jimwilliam wrote:
... the good old days when a Grade 6 education and a John Deere cap could get you a high paying low skilled factory job. It just isn't going to happen anymore. To get along today you don't just need specialized skills but currently required specialized skills....
I read an article a while back about one of the adult training programs (think it was in BC but not positive). In any case, the guy teaching plumbing said that the classes were full and there was a waiting list. A long waiting list. After all, someone was going to show them how to turn a wrench and they'd be pretty much guaranteed full time work starting at $65,000 a year. In any case, the students were interested and most worked hard for about two weeks until the topic turned to flow rates - pretty basic math - at which point attendance dropped by half. According to him, the guy that was teaching the electricians' course said the same thing - as soon as he started talking about the resistance/impedance of a series/parallel circuit that was the end of it for at least half the class.
On that topic, in my grad student days I taught theory classes to my local ham radio club and found that I had to start by teaching fractions to at least half the adults in the room.