Educating "Joe the Plumber"

Since the last debate, "Joe the Plumber" has gotten some press; he has been rather impressive on television, answering questions and handling the media with poise. And I'm sure that there are some who are thinking

"not bad for a blue-collar worker . . . ."

But hold on there!!!!

Those of us lucky enough to have some "advanced degrees" are not the only persons thinking about, involved in, or affected by the upcoming election. And, neither are we the only "educated persons,"

From the System 13 blog:

When I hear the expression “educated person,” I immediately think of someone who has at least a bachelor’s degree (the more degrees, the better); they know what’s going on in the world and they keep abreast of politics; they read literature (whatever that may be); speaking a foreign language or two doesn’t hurt. When I look at my assessment of the expression “educated person” or, even more specifically, “well-educated person,” I now realize just how narrow-minded and arrogant my understanding of the expression is.

Certainly, the above describes a type of an “educated person.” But to say that, if someone doesn’t have a degree or they’re not up-to-speed on world politics, they’re not an educated person, is just being snooty, elitist. A good example of this snooty elitism is how I and many others view mechanics.

Mechanics have a rather dirty job. They get grease all over themselves; they lie on the ground an awful lot, poking around underneath our dirty vehicles. I’d say a huge number of people view everyday mechanics as “uneducated” or “poorly educated.” And sure, if you hold up a college education, being well read, etc. as meaning “well educated,” you’re right - many (but certainly not all) mechanics are “poorly educated.” However, this judgment starts to fall apart when you flip things around. From the mechanic’s point of view, perhaps the college-graduating, literature-reading people are the “uneducated” ones. Why, they’re not quite sure how to change the oil in their cars; they can’t figure out a basic engine problem, one that any mechanic would see within 15 minutes; hell, they don’t even know how much air is supposed to go in the tires of their vehicle!

Strictly speaking for myself, I need to stop equating educated with book-smart, which is a decent summation of my previous thinking. You can be illiterate and still be educated in some form or another; you can be extremely literate and not know how to do anything. I like to consider myself “educated,” and I couldn’t begin to tell you how to change the carburetor, in any vehicle - mine included.

In my teaching at Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology, many of my students are pursuing careers as mechanics, as well as plumbers, carpenters, and a variety of other skilled occupations. And certainly my colleagues there are striving to "educate" these students, and I am not minimizing those disciplines. But "training skills" is not "educating".

But when we strive to define an "educated person," we are (in computer terms) looking less at the content of the hard drive than we are in the quality of the processor. A savant may have a grasp of minutiae, yet still not be an "educated person." Surely Aristotole, Galileo, and Newton had no knowledge of many of our "modern" discoveries, yet few would argue that they were "uneducated."

To argue that knowing how to change a carburetor qualifies a person as being "educated" misses the point; certainly, an educated person should know the basics of combustion, but so also should an educated mechanic know that Tannhauser isn't a new German restaurant.

It is not elitist to suggest that different students come to school with different sized "buckets." The lucky ones, the "bright" ones come with the capacity to be filled with a plethora of skills, information, and thinking skills. Others have smaller buckets.

But to suggest that since a student comes with a "smaller bucket," we should limit that student to study of only one subject--failing to expose those students to the "wider world" is harmful not only to that student, but also to the entire economy.

Innovation comes from the ability to apply divergent points of view to old problems; if we continue to educate technicians only in the "tried and true" methods, then we limit the ability for those "doing" these processes from discovering new and "unconventional" methods.

My apologia continues to be the creation of "educated persons" within all of my students. To do anything less is to do them a disservice.