Because I teach kids robotics, I get to see the dexterity of kids and how long it takes to develop. While our robot kids were doing LEGO for several years, they were pretty good already but the transition to screws, nuts, plyers and screwdrivers was the hardest thing they had to tackle all year. One guy kept snapping the heads off screws, permanently ruining parts we couldn't now get the screw body out from.
So what is happening to our kids? Well, this article goes over how we have removed shop, hobbies and other activities that develop good hand eye coordination, dexterity and three-dimensional thinking from our kids daily life. Parents would rather give babies an iPad that work with them and the frustration of LEGOs or heaven forbid, have them help them with tools.
So it highlights that if we want our kids to become doctors - have them become great needleworkers. Yes - it said that. I am challenging you all to find yourself some aspiring doctor, vet, surgeon, etc and teach them needlework. Show them this article. We can save the needlework industry...
I have laughed in a knowing way to my husband that I could make some real money in my town if I opened up needlework classes for kids who want to go to medical school. It would be a really attractive thing on their resumes. I live in a town where every person wants their kid to be an engineer or doctor, a top school district in the USA that is half asian or southeast asian. I am a PhD, MIT grad, world-champion robotics coach, and internationally known needlework expert and I have the right last name. I could charge a mint to train aspiring doctors. I have been mildly considering it as the next career after caskets are done. It helps both keep the craft alive and performs a great function as well.
Funny but needlework got me into MIT and it got my resume selected out every time for grad school and job hunts. Why??? Well I asked and the answer always revolved around "it says you have great hand skills (think lab work) and creativity (problem solving)". Wow.
Now that my robot kids have gone to college I see the result of the hand skills they developed in my basement. My oldest son was hired immediately as a freshman in a well known professor's lab whose policy it is to not hire undergrads. The grad students have forgotten he isn't a grad student. He has been given his own project and now some of theirs as well as he can make anything. He completed the four hour labs for the design class in 20 minutes and would leave early. No one has three-dimensional thinking skills, hand skills and dexterity right now - and this is engineering school which attracts the people who have been getting some! As I said to my husband - if the world imploded, he would be able to get a job always and really won't have a problem at all going forward anyways as he is useful the day he walks on a job.
I was talking to my favorite electrician the other day. He and everyone I talk to in contracting can't hire. Not that there aren't people to hire or want the jobs, but they are so far down the hand skill learning curve that they can't afford the number of years it will take to get them to apprenticeship level.
So when we go on outreach for the robot team these days, we take basic hand skill items - screws and screwdrivers. We don't teach robotics as the kids don't have the skills to get there yet. We work on basics. It is so sad to see that their minds might be ready but their hands aren't.
Time for adults to get out there and do it themselves - schools have been pressured to remove all this in favor of tests. It takes patience to show a kid how to make something - but you are giving them real commercially viable job skills while you are doing it. Don't take the easy way out and do it for them to get it done in your harried life.
Teach a kid how to sew - they may be your doctor someday.
