Re: watching repair, (& travel to Mars), our modern national priorities should include preserving everyday know-how from the 19th & 20th centuries: farming, sewing, canning/ preserving, typing & type setting(!); making shoes by hand, making paper from scratch(!), black smithing, etc..
Our high schools ought to teach a hundred of these skills so that the knowledge is preserved.
Our high schools used to teach all that. We called it Shop (for the boys) and Home Ec (for the girls). Then schools went all "college or bust" and those programs mostly evaporated. I hope there are wise schools out there that bring back these very useful classes.
I meant to emphasize skills like tanning & weaving & glass blowing & ship building & candle making & wagon wheel repair & etc., obsolete skills for obsolete technology. Of course no one school district could cover every skill, but the nation as a whole could preserve all of the skills, like a living museum.
And of course I do agree with you about teaching modern day DIY skills that help middle class workers remain more self-sufficient.
Excellent, excellent article. It is heart-warming to know that such skills are being preserved and actively passed on. After my dad's retirement he took an interest in clock repair and he was very good at it but you did not want to be in his house at 12 o'clock anytime time of day, LOL.
You mean besides me right? Yes, he had one that came from a house in Bavaria during WWII. Everything was busted and burned but the clock, which he later repaired. Many types of mantle clocks, Regulators, grandfathers and especially one old Big Ben alarm clock that would tick so loud I would have to hide in it in a drawer in the wardrobe so it wouldn't keep me awake as a kid.
Another POV? If we do manage to create habitable, extraterrestrial outposts, all those skills (farming, sewing, plumbing, etc.) will be needed and there could be a resurgence in their teaching. Win-win, maybe?
Re: watching repair, (& travel to Mars), our modern national priorities should include preserving everyday know-how from the 19th & 20th centuries: farming, sewing, canning/ preserving, typing & type setting(!); making shoes by hand, making paper from scratch(!), black smithing, etc..
Our high schools ought to teach a hundred of these skills so that the knowledge is preserved.
Our high schools used to teach all that. We called it Shop (for the boys) and Home Ec (for the girls). Then schools went all "college or bust" and those programs mostly evaporated. I hope there are wise schools out there that bring back these very useful classes.
I meant to emphasize skills like tanning & weaving & glass blowing & ship building & candle making & wagon wheel repair & etc., obsolete skills for obsolete technology. Of course no one school district could cover every skill, but the nation as a whole could preserve all of the skills, like a living museum.
And of course I do agree with you about teaching modern day DIY skills that help middle class workers remain more self-sufficient.
It never hurts to learn how to churn your own butter.
Excellent, excellent article. It is heart-warming to know that such skills are being preserved and actively passed on. After my dad's retirement he took an interest in clock repair and he was very good at it but you did not want to be in his house at 12 o'clock anytime time of day, LOL.
Did he have cuckoo clocks?
You mean besides me right? Yes, he had one that came from a house in Bavaria during WWII. Everything was busted and burned but the clock, which he later repaired. Many types of mantle clocks, Regulators, grandfathers and especially one old Big Ben alarm clock that would tick so loud I would have to hide in it in a drawer in the wardrobe so it wouldn't keep me awake as a kid.
Yes, explains a lot!!
I remember those loud bedside alarm clocks too!
Priorities are really skewed, when space travel is more important than handling all the problems, we face here on earth.
Another POV? If we do manage to create habitable, extraterrestrial outposts, all those skills (farming, sewing, plumbing, etc.) will be needed and there could be a resurgence in their teaching. Win-win, maybe?
Our sentiments exactly!