Reply to Is the education 'crisis' in the USA overblown?

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Reply to "Is the education 'crisis' in the USA overblown?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

You missed my point.  If you think that trades are for dummies, then you don't know much about trades.  You actually want the guy who does the wiring in a building or who works on plumbing to be smart because you want that stuff to work right.  It's a misconception that a trade is an alternative for a non-smart person.  And that misconception is a problem.

In yesteryear, smart people went into trades.  It was physical labor or menial jobs that people saw as alternatives for people who were "not the brightest."  But even still, those jobs should provide a living wage (and they don't nowadays).  But college or university was really something "back then" that people went into for specific things that required a college education (or if they were wealthy).  It was never the case that all smart students were expected to go to a 4-year university.  There were perfectly respectful pathways to employment aside from university that didn't carry a stigma of "that's for people who can't get into college."  That was my point.

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I think your points aren't as far apart as you seem to think, PP.  I grew up in a blue collar family and knew plenty of guys who weren't "book smart" (including my own father, who views reading as a minor form of torture), but they were geniuses with their hands. There are different kinds of smart, and our society suffers when we value one too much over the other.[/quote]

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