The Breakroom > The Water Cooler
Any hope for the kids?
rleete:
Lew, your post makes some very good points, but there is another factor which I think is often ignored. The old timers who know it all.
Now, before anyone bites my head off, there are obviously exceptions. Boggs statement that knowledge not passed on is wasted, and his adherence to those principals is our best example. But we all know about that "other place" that has supposed professionals and yet seems to be more about childish egos than machining.
Nothing will put off an inexperienced person faster (in any field) than being told by a self-appointed "expert" that they are wrong/ignorant without then teaching a correct method. Also, that the method used may not be the only correct way. Being berated and browbeat doesn't help unless it's to reinforce a serious lesson (a major safety issue, for instance) that needs to be made perfectly clear. Being told that using a chinese machine which the buyer has just purchased is a complete waste of time, useless for the purpose or otherwise made to feel inferior will certainly put a damper on the enthusiasm.
This is the reason this site and HMEM have done so well; the complete lack of judgemental criticism. That the more experienced help and nurture rather than scold.
Oh, and we should just shoot all the lawyers.
andyf:
--- Quote from: rleete on January 28, 2011, 09:18:56 AM ---..... Oh, and we should just shoot all the lawyers.
--- End quote ---
I knew retiring six years back was the right thing to do :lol:
Andy
Lew_Merrick_PE:
--- Quote from: rleete on January 28, 2011, 09:18:56 AM ---Lew, your post makes some very good points, but there is another factor which I think is often ignored. The old timers who know it all.
Now, before anyone bites my head off, there are obviously exceptions. Boggs statement that knowledge not passed on is wasted, and his adherence to those principals is our best example. But we all know about that "other place" that has supposed professionals and yet seems to be more about childish egos than machining.
Nothing will put off an inexperienced person faster (in any field) than being told by a self-appointed "expert" that they are wrong/ignorant without then teaching a correct method. Also, that the method used may not be the only correct way. Being berated and browbeat doesn't help unless it's to reinforce a serious lesson (a major safety issue, for instance) that needs to be made perfectly clear. Being told that using a chinese machine which the buyer has just purchased is a complete waste of time, useless for the purpose or otherwise made to feel inferior will certainly put a damper on the enthusiasm.
This is the reason this site and HMEM have done so well; the complete lack of judgemental criticism. That the more experienced help and nurture rather than scold.
Oh, and we should just shoot all the lawyers.
--- End quote ---
I would argue that the real "issue" here is competence. The problem is not lawyers, bureaucrats, or whatever cause-de-jure is being raised. The problem is incompetent lawyers, bureaucrats, or whatever.
As I said, I graduated high school in 1971. I had math through integral calculus and introductory differential equations. I had three full years of physics, two years of chemistry, a year of "Earth Sciences" (actually a very good class that had originally been intended to be a fluff class), as well as the full load of civics, history, English, philosophy, and four years of German.
I did not start college until 1975. In that interim: high school math "stopped" at algebra/trig, few science classes went more than a single year, English became a joke, and many other classes such as civics and philosophy had disappeared! I challenged for placement and started, pretty much across the board, as a junior in college. Papers I had written in high school (and got a 'B' on) were retyped, updated slightly, and submitted for history and literature classes. They all were graded 'A' and returned with pages of notes praising their detail and construction. It was really quite shocking.
One of the things that started appearing during this period was that employees in general and government employees in particular ceased to be judged by the way in which they did their jobs so much as the philosophy of doing their job. If you did your job and fixed things, you were not graded well and given raises and promotions. However, if you made a "problem" move from place to place (ensuring that it could be "fixed" over and over), you got the raises and promotions. This was implemented under the title of Crisis Management. It first appeared on my RADAR in transportation projects. So-called traffic management took over from the traditional hydraulic analysis of streets and highways -- and the problems accumulated and demanded crisis responses.
I first heard the terms Crisis Management and Traffic Management from a neighbor in 1972. He and several of his colleagues were being "downgraded" (the first step towards firing them) because their "operational style was not consistent with DoT practices." These were men with 20+ years of experience in setting traffic light timing (at that time in the city of Seattle you could travel on any arterial and, once having 'made' the first traffic light, you would make every following light if you drove at the speed limit -- there were five intersections in all of Seattle where this was not true -- over an area 35 miles long X 12 miles wide) and insuring that damage to paved surfaces were repaired! Every succeeding 'generation' of traffic engineers in Seattle have succeeded in making such problems worse, not better. This is because only "crisis" situations get funded.
This model of Zero-Based Funding (aka Crisis Management) was (and is) taught at all the major "schools of business." It was first implemented at GM back when William (What's good for GM is good for America) Smith ran the company. It is one of those thing that gives a couple of years of appearance of increasing efficiency and reducing costs that fail over any longer period. We have been practicing this theory for four decades now without review or comment.
I think of this often when dealing with our education industry. There are many teachers fighting in the trenches to educate children. Unfortunately, there are also many teachers who have surrendered to a system that rewards the creation and maintenance of "crisis." The measure of excellence applied to (American) school districts is not that they educate their students, it is the ratio of those who do graduate who go on to college. It does not matter of 40% of your students drop out of school so long as at least 40% of those students who do graduate go on to college -- your school district is a "success" if that is the case.
Raggle:
Lew said
--- Quote ---The "problem" lies more with parents than with schools.
--- End quote ---
My 2 yr-old grandson is besotted with tractors and diggers. But most of his toys have some kind of electronic beep or whizzing noise. I don't get to see him very often but when he shows enough signs of needing them I have a lot of Meccano junk to foist on him. At present I'm informed he doesn't put things in his mouth much (the great fear of toy manufacturers who have to mark their product with "3 yrs +") but I don't think he'd manage the tiny nuts and bolts just yet. He is showing signs of finding out how things work so the day won't be too far off. He can change his own AA batteries!
Following that he will eventually receive a plastic Unimat1, followed by my Taig lathe and Adept hand shaper, etc when I am either truly past it or demised.
Finding enough information aimed at kids to encourage these skills is a bit harder than it should be and this must be the duty of parents, in the full knowledge that the schools cannot provide it.
The aim here is not necessarily to raise a nation of machinists, rather to foster the curiosity in kids as to how things work and, more to the point, how "I" can do it, or improve it, or try out ideas.
"Health and Safety" starts with the simple instruction we all got at an early age - "don't run with scissors!"
H&S as quoted by the Ebay advertiser translates as fear of litigation as Bogs said. I once walked down a road and a truck doing 50 mph missed me by 18 inches. It did it again the next day and the next, just the same as many trucks had missed, and still miss pedestrians. Reason is I was on the pavement (sidewalk) and the truck kept to his part of the road. If the H&S crisis management people really got their way there would be a safety fence between us.
I'm looking forward to the day when I can tell young Milo to avoid that spinning chuck and sharp drill. I KNOW he will be fine.
Ray
kwackers:
Most of the nonsense about H&S is exactly that. Urban myths spread around. The real issue is that they're believed and acted upon by folk.
The H&S website even has a section devoted to urban myths, worth a read and in particular worth reading what their mission statement is - it's certainly not what the DM would have you believe.
http://www.hse.gov.uk/myth/index.htm
The issue is much more one of culture rather than H&S. We've brought up children to expect a quick fix. When I was a kid I had meccano, then people moved over to lego which was quicker because it just clicked together, now even lego is pre-constructed into modules, couple of clicks and you're done.
Todays kids have a attention span measured in seconds, not even long enough to turn a piece to size! This has ramifications for society as a whole, a whole generation of adults now exist who want immediate gratification, either through consumerism where they become indebted because they can't wait, bad drivers who lack the patience to deal with others or people who simply can't settle down and flit from one thing to another becoming more and more irritated and impatient.
We seem to be becoming a society or 'rushers', jumping from one event to the next without stepping back, relaxing and enjoying the moment.
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