Where are the craftsmen of tomorrow?
Motorcycle collector and restoration shop owner Adam Cramer on the grim future of his trade (about 4 min):
I wonder myself, from experience with my own grandchildren, where the X-Box Generation is going to find the life skills to do anything other than texting or playing video games. It's a real leap to assume they may be the designers of the next hit video game just because they can beat a level in a game or program a smart phone. The odds are just as likely they can be the next LeBron James because they shoot a few hoops, or playing in a garage band will make them an opening act for The Boss.
I sometimes ask my grandkids what moves them when I consider buying a gift. I ask what their passion is, or what the one thing is they wish they could do. I get blank looks in return. I ask if there's anything they want to learn more about like how airplanes work, basic electronics, or building things, and they shrug their shoulders.
I got a couple of them involved in skateboards, which is good exercise, but I wanted them to learn something along the way so I ordered blank decks and scoured eBay for trucks and wheels. I tried to teach them how to mask off the decks and paint their own graphics, but got nowhere. They were fine that I did all that and delivered the completed board to them.
I gave one Grandson a nice model car for one birthday. It took him one day before he threw in the towel, saying it was "too hard". This is the kid who will sit at his laptop trying over and over to beat a level on a video game until he's rocking back and forth with exploding kidneys. I don't believe he's exercising his brain any more than a lab rat in a maze. He's just exploring one dead end after another until he stumbles upon a solution.
I made two pairs of stilts last week for the other grandchildren (aged 8-12). I couldn't imagine letting them use a drill, let alone a power saw, to do the job themselves, and I know they wouldn't be interested anyway. They tried for about 30 seconds and told me they don't want them because "it's too hard" to walk on them.
Someday, this X-Box generation will wake up as adults and realize they don't know how to leave their neighborhoods because they spent their formative years glued to the video screens in the back seat of mom's mini-van before she even left the driveway, or don't know how to use a wrench to adjust a fan belt because they can't find an app for that. When that happens, they'll find themselves at the mercy of the very few who learned the life skills to work with their hands, and the cost will be astronomical.
I used to threaten my grandkids that they will have to find employment some day on the back of a garbage truck rolling down the street in the winter sleet. Now the trucks have an arm that lifts the garbage cans automatically, so even that opportunity is lost to them. I don't know what will become of them now. I know some of the more optomistic will say they can join the Army and fly drones with a joystick, and then they can get out they can ... uh... well, they can re-enlist.
*sigh*
= new reply since forum marked as read
If you couldn't imagine it, how can you expect someone else to? If you aren't prepared to sacrifice a couple of their fingers to their education, where will they ever learn about the sacrifices they must make to learn? 
Seriously, I do understand what you mean, but I'm only sorta being facetious. Broke my first tooth following my dad around on a plumbing call when I was 7 or 8. I was soldering with torches by 10 or so. Someone has to step out on a limb for them, even if you risk your grand-parental rights and a lawsuit, maybe jail. That's far easier said than done, but what is the solution?
I sanded the tip off my finger in shop class on a floor-mounted disk sander, around 13 years old. (hint: the grandkids should start with wood, save sheet metal 'till later). We also had a foundry section that semester, drafting, blueprint reading. They should have had a class in air conditioning and electrical theory, had to get those later. Got my masters, then left and spent 20 years with computers and networks. That basic wiring, troubleshooting, electrical, etc. took me further faster in all of that.
Where in the hell did the shop classes go?
You are right to be concerned. These aren't just skills people pick up, it's philosophy. troubleshooting, years of learning things that are quite expensive to teach to adults with no experience. (Not impossible, but who other than government will make the investment?) Some of that learning is tied up with early development, so approaching it as an adult is going to be quite different.
I see nothing over the next 10 to 20 years that could be pointed to as a fix, and suspect we are simply going to lower our valuations of everything for the foreseeable future. Most people will be worse off by not having those skills, and having to learn them on their own when older, I think. Many will die, but a lot will pick up some great education. And perhaps they will create a life outside of the corporate masters they grew up with, start doing for themselves. Might be some jobs teaching people what they are deficient in.
Btw, there is a "Maker" movement, people making, building, programming, doing citizen biology in their garages and closets, with little cells of this all across the nation. "Make Magazine" will start your googling...the grandkids might like some of that. There are bound to be middle school girls interested in engineering stuff, that might attract the boy...(Seriously, some people say I have no boundaries when it comes to getting someone interested in learning. Perhaps <G> .
In Summerhill by AS Neill he describes his school. In those pages (I think it was that book, he wrote at least a couple) he describes kids as young as your grandchildren using shop tools, and doing it safely. (The government inspected them). His educational philosophy is interesting, school is still there. The grads seem to be quite happy and productive over the years.
Evidently all the children in your state are above average..
