[hackerspaces] Now I am totally depressed...

[Eureka]

  So far I think everyone has made very good points. Though it seems 
that our focus is mostly on public schools. Being a person that went 
threw the public school system in America (Grad in 2005) I would 
absolutely have to agree. Despite what school is like around most of the 
country in Wyoming its seen as "pretty good for public" We have smaller 
classes than most and apparently better teachers?
  I don't know about either of those but I do remember wondering why no 
one else seemed to care how things actually work. They just care that it 
dose work and when it breaks they either call someone like us, sell it 
on ebay to someone like us or just throw it away and buy a new one... It 
seems that the majority of this country is not interested in the how or 
why but just the "dose it work".
Oh well, as its been said before, we are not exactly "highly in demand" 
employees (not for our hobby/hacking/etc skills anyway). The schools are 
doing what they are asked for. There was some phrase that comes to mind 
"Jack of everything, Master of nothing". I dont believe this describes 
"us" very well but I don think it describes what the outside view of 
"us" has come to be.  I guess it just means more toys for us and more 
gear to take apart and have fun with.

-E
HackTheory

On 03/03/2010 11:14 AM, john arclight wrote:
> To be fair, I agree that what is taught in schools is the result of 
> what parents/employers/government asked for.  Nobody is going to hire 
> me for my blacksmithing skills, but I do have to know MS Word.  The 
> basic problems with our educational system (poor focus, stigmatizing 
> the trades, everyone is going to be a manager, etc) are another whole 
> discussion.
>
> I think the aging of the "computer hacker" population and the general 
> decline in knowledge of how things work has to do with the fact that 
> we have an incredible array of ready-to-use products around us that 
> don't require any fiddling.  Computers used to demand a higher level 
> of competence from users because they were fragile and difficult to use.
>
> Combined with our society as a whole becoming more risk-averse and 
> specialized, and I think it's inevitable that "hands on" work is less 
> popular than it once was.
>
> Arclight
>
> On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 10:05 AM, Yves Quemener <quemener.yves at free.fr 
> <mailto:quemener.yves at free.fr>> wrote:
>
>     Hank The Curmudgeon a écrit :
>     > Go and find the "Popular Mechanics" issues from around 1930 (Google
>     > "page" 31 at the bottom of the main search page, linked below) and
>     > move forward. Grab a random issue and check the index. I am
>     > specifically referring to the project pages. Though the ads and
>     > feature articles are fun toothey are not the subject of my mini
>     rant.
>     > Look at the stuff that we built in our home shops. What the hell
>     > happened to us? Where did we, as a nation of inventors, dreamers,
>     > builders and makers, go astray???
>     It looks like hackaday to me. I don't think any spirit went astray.
>
>
>
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