big part of who I am.

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