Politics

[rookhawk]

I think Canada could do waaaaaay better at training people in trades. One of the reasons I understand that many trade schools require HS or better to get in, is that the demand to get in is very high and they need to screen applicants somehow.

Also, there are significant written exams at the end of the apprenticeship process etc (I had a buddy just get his electrician's papers) and without HS math and English skills I think the odds of passing those written exams is really low.

My father went to a technical HS (Danforth tech) and studied printing which served him well throughout his life. But these days to operate a printing press you need to be able to run some pretty sophisticated equipment.

Middle and High School education in general doesn't work very well in North America. One could argue it is designed for the median intellect, but in reality that is merely its target but due to disruption and disfunction, its rigged for the bottom quartile. Any exception to that general principle can best be classified as "designed to educate girls" and boys just don't flourish in this co-ed + mediocre enterprise.

The establishment is terrified to teach children "how to think" because they'll question the lunacy and incompetence of the system, likely departing the system rather than enduring through it.

My brother went to a boarding school that did a pretty good job of teaching kids how to think, but also undermined themselves because the kids did learn the essentials and in turn rejected the system after gleaning the knowledge. One of his roommates got expelled and went on to become the most influential action film director of the modern era, the other became the top real estate broker in Hawaii, and the last is a CEO of a software company.

My school on the other hand was fundamentalist and they absolutely focused on brainwashing rather than educating. Roughly 72 kids in the high school. The pretty girls earned their way the old fashioned way, they married well and then divorced with half. Most of the guys flunked out or close to it, they still live in the small town. Others got raided by the DEA within a few months of graduation (the two most religious families kids of course). A few others attempted to run away from the trap of small thinking and were murdered by highwaymen hitch hiking. I proudly flunked out with a 0.33gpa cumulative, built a few consulting businesses to the Fortune 500, and thankfully found the "true educators" in society. My first degree was my MBA and the faculty actually knew how to train people to flourish, revered skeptical inquiry, and taught systemic thinking rather than warped indoctrination.

I think the blue collar trades have it worse than the "John Galt" stereotypes above, the teachers put those guys in the "loser" group and give them useless, remedial classes when every tradesman needs geometry, physics, and trig to truly flourish at the highest levels of machining, carpentry, HVAC, and the other noble trades. The best of our blue collar workers have to learn the fundamentals of their craft on their own because it wasn't encouraged in the school systems for the "dummies". (all contempt expressed being the genuine feelings of the education system that have built nothing)

It has been my experience that the North American primary education system is something endured and rebelled against to flourish. I've seen these facts in virtually every top 1/10th of 1% wealth holder, every small business owner, and every ground breaking academic. They are not doing what they were told, they are defying it. Those that can't do, teach, is a valid stereotype in many quarters.

In short, most people test the theories of the US primary education system, learn to do the opposite in most instances, and turn out in the top 10% or better.

 

[jruby]

The highschool i went to back in the late 70's had two paths. One was for those contining on to college. The other was for those going on to trades
By the time you were a freshman you had your classes based on your path. I was headed to trades and took drafting and electronics. My junior - senior year i entered the delayed entry program and reported to active duty on my 18th birthday. My sophomore year i had one hour of electronics and my junior_ senior years had two hours a day. It set me up to succeed.

The problem today is that most high-school dont teach trades today and unless you know someone who does what you want to learn the barrier of entry is difficult at best.

 

[Tubby’s Canteen]

The highschool i went to back in the late 70's had two paths. One was for those contining on to college. The other was for those going on to trades
By the time you were a freshman you had your classes based on your path. I was headed to trades and took drafting and electronics. My junior - senior year i entered the delayed entry program and reported to active duty on my 18th birthday. My sophomore year i had one hour of electronics and my junior_ senior years had two hours a day. It set me up to succeed.

The problem today is that most high-school dont teach trades today and unless you know someone who does what you want to learn the barrier of entry is difficult at best.

That must be a regional issue every tradesman and construction company I know here is clamouring for help.

 

[Killingtime]

We have a lack of entrepreneurial spirit among the young. Immigrants have more incentive to open a store, etc. When I was a teen, sacking groceries at Brookshires, one other teen, one year older noticed that the produce manager was getting older. He stepped up to train for the job, and got it! Within weeks he was driving a brand new El Camino and had an apartment. Any of us could have done the same, but didn't. I think it is even worse now.

In Austria two weeks ago, wife and I noticed a young lady still working a dinner shift though we had seen her at breakfast. My wife learned from her that she worked 12 hour days, but for a living wage. No one was expected to tip waitresses, etc. (later we saw her working even longer into the evening--she was training to take a shift at the front desk.)

I would say it has more to do with our education system that removes people’s imagination and general interests in life and replaces it with a listen and follow instructions attitude from the earliest age.
Our system comes from the Prussians and dates back to Horace Mann in Massachusetts in 1850’s pushing for it. People argue that it made our population smarter. Theres plenty of evidence to show it only made you more obedient.

The majority of titans in every field even to this day dropped out of school or did below average in it maybe They were smart enough and strong willed enough to not be broken.

If you look at the beginning of the 1900’s it was immigrant waves that had to figure out how to survive and starting a business or figuring out a path to career advancement was there solution almost all of them no schooled education.
Not the typical slogan of get a job and work 30 years so you can retire.. that idea is foreign to them

You see it today with many immigrants( obviously there’s millions of lazy ones wanting a handout) but still immigrants largely uneducated (not indoctrinated) start businesses because it’s the natural thing to do in there minds.
Even at the top 46% of S&P 500 businesses were started by immigrants or 1st gen immigrants not educated in our system and when you add all the Americans that dropped out of school or never went to college that started S&P 500 companies and 1000 companies that number goes up many percentage points.

 

[SaintPanzer]

, the Panama Canal and Suez Canal are toll waters
Turkey charges fees for commercial ships passing through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits.

Its fairly common to charge a passage fee
USA charges China a passage fee to enter our territories

You do understand the difference between those things and an international strait, right?

 

[AJ Peacock]

I don’t think anyone is arguing for a 12 year old work force , that said if your deemed eligible to quit school at 16 then why not have the opportunity to go into the trade schools at that age?

And actually now that I’m thinking about it how many kids that want to quit school could use the reality check a year in the trades would give them and then go back to finish hs diploma?

THIS!

After spending more than a decade doing a mans work on the ranch, I was ready to go to college. My bulging discs, arthritis in my joints and bad should remind me of that great time learning a work ethic.

AJ

 

[Killingtime]

That must be a regional issue every tradesman and construction company I know here is clamouring for help.

They are now but that seems to be from pushing kids to go to college for 40 years. They created a shortage of certain trades. Also you had a lot of trades get the wages depressed in the 90’s and 2000’s from large swaths of illegal immigrants and I’m sure some legal which kept more Americans from pursing that path.
I watched the construction job sites in the early 90’s (my father had a roofing company) rapidly change in Florida from whites, blacks and some Hispanic to solely Hispanic. I’ve seen trucking in the last 10-15 years in this country do the same. The trucking industry was white black and Hispanic but all Americans now it’s flooded with Somalians, Haitians,Sudanese, Indians and Ukrainians. They intentionally drive the wage prices down by bring all these people into this country and hiring them.

When we let China into the wto in 2003 it destroyed 30+% of America manufacturing jobs by 2007. I think are politicians might have known that was going to happen just like they know that if you bring mass amounts of people into a country you can drive down the number one cost for most businesses (labor)
They even did it with white collar engineers and IT by using visas and bringing them from China and India.. it wasn’t because Americans are less capable it’s because engineers from China and India are a fraction of the cost.

 

[Altitude sickness]

The average public school is definitely modeled after the Prussian system, designed to teach conformity and rules based systems. Not a terrible idea. But a year or two for a 6 year old is enough.

Boys and girls should not be taught in the same manner. Most boys shouldn’t even start formal school until they’re six. They need to be out testing the boundaries. Climbing trees, eating dirt and getting hurt. Not forced to sit like a girl for eight straight hours.

There should be different paths if you’re going to work on the farm. Yes at 12 years old you should know everything they have to teach unless you’re slow. Or the teachers are slow. If you need more fine, stay longer if you need more advanced mathematics then pursue that.

I was done with school at 13 ( many say it shows) and didn’t learn one additional thing (from public school) after that. Except how to skip school and get in trouble. I was ready to go to work and make money at 13 years old.

I’m not saying 12 years of elementary, middle school and high school shouldn’t exist. There are plenty that need that long to learn the basics.

Finland for an example has this figured out.

 

[Killingtime]

The highschool i went to back in the late 70's had two paths. One was for those contining on to college. The other was for those going on to trades
By the time you were a freshman you had your classes based on your path. I was headed to trades and took drafting and electronics. My junior - senior year i entered the delayed entry program and reported to active duty on my 18th birthday. My sophomore year i had one hour of electronics and my junior_ senior years had two hours a day. It set me up to succeed.

The problem today is that most high-school dont teach trades today and unless you know someone who does what you want to learn the barrier of entry is difficult at best.

We homeschool and there are companies i saw at the national homeschool convention that will run an almost summer camp styles where your kid helps build houses from every level.
I’m part of a program at my church carpenters for Christ where we build or rebuild churches or children’s homes for local communities and a lot of the young kids(teens) come and learn how to frame do carpentry..stuff like that. More schools should have trades but there are options if a determined you wants to learn.

 

[Brent in Az]

I was in 8th grade at the bicentennial. Made this in shop class 50 years ago.

 

[Big_Easy]

its not like almonds (CA's biggest crop) cant be grown elsewhere.. same with grapes and lettuce..

Then why don't they? There's a reason California grows 82% of the world's almonds, 90%+ of our grapes, and 75% of our lettuce. You cant just go and pick up your stakes and move on, it doesn't work like that. Its not some services industry renting out office space, or a manufacturing company with limited capital investment.

 

[Altitude sickness]

So you want a 12 year old being kicked into the workforce? Because that how old you are after six years of school. You must be a 1880’s coal baron

I dont want anyone to be kicked out of school at any age. If it’s wanted and needed. But there should be a path and an understanding that some people need a different off-ramp. Or learning path.

 

[Killingtime]

Now go take those Montana ranchers and put them in the Florida sun for 14 hours a day, 6 days a week picking strawberries and tomatoes for $5/hr...I wonder how long they'd last?

Most of plant city Florida use visa workers for the strawberries and Douglas Georgia does the same for blueberries. They work then they go back. That is much more favorable to me then those that stay and milk a system. Atleast I’ve seen with those type of pickers they work hard and don’t cause any problems

 

[Big_Easy]

How many of those 10% of Americans have useless collage degrees and crippling debt that would of been better served with a trade school education or better yet an apprenticeship instead of having educators shove college propaganda down their throats for all of their teen years?

Considering almost 70% of bar-tenders have a college degree...a lot of them would have been better served. But it's not just educators telling them to go to college. I seem to remember plenty of politicians of both sides recommending that too. And big businesses were all too happy to have an educated workforce that they did not have to pay for, nor train as well.

 

[Killingtime]

So you want a 12 year old being kicked into the workforce? Because that how old you are after six years of school. You must be a 1880’s coal baron

I mean George Washington doing his thing at 12, Thomas Jefferson was running a payroll and hiring duties for a 2500 acre farm at twelve with both parents dead, Alexander Hamilton 13 and Ben Franklin same. Vanderbilt quit school at 11 and started into business at 13. McDonald, Dunkin’ Donuts, kfc, subway, Carl’s Jr all middle school/hs dropouts when right into the workforce.

I know your joking but in a slightly serious note I think we baby kids to much in this country. Little boys by today’s standards fought in every major war this country has had up till Vietnam. David Farragut (us first admiral) was a midshipman at age 9. And today a man or woman is still so much of a kid that at age 26 they can be on dad’s insurance.

 

[Big_Easy]

On the farm labour issue , anyone ever wonder why low and medium risk inmates couldn’t be used to fulfill those tasks instead of foreigners ? I bet the inmates would be far less likely to cause issues at night after they’ve worked 10-12 hours a day in the sun.

Oh man, this shit is crazy, now I'm agreeing with you too?!?!?

You're right, one thing FL does right is they use low-risk inmates for menial DOT work. That's how most of the non-contracted maintenance work gets done down there. I used to work at a yard in Orlando, and we had 5, 4-inmate teams plus the DOC guards working M-F. They get a small stipend, and time off of their sentence. But you can't work them 12 hours cuz then you need a second DOC officer to watch them, and that significantly increase the cost. They work 6am - 3pm.

 

[Brent in Az]

Considering almost 70% of bar-tenders have a college degree...a lot of them would have been better served. But it's not just educators telling them to go to college. I seem to remember plenty of politicians of both sides recommending that too. And big businesses were all too happy to have an educated workforce that they did not have to pay for, nor train as well.

AOC is an example of that. It shows that even a brainless bar tending bimbo can make it into the house of representatives and a political career.
But....you have to have a district full of brainless morons to vote for you by offering free stuff.

 

[Killingtime]

Considering almost 70% of bar-tenders have a college degree...a lot of them would have been better served. But it's not just educators telling them to go to college. I seem to remember plenty of politicians of both sides recommending that too. And big businesses were all too happy to have an educated workforce that they did not have to pay for, nor train as well.

Remember bill gates is the one who gave the speech that all youth need college in the future to survive and started the no child left behind movement.. funny he didn’t finish college and seemed to be doing alright. Also he had opened an engineering school in China to get more tech engineers over here while telling all the youth to go into that field. By 2006 China and India had already deployed 10million engineers into the world’s workforce and were projected by now to have minted another 40 million combined.

 

[Brent in Az]

Remember bill gates is the one who gave the speech that all youth need college in the future to survive and started the no child left behind movement.. funny he didn’t finish college and seemed to be doing alright. Also he had opened an engineering school in China to get more tech engineers over here while telling all the youth to go into that field. By 2006 China and India had already deployed 10million engineers into the world’s workforce and were projected by now to have minted another 40 million combined.

Even though I detest the philanthropy and globalist side of Bill Gates, I do admire the fact that he and his buddies became billionaires over ideas born in someone's garage.
The ultimate entrepreneurial dream.

 

[Big_Easy]

Bingo !!!

We in the U.S. allow the teachers unions which in turn dictate to politicians, how many years our kids will be trapped inside of our failing “public school” indoctrination system.

The crap they learn should be ginned down to 6 years max.

155 countries teach everything in 6-9 years. Not 12.

We should turn kids loose after 6 years to trade schools, Farms etc. If an educator can’t teach them everything they need to know in 6 years. Something is wrong.

Nonsense. Republicans control every state in the south except for VA and NC. The "teachers unions" aren't dictating crap in those states. They dont have any real power down here.