KIDS TODAY - When I was young!

[Guest]

OK...

Just an observation here, but kids nowdays seem to have everything. When I was a little 'un we had to make things because that was the only way you could obtain any of the interesting stuff, model boats, radio control cars...all the good stuff was available as bits or materials and needed time to make it go or put it together.

With kids today - despite apparently being able to imagine almost any toy or thing or gadget or whatsit and go out to a store and buy the thing, (ok maybe not buy it, but atleast know of it's existance in readymade form) the kids (or atleast the ones I work with) seem to be amazed or impressed (wow-ed even) by the most mundane of objects, perhaps as they have never experienced first hand the fact that wood comes in different sizes and shapes.

One particular child picked up a piece of 6mm birch dowel which had been used for scraping pva glue from the bottom of a fairly liquid bottle.

He exclaimed "WOW - Can I have this?"

Filling in between the lines I could imagine him thinking...

"WOW it's like wood but it's round...WOW Round Wood!"

I wasn't particulalry worried about him keeping it or not and not wanting to deprive him of his newly found enjoyment let him keep the wood, afterall what possible harm can any 12 year old do with a piece of "Round Wood" covered in dried on PVA glue. I also noted the fact that he actually asked if he could take the piece of scrap material.

I can imagine him in a model shop....

"Wow...whats that?"

Shop Owner "That's balsa wood"

"Wow it's like FLAT wood - What's that?"

Shop Owner "That's birch plywood"

"Wow it's like thin wood all glued together!"

Another child picked up a piece of scrap 3mm steel rod, which was bent into a crude "C" shape.

"Wow...(that's the word of choice it seems) Can I keep this?"

The kid was bending the piece of scrap...I asked why?

"I like Bending stuff!" he replied with apparent glee!

Anyhow that's just some observations, kid's are pretty weird aren't they?

:gathering

[Guest]

Do you think we were just as weird to our parents generation!!!

[wonwinglo]

The handling of that piece of dowel, and bending that scrap piece of metal probably brought more joy to those two children than anything they have ready made or even handled,they are missing out today on the tactile feel of materials especially when fashioned with your very own hands,we all know what it is like to sand a piece of wood smooth,to polish a piece of aluminium until it shines,or to release those once fragile parts that have been glued together to make a recognisable form,these are all things that these youngsters will probably never get the chance to achieve,it certainly is a sad world that we live in,whilst we have the high tech state of objects designed by man,we cannot even warrant woodwork classes or book binding classes any more,to many they will never know that joy achieved from trial and error using everyday materials.

I am sure like many others here I can be thankful for a father who whittled wood skillfully,made things from scrap into little masterpieces,wrestled with sewing together a load of magazines to make them into a volume,made umpteen different types of pipe racks at school ! and sanded enough balsa wood to make piles of dust that covered everything.

One day when the worlds oil resources finally dry up we will have to re-learn long lost skills to survive,thankfully I will not be around then,but at least like many others here I will have experienced first hand what it was like to make basic objects from beautiful natural materials.

[Guest]

One project I enjoy working on with the kids at school is -ok it's pretty unimaginative really but the end result is a plastic egg cup, it's really not a lot more than an introduction into basic hand tools and a little bit of line bending to make the shape.

After the kids spend weeks filing and sawing at a piece of Acrylic you get to show them how quickly you can finish an edge and then polish it to a really glassy shine. The kids, (some of them atleast) imediately reply "Coooool!!" and then go to work trying to replicate the results I've acheived by demonstrating the process on a small corner of their own work.

It's funny how they then go to hold the piece up and ask "Is it done yet???" mostly it's still covered in saw marks and god knows what but...heheh

Atleast some of them get it!

I think if you can get through to them the effort it takes to create something, it really gives them a sense of the value of things, maybe, hopefully gives them an appreciation of everything around them too, rather than just taking things for granted.

[Guest]

I remember my first day at school in Wales during the war we all had a tin with 12 (yes 12--a dozen) small sea shells each for maths!

The teacher asked me to take 7 shells and then add 2 shells???!!!

I promptly threw up over them and was made to clean them up and to MAKE SURE THERE WAS STILL 12!!!

I would probably get a month off for stress/harrasment these days.

BUT they felt nice!

[Guest]

in my deffence please dont use the turm "generation" so loosely. i am of this very same generation but i know how and can do many things you are talking about. i love wood work, i used to go to D.T. club after class where there were about 4 of us and our teacher taught us things like welding and metal casting work which you werent allowed to do untill at least year 11/6th form. it was great fun. still have many of the things i made. will see if i do and get some pics.

anyway, just deffending myself. obvioulsy alan you are talking about younger people than me though

[Guest]

It's quite suprising what kids become interested in though, who would have thought a piece of dowel covered in glue would be something the kid would want to keep?

Half the problem in D&T is finding a project that the kids will find an interest in and at the same time doesn't cost the earth in materials that can be completed by the lower level kids whilst also offering a challenge to the brighter ones.

Maybe something with dowel and bent wire coathangers next time?

:thinking:

[Guest]

I remember at junior school (6/7 years old) I made a balsa letter rack. This was in a general mixed class.

I remember one day the teacher had a bowl of water and she put a bottle upside down into it. She put both her hands around it and we all watched a bubble escape. Then she took her hands away and we all watched the level in the bottle rise. Then she asked us to explain what we had seen. I only remember it so well because I explained that the air in the bottle expanded releasing the bubble then went back to notmal at a higher level because some air had escaped.

This to me was real teaching. We all learned a very basic physics concept, understood it and related it to an everyday scenario. Nowadays teachers are so hung up on Political Correctness, Diversity, and the latest and greatest teaching methods that they completely loose sight of the fact that the kids are not taking it in.

When I went Grammar School we made fishing rod rests, paint scrapers, book shelves, all sorts of joint exercises and the culmination of the course was a table of our own design and manufacture.

The school had a beautifull metalwork shop, a superb woodwork shop and between the two a combined workshop. We had lapidary machines for polishing stones to make jewelry and a very well stocked bench for every student in the class.

We do not do any of that now and we wonder why kids do not seem to develop with the basic knowledge that they need to get through life.

Oh, and the school is now a housing estate, full of the yuppie results of a modern education system. They have every materialistic gizmo known to man but can't communicate on a social level with thier neigbours.

It all depresses me.

[Guest]

OK...SNIP

Anyhow that's just some observations, kid's are pretty weird aren't they?

:gathering

I COULD say "what`s changed?" Only nothing has in the above. I still like bending things:grinball2: .

Then after a very short think, I am sad and annoyed that too much has changed for the worse, in that we are frowned on at the least, if we want to show kids not our own how to make, do, and mend.

[wonwinglo]

Recently there was a very poignant TV advertisement for teachers,it showed someone engrossed in the art of teaching,if only we really had more modern day teachers like that shown in that ad ? from personal experience it has been inspirational people that have moulded my life,perhaps we need more people like Alan here who are devoting their time and skills to inspire,yes even a mundane object such as a piece of dowel treated in an imaginative way,and becomes a teaching tool in itself,if we use our imagination in the way we teach things,then that will rub off onto others,and make for a better more understanding and creative world.

[Guest]

One of the problems in Education now is that kids at primary school are given the knowledge needed to pass tests but not the actual basic skills they will need in secondary school. You find a lot of kids who can't use a compass, have no idea how to measure a piece of material or mark out.

The national curriculum also makes it mandatory to cover areas of the subject which at lower levels the kids really do not pick up anything from it. An example of this is where a project will be based 50% on design and Product Analysis and 50% on the final project.

Doing research on existing products, analysing products, making a specifiation for the item is all very fine but for many they don't see the point in that and the time spent on those areas is a little wasted. When making the actual thing they run out of time and end up with something which doesn't work.

An example of the sort of thing, in an H.E. lesson kids would make an Apple Pie, design a box for the Apple pie, market the apple pie, the kid who makes the worst damn apple pie you've ever seen can still do well because he's ticked a few boxes and has a scrappy sheet of A4 paper with a couple of lines of text about other Apple pies he saw for sale in tesco.

[Guest]

It's a long number of years since I was at school, what's H.E.?

I agree with you completely, we need to give them more sticks and glue, let tyhem get dirty and learn how the materials around us interact with each other.

You would be amazed the number of kids who beleive that electricity comes from the socket in the wall!!!!!

[Guest]

H.E. - Home Economics

Which is actually now called - Food Technology

Woodwork and Metalwork are called - Resistant Materials

Woodwork and Metalwork used to be CDT - Craft Design and Technology but has since become Design and Technology, the Craft part was dropped years ago!

[Guest]

Food Technology!!!, it's like calling the bin man a refuse engineer!!!

What is wrong with "Wood" and "Metal" it been OK for the last few hundred years!

Don't tell me anymore for goodness sake.

[Guest]

You would be amazed the number of kids who beleive that electricity comes from the socket in the wall!!!!!

I always laugh when they talk about Zero Emission Vehicles on the BBC news.

It's a shame we can't run everything on electricity as it's such a clean source of power! -apparently??

It's also funny how you can buy a hybrid Lexus 4x4 and because of it's tiny eletric motor and 300 bhp V6 engine, actually has more power than the regular Lexus 4x4 and is exempt from the central london "congestion" charge!

I should fit a Mabuchi 3 volt motor to my Ka, make it a hybrid and see if i can get off paying any Road Tax. :P