On topic: Teaching kids engineering
in [Design]
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From: Joel Koltner on 15 Jun 2010 11:54 <keithw86(a)gmail.com> wrote in message news:9c571158-fdb1-4d6a-8fad-6419059c069a(a)k39g2000yqb.googlegroups.com... On Jun 14, 6:19 pm, "Joel Koltner" <zapwireDASHgro...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: >The neighbor kid want's $25 to mow the lawn; not a bad hourly wage. >I'd even do it for that. ;-) Any kid finding customers willing to pay $25 to mow an average lawn doesn't need an allowance. :-) Then again, I expect the kid might be persuasive to some homeowners who have already looked at professional lawn care companies and found the going rate more like $50+/hr. Most babysitters are the same way these days -- whereas apparently a generation or two ago the money was mostly a formality (often just a couple bucks per hour!) and you babysat largely as a favor to others, these days most would-be babysitters are going to charge you at least $10/hr... after all, they could make about that much flipping burgers. Or something like that. :-) ---Joel
From: krw on 15 Jun 2010 21:23 On Mon, 14 Jun 2010 11:49:14 -0700, Joerg <invalid(a)invalid.invalid> wrote: >Jan Panteltje wrote: >> On a sunny day (Mon, 14 Jun 2010 10:50:48 -0700) it happened Joerg >> <invalid(a)invalid.invalid> wrote in <87n8frFlm8U1(a)mid.individual.net>: >> >>> Jan Panteltje wrote: >>>> On topic: Teaching kids engineering: >>>> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/education/14engineering.html?partner=rss&emc=rss >>> >>> Interesting. Do they do something like that in the Netherlands? >> >> Not that I know, but it has been a while since I was in kindergarten :-) >> I have mentioned many times in newsgroups that all kids learn these days is 'parroting'. >> There is just too much info dumped on these kids, maybe to keep them of the streets. > > >Yes, plus parents dump the job of education onto government. Which then >raises taxes on everyone because kids "absolutely have to" go to >pre-school and kindergarden. Which is absolute baloney and my generation >is proof of that. There simply was no kindergarden, and we didn't need one. Pre-school is taxpayer funded daycare. It's purpose is to free the parents of the responsibility of raising their brats. > >> I hope internet will change some of that, as they can go where their talents are. > > >I hope for the same. But it would require them to let go of MTV, >Youtube, iTunes and so on. At least to some extent. > > >> I do remember that in my case when I wanted books about radio and TV when I was 5 or 6 >> it needed a waver from the library to get those, actually got one. > > >Strange, in Germany we did not need waivers. You could pick any book you >wanted to. Even one that was called "Construction of Eavesdropping >Transmitters". Seriously. It was common to have an adult section where messy fingers wouldn't get at the books. When I was a kid it was fairly easy to get permission to use the adult sections. One just had to act responsibly in the library. > >> I would have loved internet, so much you can discover. >> It was very difficult to get any good educational material at that age. >> I remember I asked my father some basic questions about electromagnetism, >> and he freaked out (did not have a clue) and told me: You will learn that later in school. >> I think I still have not heard the answer that satisfies me :-) >> I was always experimenting with electronics and stuff, miracle how I got my hands on it. >> It is absolutely great that they allow those kids to think for themselves now, >> that is the age where the brain is sort of hardwired, those kids will become problem solvers. >> Maybe not all of them, but those that do have it in them will. >> > >They will. In our days we were also very free, much more so than today's >school kids. The epitome of joy were bulk waste days, when people put >their old radio and TV sets out to the curb. That netted me so much in >parts that I rarely needed moeny to build stuff.
From: krw on 15 Jun 2010 21:25 On Tue, 15 Jun 2010 10:47:46 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell" <mike.terrell(a)earthlink.net> wrote: > >"keithw86(a)gmail.com" wrote: >> >> On Jun 14, 6:19 pm, "Joel Koltner" <zapwireDASHgro...(a)yahoo.com> >> wrote: >> > "Joerg" <inva...(a)invalid.invalid> wrote in message >> > >> > news:87nqbmF480U1(a)mid.individual.net... >> > >> > > Sure, but back in my days spending a few Deutschmarks or later Guilders >> > > was not so easy. Because they simply weren't there most of the time. >> > >> > I'm OK with giving kids some allowance for doing chores or whatever given that >> > these days it's pretty much impossible for a kid to find a regular paying job >> > until they're 16 or older. >> >> The neighbor kid want's $25 to mow the lawn; not a bad hourly wage. >> I'd even do it for that. ;-) > > > I let my yard go to seed this spring. I'll start mowing parts of it >at daybreak each day, to annoy some bad neighbors who play their stereo >too loud. :) I should do that to annoy the owners of the incessantly barking dogs, next door.
From: krw on 15 Jun 2010 21:29 On Tue, 15 Jun 2010 08:54:48 -0700, "Joel Koltner" <zapwireDASHgroups(a)yahoo.com> wrote: ><keithw86(a)gmail.com> wrote in message >news:9c571158-fdb1-4d6a-8fad-6419059c069a(a)k39g2000yqb.googlegroups.com... >On Jun 14, 6:19 pm, "Joel Koltner" <zapwireDASHgro...(a)yahoo.com> >wrote: >>The neighbor kid want's $25 to mow the lawn; not a bad hourly wage. >>I'd even do it for that. ;-) > >Any kid finding customers willing to pay $25 to mow an average lawn doesn't >need an allowance. :-) Ya think?! >Then again, I expect the kid might be persuasive to some homeowners who have >already looked at professional lawn care companies and found the going rate >more like $50+/hr. I was paying $35 a week in VT. I bought a decent mower when we moved here, so I'm back to doing it myself. The professionals do a far better job than the neighbor kid, and they trim and clean up too. >Most babysitters are the same way these days -- whereas apparently a >generation or two ago the money was mostly a formality (often just a couple >bucks per hour!) and you babysat largely as a favor to others, these days most >would-be babysitters are going to charge you at least $10/hr... after all, >they could make about that much flipping burgers. I used to pay $.50/hr. Minimum wage was $3something. At $10/hr we would never have gone out. >Or something like that. Yeah, it is something like that. :-(
From: Joel Koltner on 15 Jun 2010 21:58
Hi Keith, <krw(a)att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz> wrote in message news:l0ag16tpbadu36jbogodkrse0uedute0f2(a)4ax.com... > I was paying $35 a week in VT. I bought a decent mower when we moved here, > so > I'm back to doing it myself. Riding lawnmower? Those are really kinda fun -- not really work at all anymore. (Even self-propelled mowers come close...) > The professionals do a far better job than the > neighbor kid, and they trim and clean up too. In general I agree... although I bet you can cajole most kids into doing as good of a job if you pay them a bit more provided they have access to the tools to do it with (e.g., a string trimmer). > I used to pay $.50/hr. Minimum wage was $3something. At $10/hr we would > never have gone out. Yeah, but at the time would you have paid $3? :-) Do you have pets? Locally dog sitters get ~$30 per day for two visits (probably ~15 minutes each, although there is certainly some drive time to get out to the house as well). I was surprised when I first learned this... (I only brought a cat to the marriage, my wife brought two dogs... :-) ) I was amused at an advertisement for a live-in house/petsitter where you were still paying them to stay at your house -- but while dogs and cats were great, they specifically refused to housesit if there were going to be any humans around. :-) I suppose all of this seems cheap compared to the ~$3,000/month it costs to have someone in assisted living these days. Both my stepfather and my grandmother-in-law are in that situation now -- my stepfather's own estate being slowly eaten away, whereas my GIL's bills are paid for by medicare. ---Joel |