Vintage work crew photos

[hemmjo]

....It’s a crying shame what has happened to the manufacturing capability of the United States of America.

It certainly is!!! More than being a "shame" it is down right SCARY. I taught Industrial Technology (the old Industrial Arts with more emphasis open ended problem solving) for 35 years, retired in 2009. Since I left 11 years ago, the shops have been shutdown and replaced with "Tech Prep" using teachers who have no how to do real problem solving. Instead they give the kids "problems" then the kids "solve" the problem b duplicating the solution the teacher had in mind. Rather than letting them REALLY explore possible solutions.

It is bad!!

[bruce.desertrat]

It certainly is!!! More than being a "shame" it is down right SCARY. I taught Industrial Technology (the old Industrial Arts with more emphasis open ended problem solving) for 35 years, retired in 2009. Since I left 11 years ago, the shops have been shutdown and replaced with "Tech Prep" using teachers who have no how to do real problem solving. Instead they give the kids "problems" then the kids "solve" the problem b duplicating the solution the teacher had in mind. Rather than letting them REALLY explore possible solutions.

It is bad!!

Well, American Manufacturing output has steadily increased all along, with drops due to recessions and such. What has declined precipitously is American manufacturing employment. The US makes a lot of big complicated stuff...it's just all done by robots and computers. I agree that it sucks that we don't have more universal Industrial Arts Education, if for no other reason that teaching kids how to make stuff with their own two hands, even if they do go on to become accountants, it's still a valuble skill to learn and streches the brain and eye-hand coordination muscles better than video games for sure.