[TheForge] Industrial arts (long and boring response)

[Demon Buddha]

northwoods wrote:

> > Anyhow, IA has been gutted nationwide
> 
> Not in my school district it hasn't. Same with many other districts in my
> area.  Shannel may not be familiar with the term because he is from
> Australia if I'm not mistaken.

	Yes, there are some hold outs, but they face extinction.
	IA programs are capital intensive to establish and require
	good finances to maintain.  That is reality.  Few municipalities
	want to foot the bills for programs that are perceived as 
	obsolete.

	Josh Kavett wrote that IA is alive and well in his area.  True
	enough, but just a few towns away in Freehold, NJ, where I went
	to school, the IA department is gone.  Jim Hayden, principal
	of Freehold Twp HS and my friend of 27 years dismantled the last
	shop about three years ago for the sake of gaining "room for
	classes".  I have respected this man since I was 15 but I must
	say that I was very surprised at his position on the topic.
	I was similarly miffed at his opinion that there would be zero
	interest on the part of students at the proposition I made
	that NJBA do an outreach style program to the kids to introduce
	them to blacksmithing.  People, even otherwise very intelligent
	and good ones, are alarmingly ignorant of the value of practical
	arts education.  They appear to be unable to grasp the necessity
	of such programs; the fact that they serve to concretize the basic
	problem solving skills of people in ways that math and science
	classes generally cannot.

	What they also fail to realize is that education is not a zero
	sum game.  One program needs not serve as anathema to another.
	Many years ago I envisioned and later formulated a program
	wherein projects would be assigned to the students such that they
	spanned many if not all of the student's classes.  How about a
	class project where students design and then BUILD a bridge?  The
	history teacher could do a week or two of lessons into the history
	of bridges and how they have impacted human events.  The science
	teacher can speak of the physics behind the various static structures.
	The math teacher can address the static calulations, and perhaps
	with an advanced class, the dynamics.  A teacher of literature
	could easily occupy a semester with literary references to bridges
	and students could write about them.  And in shop, the students
	learn how to take all that good theory and put it into practice.

	Giving such tasks to fine, young, and OPEN minds could yield results
	unforeseen.  Who can tell what twist of logic erupting from a naive
	and clear head might yield a world altering technological advance?
	
	And this is only one example of what are perhaps countless
possibilities.
	But it requires work and a new way of interacting, department to
	department.  I've known many fine teachers in my day.  I have also
	known many administrators who abhor change of any sort and will act
	with the fervor of a religious zealot to thwart it.  Shame.