[sdiy] Can your *really* teach "Engineering"?

[Jay Schwichtenberg]

One thing I think about is how kids are brought up now days. I grew up in
the 50s and spent a lot of time hanging out with my dad. He worked
construction and got a lot of practical experience growing up in the
depression and having to do anything he could to survive. If he was building
something or if he was working on the car or lawn mower I was there handing
him tools. He was patient with me and took the time to explain what he was
doing and how things worked. My mom was sort of the same way. All those arts
and craft projects she had me do when it was raining out actually have paid
off doing electronics. Detail work and how to do things in certain order to
get them together right. I also lived in the country. So when it was time to
work I was on the farms learning stuff there too.

This is a generalization of things but now I don't see parents spending a
lot of time with their kids teaching them the basics of stuff. Things can't
be fixed or are to complicated to fix, kids aren't interested when they can
play video games, ... About the only things I see most people spend time
with kids is for sports or activates like music, theater... Even then they
just drop them off so they can do their thing and go to the events they're
in.

Since I don't have kids there are probably a few out there saying WTF. This
is just my opinion right or wrong. If I did have kids I'd probably move to
the country, get rid of the TV and not have a video game. But these days
that would get me thrown in jail for child abuse.

Jay S.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: synth-diy-bounces at dropmix.xs4all.nl
> [mailto:synth-diy-bounces at dropmix.xs4all.nl]On Behalf Of cheater cheater
> Sent: Saturday, August 22, 2009 2:05 PM
> To: synth-diy
> Subject: Re: [sdiy] Can your *really* teach "Engineering"?
>
>
> Tim,
> I am in agreement with your statement. We think exactly the same about
> this. One thing I'd like to point out though is that we're discussing
> this in a very homogenous environment. Obviously people will think
> it's some sort of abomination if you don't have a tinker hobby since
> we're in the geek nest :) Which makes me even more happy that I'm in a
> place where so many people think alike to me and have similar goals
> and ways of understanding things. It's just that maybe we're a little
> bit single-minded as a community and there are questions 'outsiders'
> would ask and theses they would pose, ones that we cannot possibly
> conceive because of our point of view.
>
> ***