I'm wondering what all of you would think about this little theory of mine? On many of ocassion, I have layed into my mother-n-law for not passing down skills to her children such as cooking, cleaning, sewing, and just general homemakers skills that all women posseseed in every generation leading up to the 70's. I've also noticed that this younger generation of men do not have any carpentry, mechanical, plumbing, or electrical skills. When I examine my own upbringing, I struggle to find intances where my father taught me any of these skills, but my mother made sure I knew how to cook, clean, iron, and sew on a button.

So my question is: do we have a responsibility to our following generation teach and provide these skills, or did the hippie/yuppie clan drop the ball on that too? We seem to now have a society use to fast food and disposable goods, but nobody knows how to do anything anymore.

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Yes I think it is our responsibility to do so and then some, I think we also owe our children how to effectively use a computer, accounting skills and develop interesting in modern ways of life.

Growing up on a farm I had the opportunity to see many of the basic trade fundamentals.. not out of wanting to learn them.. but having to learn them on the fly. In the middle of a field and the equipment breaks down.. Dad isn't going to be happy if I don't get it done.. you figure out shit in a hurry then get taught what you could have done better when you get home.. after you did what it took to get done.

Mechanic, carpenter, engineer... you just figured it out. Especially if you wanted to run down to the creek an fish.. or get a neighborhood game of ball going. If not.. you were in the field until it was done. Motivation.

My sons don't have the same opportunities to fend or offend.. but I can fabricate some situations for them. Or teach them the conventional way when need be, however that lacks the element of troubleshooting and problem solving.

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I'd say yes.

My wife, too, lacks the skills that Dakota mentioned his wife lacked (dishes, laundry, etc.. traditional homemaker skills) because she was the baby of the family and got everything handed to her. She's still learning how to fend for herself, but at a God-awful slow pace. I stopped helping her with dishes because she dirties them at a rate that's more than triple mine. And she never rinses them before putting them in the sink/dishwasher.

Me? I've done my own laundry since I was in high school. I do my own work laundry today. I've also helped my dad work on the vehicles (namely the '87 Suburban truck) and have knowledge on how do my own brakes, oil changes etc on older vehicles (the newer transports are completely alien to me). I have always done our brakes myself. The only maintenance stuff I don't do is oil changes, and that's only because I don't have the storage for the used oil. I learned all my carpentry skills from my uncle who's one by trade. Luckily, he's the best. So I can definitely hold my own when it comes to that stuff. I used to install windows and doors, again learned from the best. I'm grateful, because I can save some BIG money by doing those things on my own and know for certain that it's done right.

EDIT: Forgot to add that if you put a computer case in front of me with a box full of parts, I'm more than able to slap a PC together. Was some of my favorite stuff to do, save the cost.

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My mom did a good job teaching me cooking, cleaning, laundry etc., I can easily run a household. My dad on the other hand taught me a lot of technical and computer skills but nothing with my hands. I've never really been a "fix-it" kind of guy when it comes to carpentry or mechanics. I can build a computer but off the top of my head I couldn't build a table.

The two skills I taught myself however our irreplaceable--I'm good at both resource and information gathering as well as teaching myself things. So if I needed to build a table I'd know where to look for the appropriate information and I'd learn how to do it on my own.

And yes I agree with you guys. It's important for parents to teach their children certain skills but I also think it's important to push your children into finding out things on their own and learning how to be independent.

I.

The bolded bit.
+1

In my top five gripes against modern higher education, #1 is how dependent today's average student is. How we don't teach them the value of figuring things out on their own.

Teachers are just Wikipedia on legs. That is, when they're not busy being asked questions that handouts or prior lectures have explicitly answered.

And lest you think I'm ranting about lazy students, I'm not. The system *encourages* just such dependence. Hell, I expect if I were 18, I would be just as dependent.

II.

I'm not particularly worried about the disappearance of knowledge of the "vulgar arts" -- any more than I'm particularly worried about the fact that only 1-2 percent of the modern rich economy is agriculture. To me, its a fact to be celebrated that we don't all have to know these things anymore.

I'm personally annoyed that I as an individual don't know more of them. But I don't see that as a social problem, but as an individual one.

III.

What I do worry about is that there are so many people now who know nothing about ANYthing productive to do with their hands and bodies. That we have lawyers everywhere, that everyone wants to do Service and Public Policy and Activism and all the other Fuzzy Studies shit. (Including ahem, a good majority of modern undergraduate "economics".) But they have no idea of 1% of what goes within one square mile of where they sit their butt and pontificate. And less inclination to learn anything about it.

I do an example in the first week of class: "how many people can make a pencil....and sell it for a quarter?" The test answer: no one. It takes the coordination of millions of people around the world. And that's one of the simplest of everyday goods.

Okay. It's a hokey example. So I give them a semester-long assignment. Pick a good that "matters to you." Spend the term figuring out as much as you can about the connections surrounding that good. In short, I ask them to see how much they can map out what it takes to get something they value produced, marketed, sold, used, disposed of, whatever.

I have only two requirements. One, they are supposed to pick something that they are passionate about. Something that "you would spend more time on if you didn't have stupid classes to deal with." Two, they have to keep a record of what they find and where they find it, an informal research journal.

I've done this with a couple hundred students over the last three semesters. About 10-15 percent run with it. Another 10-15 percent do a fairly adequate job, but tend to lose interest about halfway through the term.

Half the remaining pester me with questions....what do i do next? is this what you want? how do we do this?

"How do you get information about something *you* care about? You're asking me?

There's the library. There's the Internet. Figure it out."

That's what I should say, of course.

But, I don't. Partly because I'm still a PC wuss.

But also because what I want to do is stand all those people who beat out of them the curiousity that I know these "young adults" had 5 or 10 or 15 years ago....stand *those* people up and beat the living crap out of them.

Whose bloody idea was it to replace "figure it out, applying your natural curiousity" with this dependent, what are the rules and what color toilet paper do you want me to wipe myself with bullshit.

Those people oughta be locked in a room with Alan Alda, Meryl Streep, and Jimmy Carter.

Forever.

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Holy shit.. Lecture much? I know you are a college professor, but damn Wade, leave your work AT WORK!! 😛

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