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Trades Education in Adolescents

AlaskaBushPilot

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Joined
Nov 6, 2010
Messages
4,341
Greetings from the Rural Alaska Homeschool. We have been doing an increasing amount of trades education and wow, you want to talk about a kid growing up. Thinking like an adult.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bib-LPELfb0

$120 an hour work. Eight years old.

A lot of things are coming together, he has been shadowing me in remote construction contracting for years.

The only places you can do this kind of training are on private property, like homeschool or farm or business, or a religious sect like Hutterites or FLDS, whatever.

There is a lot of talk, and a lot of articles out about the alleged rennaissance of trade and tech education. But it is not for adolescents. Mostly post secondary. Very little in the high schools, and almost nothing in the junior highs nowadays.

As far as public schools are concerned, it seems like it is over for good on meandingful trades education for adolescents. No wonder manufacturers locate abroad too, and why you hire a 35 year old Mexican illegal to do a job a 12 year old American boy can do.

Because it is illegal to hire the 12 year old American and you will go to jail under hysterical accusations of child labor exploitation. If you hire the Mexican illegal, that is okay and the government will give his whole family health care and housing too. If you build abroad, you can hire 12 year olds and pay 50 cents an hour. The only one punished is the American youth getting the good training and job.

We aren't worried about it, obviously - but for our country it just seems so misguided. Why can't a 14 year old be making $90k as a welder, and drive his welding truck to any place to work so long as he passes a driving exam?

Because he can't vote. We take the rights of people who have no representation and explain it is for their own good.
 
We have two kids. One is an academic although he does the whole 9 yards with axes, chain saws, four-wheelers, dirt-bikes, etc. including the 'dozer too. He drives the 4wd truck and his mom's car, nobody can stop us, but he isn't training like his brother is, so seriously.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWWRDyPbTUU

That's a demonstration you can just put a kid with a good amount of experience on manual transmissions and tools/machines of every sort, and he is driving a bulldozer in a day.

You would be amazed how drilling one single thing into their heads early on makes such a difference: repeat your instructions.

I guess I really never thought much about all the skills involved in loggiing - the felling, yarding, handling, transport, processing - and they can do it front to back now, monster trees. On their own.

Because a kid with a winch or boom, who has been trained to use it is just a midget, not a child.

I have to leave to a remote construction site with my apprentice, geez the kid is so excited about life he can hardly contain himself.

Because he has gravitas now. His opinion actually matters. It's good to have another guy there when you are working on a machine or building something. Not just two sets of hands, but two sets of brains.

It's exactly what I read in the literature. The younger kid lived in the shadow of the older math/science genius, off the charts academically.

The kid less gifted academically, he was a behavior problem until his capacity to produce value really ramped up this summer.

So now this kid is flourishing by producing. Real easy for him to see, a cord of birch is $350 delivered, he can do a cord in a day with his own saw and our truck.
 
Greetings from the Rural Alaska Homeschool. We have been doing an increasing amount of trades education and wow, you want to talk about a kid growing up. Thinking like an adult.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bib-LPELfb0

$120 an hour work. Eight years old.

A lot of things are coming together, he has been shadowing me in remote construction contracting for years.

The only places you can do this kind of training are on private property, like homeschool or farm or business, or a religious sect like Hutterites or FLDS, whatever.

There is a lot of talk, and a lot of articles out about the alleged rennaissance of trade and tech education. But it is not for adolescents. Mostly post secondary. Very little in the high schools, and almost nothing in the junior highs nowadays.
As far as public schools are concerned, it seems like it is over for good on meandingful trades education for adolescents. No wonder manufacturers locate abroad too, and why you hire a 35 year old Mexican illegal to do a job a 12 year old American boy can do.

Because it is illegal to hire the 12 year old American and you will go to jail under hysterical accusations of child labor exploitation. If you hire the Mexican illegal, that is okay and the government will give his whole family health care and housing too. If you build abroad, you can hire 12 year olds and pay 50 cents an hour. The only one punished is the American youth getting the good training and job.

We aren't worried about it, obviously - but for our country it just seems so misguided. Why can't a 14 year old be making $90k as a welder, and drive his welding truck to any place to work so long as he passes a driving exam?

Because he can't vote. We take the rights of people who have no representation and explain it is for their own good.

The problem with the US trades system is that you don't have much of an apprenticeship system at all. Pathetic really. About 500,000 in the US compared to around 300,000 in tiny, little Australia. Apprenticeships combine employment and training and are entrenched in Europe, with this system being one of the major factors in Germany's industrial strength.

I know that the US has been approached many times to look closely at apprenticeship systems in other nations, but the Department of Labor is simply not interested.

When you have apprenticeship systems which work you can have school-based apprenticeships where adolescents can start apprenticeships while still at school. In Australia it has taken off and we have many students attending school two of three days a week, working (and being paid) one or two days and going to TAFE (our polytechnics) one day. The result? Students finishing school with Australian "high school diplomas" and the first year of a four year apprenticeship under their belt.

Come on US, pinch this idea from us. The UK already has (seriously) and last I looked was pouring school based apprentices in the NHS, which is a really good thing.

The final thing to add is that I work with many elite, high priced private schools in Australia which have come to realise that not all their students will become doctors and lawyers and are offering their students school-based apprenticeships.
 
The problem with the US trades system is that you don't have much of an apprenticeship system at all. Pathetic really. About 500,000 in the US compared to around 300,000 in tiny, little Australia. Apprenticeships combine employment and training and are entrenched in Europe, with this system being one of the major factors in Germany's industrial strength.

I know that the US has been approached many times to look closely at apprenticeship systems in other nations, but the Department of Labor is simply not interested.

When you have apprenticeship systems which work you can have school-based apprenticeships where adolescents can start apprenticeships while still at school. In Australia it has taken off and we have many students attending school two of three days a week, working (and being paid) one or two days and going to TAFE (our polytechnics) one day. The result? Students finishing school with Australian "high school diplomas" and the first year of a four year apprenticeship under their belt.

Come on US, pinch this idea from us. The UK already has (seriously) and last I looked was pouring school based apprentices in the NHS, which is a really good thing.

The final thing to add is that I work with many elite, high priced private schools in Australia which have come to realise that not all their students will become doctors and lawyers and are offering their students school-based apprenticeships.

Apprenticeships are good for a variety of reasons including giving access to those with a disrupted or alternative educational background. In the UK there are apprenticeship routes to becoming a lawyer or accountant. The problem is many companies are parasitic and hope others will pay for training, and avoid the long term commitment that apprenticeships involve. The other problem as illustrated above is nepotism, many apprenticeships involve family members leading to decreased social mobility.
 
We have two kids. One is an academic although he does the whole 9 yards with axes, chain saws, four-wheelers, dirt-bikes, etc. including the 'dozer too. He drives the 4wd truck and his mom's car, nobody can stop us, but he isn't training like his brother is, so seriously.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWWRDyPbTUU

That's a demonstration you can just put a kid with a good amount of experience on manual transmissions and tools/machines of every sort, and he is driving a bulldozer in a day.

You would be amazed how drilling one single thing into their heads early on makes such a difference: repeat your instructions.

I guess I really never thought much about all the skills involved in loggiing - the felling, yarding, handling, transport, processing - and they can do it front to back now, monster trees. On their own.

Because a kid with a winch or boom, who has been trained to use it is just a midget, not a child.
I have to leave to a remote construction site with my apprentice, geez the kid is so excited about life he can hardly contain himself.

Because he has gravitas now. His opinion actually matters. It's good to have another guy there when you are working on a machine or building something. Not just two sets of hands, but two sets of brains.

It's exactly what I read in the literature. The younger kid lived in the shadow of the older math/science genius, off the charts academically.

The kid less gifted academically, he was a behavior problem until his capacity to produce value really ramped up this summer.

So now this kid is flourishing by producing. Real easy for him to see, a cord of birch is $350 delivered, he can do a cord in a day with his own saw and our truck.

Shortist! Do you really think that those of us who think of ourselves as petite are just the same as children? Is that how you think of small people as just older children?

Human children are NOT just little adults. They have developing brains, their risk assessment is poor. I do not think sending twelve year olds out to work particularly in highly dangerous industries such as agriculture should be encouraged. You may feel proud of the $$$ brought in by your kids but last I looked child labour was illegal in the US, for good reasons.

I understand that working with power tools driving tractors etc. is an essential life skill in remote areas that needs to be taught, and all children learn from their parents - I could do accounts from an early age. But trade schools can be harmful if they just result in denial of opportunities. Probably 16 + is the right age for an apprenticeship and it should include some element of continued academic education most small businesses need knowledge of law, accounts, management etc. The apprenticeships need to be externally validated so they don't just become effectively a way to employ cheap labour and offer little in return. In return the state should offer e.g. tax benefits to employers offering on an open-to-all basis validated apprenticeships.
 
The problem is many companies are parasitic and hope others will pay for training, and avoid the long term commitment that apprenticeships involve.

Yes, there is a problem with businesses doing this. One I deal with regularly deliberately poaches 4th year apprentices, offering them good money, but taking advantage of the good work of earlier employers.

But in the main, employers in Australia take on new apprentices and grow them with the business.
 
The problem with the US trades system is that you don't have much of an apprenticeship system at all. Pathetic really.
Come on US, pinch this idea from us. The UK already has (seriously) and last I looked was pouring school based apprentices in the NHS, which is a really good thing.

<Brevity Snip>

The final thing to add is that I work with many elite, high priced private schools in Australia which have come to realise that not all their students will become doctors and lawyers and are offering their students school-based apprenticeships.

Thank you. I can't respond too quick, I am doing a remote project with this apprentice. But on town runs and nooky time with the wife, I am at our cabin.

We are at the invoice for this trip and I have to figure what this kid is adding to the project invoice and it is ******* unbelievable. He RUNS to get the wrench I need or scrambles up into the rafters like a spider. Our joint productivity, it's hundreds of dollars higher a day.

This trip was mostly electrical. I sank a 300 foot well and built a wellhouse around it, got the thing wired now and you want to talk about an enormous risk for a contractor, if your well doesn't work. It has lines to a couple of high-end cabins, this is a millionaire with a real good brain for these tourist facilities. We punched a road in to a high ridge but the penalty is having to drill deep for water.

I am not going to respond to trolling, the evidence is at hand it doesn't matter what I think. All you have to do is see how amazing a kid is when he is trained.

I am reading on the apprenticeship system at the settlement of our country and some of the authors who toured in the 1800's to report on this economic miracle going on in America.

By age 15 a young man in an apprenticeship was already a journeyman. This meant he could practice his trade as a master, free to travel anywhere and build houses if he was a carpenter or a smith, cobbler, tailor, & etc.

By 21 he is married with children and established in the community, electable to the town council. We are now spouting sophistry like saying 21 year olds are still children because the brain has not stopped developing until age 25 or whatever.

Why stop feeding them the bottle if the brain is still developing then. Keep them in bassinettes until 25. There is no logic whatsoever in the infantilization of our adolescents.

It seems to me the people making children out of adolescents are threatened by how incompetent they are themselves and can't compete with it.

We have a so-called 13 speed manual transmission dump truck, a big box at 14 yards with the boards on. Who would think this would be the monster money-maker, it's just too funny. This thing makes $165 an hour. But if I team up three men: one mining with a loader, one driving the dump truck, one on the 'dozer - we are ******* printing money. 22 truckloads a day, no problem. You won't need to work for 9 months if you can do that for just one month, lol.

There are actually 15 gear positions, I only skip one the whole way up or down, but this kid can run it now, double-clutching on the way down:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mnov1xk-GZY

This is no ********, we have been practicing with trailers for weeks now, beginning with the pick-up and utility trailer and now the dump truck and a trailer that can transport a monster bulldozer.

He can level the surface of a road and building pad. Backblading with a 'dozer, driving backwards, makes it into a grader. There is an art to it that comes with practice.

We can put some little rentals in various places on our own land, two places he can build a gravel road to. In another year, I would say he'll be able to build a road on his own. Mine the gravel, transport, and construct the road including drainage.

In Alaska, you can stake mining claims. At any age. Gravel, by volume, is far and away the biggest mining industry here.

On his own property, nobody can stop him from operating heavy equipment, machinery, trucks, crushers, screen plants, etc. He will have to hire an adult-sized laborer for $20 an hour. Like a 22 year old millenial.

He can do that by age 12, no problem. Before then. By 12 he will be big enough anyway. A cheater bar on a wrench will take any bolt off. He uses a pick-axe, shovel, and wheel-barrel already. By age 10 he will have seen construction starting from raw land to a working building many times.

The waste of young people's lives - what pathetic losers we are as a society.

The boys especially.
 
When my son was 12, his school wanted him to join the "Gifted and Talented" program, and join special classes with other G&T kids. He refused, saying, "Everyone is gifted and talented in some way". I could not have been more proud.

The thing is, he grew up in an environment where most of the kids came from single-parent, low-income back grounds. There would be no college for those kids. Some were destined to be drop-outs.

However, we did have some local trade schools, and some of the kids did well. One friend of my sons came by to visit a few years after dropping out of school. He had started a trade school for car repair. Over time he came to run his own shop. I was really proud of him.

I wish there were more of these opportunities. Trade schools could make the lives of young people ultimately better and more rewarding.
 
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If you hire the Mexican illegal, that is okay and the government will give his whole family health care and housing too.

What is this racist ********? Goddamn I'm tired of these bigot-fantasy talking points about "illegals get welfare and free healthcare!" Screw off; illegals don't get a damn thing special, and they are cut off from most government and social services.

And I'm glad your kids are learning some work-skills and developing a sense of self-worth on top of it, but if you're paying them 50 cents an hour while they effectively double your production - or worse, you don't do anything but watch while they do all the work for any length of time - then it is not "hysterical" at all to call that exploitation, because that's exactly what it is, and stopping greedy people who engage in that kind of behavior is exactly what child labor laws were formulated to guard against.
 
What is this racist ********? Goddamn I'm tired of these bigot-fantasy talking points about "illegals get welfare and free healthcare!" Screw off; illegals don't get a damn thing special, and they are cut off from most government and social services.
Seriously. I'd like to see that evidence too. Good luck with that.

Do detention centers qualify as housing?
 
Do detention centers qualify as housing?


They probably do. They qualify as good, undeserved housing that's being taken away from much more deserving Americans!
After all, making a profit by hiring 12-year-old Mexicans for 50 cents an hour is a serious crime ... against Americans!!!

If you build abroad, you can hire 12 year olds and pay 50 cents an hour. The only one punished is the American youth getting the good training and job.
 
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