YES! I don't know if you've heard of Jael Prezeau, but she was the high school English teacher when I was in high school here. She had a lasting influence on many of us, and one of the things she used to say to me was that I should go to law school because "it will fine-tune your mind." I never did, but years later when my husband was studying to be a barrister and I read a lot of his materials, I saw how right she was. Your sister's pretty smart :)
I agree with communication being a vital skill - visual arts, songwriting and storytelling will always have a value for any vocation. I also think we undervalue curiosity. Kids and adults should always be searching and wondering and exploring the "why's" in the universe. Life is an endless adventure full of discoveries.
So, so true. I hadn't even thought about this, but couldn't it have an effect on mental health, too? It's so easy to feel like life is pointless or meaningless, but delving into the arts and storytelling and music can always bring us back to beauty and joy just for the sake of it.
I think you're on the right track with urging your kids to learn communication skills. More than anything mine have served me no matter what I do and have done, work-wise or just in trying to be a decent human. But I never went to kollidge so what do I know.
I'm not one to tell people what they should urge their children to do, but I think what Richard points out is all too often overlooked. In the past few months we have really learned which people are essential and which are not, and I think we need to recognize that and treat some of these "unskilled" jobs with more respect. In my old job I learned quickly that being able to back up a database was pretty meaningless outside of a specific part of a specific task and I realized I didn't care about it.
My biggest gripe whenever people start talking about "the future" is the assumption that everything is going to evolve digitally and technologically down some predetermined path that was established twenty years or more ago. I'm not convinced our civilization will really exist in any way we imagined it to here in the next ten to twenty years. Where is all this energy going to come from? Where is the waste going to go? How are we going to live on an overheated and overtaxed planet? Not only that, but we see all over Montana that the people whose efforts really make the system work can't afford to live here anymore. That's not going to sustain this technological dreamscape either. Grr. It gets very frustrating to me. If we want to step forward, it seems we really need to take a bunch of steps back and rework a bunch of stuff.
Can't remember if I mentioned this before, but "Shop Class as Soulcraft" is one of my touchstone books. We can't see to get around this crazy idea that a job requiring a college degree, no matter how useless or pointless or soul-sucking, is "better" and more worthy of high pay than a job that's vital and only requires training and apprenticeship. I wonder if we'll see any shift in that after this? It's nuts, though. I mean, being an HVAC installer requires tons of math, especially an ability to think three-dimensionally in complex ways like an airplane engineer, but it's not considered as respectful as a tax attorney? It makes no sense. If I had it to do all over again I'd train as a surveyor. They need so many interesting skills.
That "future" discussions always seems to fall on one side or the other: either it's all going to go to hell, or tech will save us (tech optimism, the idea that we will always develop the technology needed to solve our problems). I agree with you. It's one thing that drives me nuts when people talk about Bitcoin and blockchain technology. That stuff uses an enormous amount of energy. There was a great article in High Country News a few years ago about a dam in Washington that was ruining a salmon run, and the piece mentioned in passing that the dam provides electricity for a Google data center. I keep trying to find articles on the energy required by all the data storage, but there's very little. It's like nobody even wants to talk about it.
I am an advocate for taxing vacation homes and absentee landowners at extremely high rates and funneling that money back into local communities. I don't see how else to mitigate the effects of so much money pushing people out, and besides, the community is what creates the value by putting volunteer work, sweat equity, trails systems, or whatever, into the place that then makes it desirable to others.
It's so crazy you bring up the "Shop Class" book too because I read it years ago and just recently reordered it so I can revisit it. I loved it and feel I need another dose. "Bullshit Jobs" by David Graeber was another one I really enjoyed because it made me feel self righteous about my own ideas about what constitutes a "good" job, heh.
I haven't read Bullshit Jobs but keep running into mention of it and have it on a list. Sounds like I should! That's so funny about Shop Class! It had a big effect on me, in the "I sensed the world was like this but here's someone saying it in clear ways I can understand" kind of way. I didn't like his second book so much. Had a hard time getting into it. Anyway, I think it's partly that every generation of my family had useful, practical, hands-on skills until mine and I never stop feeling like my ancestors are disappointed in my lack of physical competence.
Security seems to be what we all want but all lack. Perhaps your kids need to learn the manual skills that can allow them to survive and thrive on their own, without formal education. A few skills wouldn't hurt.
It's interesting you bring up security, because that came up in threads on a non-public forum recently about what makes a job a "stable job." I think you're right; over years of conversations with school board members and administrators and parents, what's never said but is constantly there is a search for training and education that will ensure these kids' economic safety in the future. I don't believe that economic safety exists for anyone, but it seems like the closest you could get to ensuring it would be developing an ability to learn flexibly and adapt.
And no, skills don't hurt! My kids are not interested in learning to hunt (yet), but they did spend a few summers attending a wonderful day camp where they spent all day in the woods, usually came home mud-streaked and barefoot, and learned things like knife skills and how to make a bow drill (which I have not yet mastered--it's really hard!).
Maybe a bow drill could help with learning a stringed instrument ;). Community participation--great point. We are fortunate to live in a town that has a strong tradition of that. It can be exhausting sometimes (so many places to put energy!), but I wouldn't trade it. And there are opportunities for young kids to get involved, too.
My sister, a lawyer, once told me that she wished everyone could experience law-school not to become lawyers but how to become better thinkers.
YES! I don't know if you've heard of Jael Prezeau, but she was the high school English teacher when I was in high school here. She had a lasting influence on many of us, and one of the things she used to say to me was that I should go to law school because "it will fine-tune your mind." I never did, but years later when my husband was studying to be a barrister and I read a lot of his materials, I saw how right she was. Your sister's pretty smart :)
I agree with communication being a vital skill - visual arts, songwriting and storytelling will always have a value for any vocation. I also think we undervalue curiosity. Kids and adults should always be searching and wondering and exploring the "why's" in the universe. Life is an endless adventure full of discoveries.
So, so true. I hadn't even thought about this, but couldn't it have an effect on mental health, too? It's so easy to feel like life is pointless or meaningless, but delving into the arts and storytelling and music can always bring us back to beauty and joy just for the sake of it.
I think you're on the right track with urging your kids to learn communication skills. More than anything mine have served me no matter what I do and have done, work-wise or just in trying to be a decent human. But I never went to kollidge so what do I know.
I'm not one to tell people what they should urge their children to do, but I think what Richard points out is all too often overlooked. In the past few months we have really learned which people are essential and which are not, and I think we need to recognize that and treat some of these "unskilled" jobs with more respect. In my old job I learned quickly that being able to back up a database was pretty meaningless outside of a specific part of a specific task and I realized I didn't care about it.
My biggest gripe whenever people start talking about "the future" is the assumption that everything is going to evolve digitally and technologically down some predetermined path that was established twenty years or more ago. I'm not convinced our civilization will really exist in any way we imagined it to here in the next ten to twenty years. Where is all this energy going to come from? Where is the waste going to go? How are we going to live on an overheated and overtaxed planet? Not only that, but we see all over Montana that the people whose efforts really make the system work can't afford to live here anymore. That's not going to sustain this technological dreamscape either. Grr. It gets very frustrating to me. If we want to step forward, it seems we really need to take a bunch of steps back and rework a bunch of stuff.
"kollidge," haha ;)
Can't remember if I mentioned this before, but "Shop Class as Soulcraft" is one of my touchstone books. We can't see to get around this crazy idea that a job requiring a college degree, no matter how useless or pointless or soul-sucking, is "better" and more worthy of high pay than a job that's vital and only requires training and apprenticeship. I wonder if we'll see any shift in that after this? It's nuts, though. I mean, being an HVAC installer requires tons of math, especially an ability to think three-dimensionally in complex ways like an airplane engineer, but it's not considered as respectful as a tax attorney? It makes no sense. If I had it to do all over again I'd train as a surveyor. They need so many interesting skills.
That "future" discussions always seems to fall on one side or the other: either it's all going to go to hell, or tech will save us (tech optimism, the idea that we will always develop the technology needed to solve our problems). I agree with you. It's one thing that drives me nuts when people talk about Bitcoin and blockchain technology. That stuff uses an enormous amount of energy. There was a great article in High Country News a few years ago about a dam in Washington that was ruining a salmon run, and the piece mentioned in passing that the dam provides electricity for a Google data center. I keep trying to find articles on the energy required by all the data storage, but there's very little. It's like nobody even wants to talk about it.
I am an advocate for taxing vacation homes and absentee landowners at extremely high rates and funneling that money back into local communities. I don't see how else to mitigate the effects of so much money pushing people out, and besides, the community is what creates the value by putting volunteer work, sweat equity, trails systems, or whatever, into the place that then makes it desirable to others.
It's so crazy you bring up the "Shop Class" book too because I read it years ago and just recently reordered it so I can revisit it. I loved it and feel I need another dose. "Bullshit Jobs" by David Graeber was another one I really enjoyed because it made me feel self righteous about my own ideas about what constitutes a "good" job, heh.
I haven't read Bullshit Jobs but keep running into mention of it and have it on a list. Sounds like I should! That's so funny about Shop Class! It had a big effect on me, in the "I sensed the world was like this but here's someone saying it in clear ways I can understand" kind of way. I didn't like his second book so much. Had a hard time getting into it. Anyway, I think it's partly that every generation of my family had useful, practical, hands-on skills until mine and I never stop feeling like my ancestors are disappointed in my lack of physical competence.
Sounds like TED school.
Security seems to be what we all want but all lack. Perhaps your kids need to learn the manual skills that can allow them to survive and thrive on their own, without formal education. A few skills wouldn't hurt.
It's interesting you bring up security, because that came up in threads on a non-public forum recently about what makes a job a "stable job." I think you're right; over years of conversations with school board members and administrators and parents, what's never said but is constantly there is a search for training and education that will ensure these kids' economic safety in the future. I don't believe that economic safety exists for anyone, but it seems like the closest you could get to ensuring it would be developing an ability to learn flexibly and adapt.
And no, skills don't hurt! My kids are not interested in learning to hunt (yet), but they did spend a few summers attending a wonderful day camp where they spent all day in the woods, usually came home mud-streaked and barefoot, and learned things like knife skills and how to make a bow drill (which I have not yet mastered--it's really hard!).
Maybe if you learn a stringed instrument it will help with the bow drill :) How to actively participate in a community would be a good skill.
Maybe a bow drill could help with learning a stringed instrument ;). Community participation--great point. We are fortunate to live in a town that has a strong tradition of that. It can be exhausting sometimes (so many places to put energy!), but I wouldn't trade it. And there are opportunities for young kids to get involved, too.