Why Can't Johnny Work?
Having taught in art schools for most of my four decades in the classroom, I am used to having students who work with their hands—ceramicists, weavers, woodworkers, metal smiths, jazz drummers. There is a calm, centered, Zen-like engagement with the physical world in their lives. In contrast, I see glib, cynical, neurotic elite-school graduates roiling everywhere in journalism and the media. They have been ill-served by their trendy, word-centered educations.
Jobs, jobs, jobs: We need a sweeping revalorization of the trades. The pressuring of middle-class young people into officebound, paper-pushing jobs is cruelly shortsighted. Concrete manual skills, once gained through the master-apprentice alliance in guilds, build a secure identity. Our present educational system defers credentialing and maturity for too long. When middle-class graduates in their mid-20s are just stepping on the bottom rung of the professional career ladder, many of their working-class peers are already self-supporting and married with young children.
The elite schools, predicated on molding students into mirror images of their professors, seem divorced from any rational consideration of human happiness. In a period of global economic turmoil, with manufacturing jobs migrating overseas and service-sector jobs diminishing in availability and prestige, educators whose salaries are paid by hopeful parents have an obligation to think in practical terms about the destinies of their charges. That may mean a radical stripping down of course offerings, with all teachers responsible for a core curriculum. But every four-year college or university should forge a reciprocal relationship with regional trade schools.
- Comment (7)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (3)
Comments :
May '10
Re: Why Can't Johnny Work?
If she eliminated that one syrupy and patronizing sentence--"There is a calm, centered, Zen-like engagement with the physical world in their lives...."--then I'd agree with every word. We've over-sold white collar and the necessity of higher education, and now we need to strike a blow for the trades because those careers could help usher a great many young people into satisfying and productive adulthoods, and at a much earlier age, and without the debt...
Let's just please resist the temptation to romanticize. The arguments are solid without that.
Edited on Sep 2, 2010 at 5:34amJul '10
Re: Why Can't Johnny Work?
James Poulos, Ed.: Camille Paglia unloads:
While I agree with most of the piece, the above doesn't seem like a very solid argument. For any-class graduates in their mid-20s, the bottom rung of the professional career ladder could lead to the top rung, if one plays their cards right. What made me choose to go to college rather than get an apprenticeship with an associate of my father's (who is a mechanical engineer) was not only a passion for politics, but the much higher career ceiling offered by a college degree.
But the passion for politics was key to my choice to continue my studies. A more well-rounded education at the middle and high school levels would allow students to learn more about the options available and what they have a passion for.
Jun '10
Re: Why Can't Johnny Work?
Paglia is certainly insightful. Now, if we could just come up with the necessary voucher program and allow the private sector to do its job, a thousand such trade schools would bloom. Expect the educational bureaucracy and the teacher's unions to fight the suggestion tooth and nail. I wonder how many readers remember what Reagan did to the air traffic controllers? We need another Ronald Reagan.
May '10
Re: Why Can't Johnny Work?
Community colleges are filled with four-year liberal arts majors returning to learn a trade. But as I noted ad nauseum in Rob's similar post from yesterday, that's how labor markets are supposed to work.
Aug '10
Re: Why Can't Johnny Work?
I chose my university because they offered a B.A. in Communications that included practical, skills-based courses such as filmmaking, video production, audio production, photography, writing, advertising and public relations, in addition to theory-based classwork. I felt it offered the best of both worlds. The practical courses were taught by part-time professors who actually practised in their day jobs what they taught in their classes. The skills I learned in those practical courses have served me far more in the real world than the theory-based classes.
Unfortunately, even when I was a student there (I graduated in 1997), the tenured professors who taught the theory-based classes were constantly lobbying to have the practical courses reduced and/or eliminated. One actually said, "if you want to learn that sort of thing you should go to community college." Luckily they have not yet succeeded and the practical courses do remain in place.
Still, when I was a student there, the school's slogan was "A Degree That Works". It was that philosophy that drew me to the school. The school abandoned that slogan long ago, unfortunately. Here's hoping it hasn't abandoned the spirit.
Edited on Sep 2, 2010 at 8:46amJul '10
Re: Why Can't Johnny Work?
Mike Holmes, of "Holmes on Homes" is one of the great missionaries for the 'trades.' Throughout his videos, he shows how important it is to have intelligent tradesmen who know and love what they do, from stone masons to carpenters to plumbers. He works with trades schools, too, and attends graduation ceremonies, lending them high status and glamour, items that have been in low supply in our societies for a long time.
One young man told me that there are long waiting lists in the Alberta and BC institutes of Technology.
Last: aside from a medical doctor during an emergency, think about how we ALL cater to the whims of a plumber or carpenter, etc. I am willing to wait around for an entire day, waiting, hoping, for the appearance of one of these very busy, overworked, people, to come and fix something around my home.
Sep '10
Re: Why Can't Johnny Work?
I like to draw a distinction between what I call 'education' and 'training'. In the past the upper class would typically pursue liberal arts degrees in order to become educated citizens. A luxury, but connected to some kind of noblesse oblige.
It seems strange to me that, in these days of (supposed) innovation, everybody needs 4 years and 130 credits. Whether I am majoring in mechanical engineering or queer history it is the same. I think we are doing a disservice to many of these kids trying to become accountants and sports managers. They get saddled with debt for classes that they could not care less about. Who decided on this magical formula of 4 years and approximately 130 credits?