Teaching essential life skills

[JQH]

Can I just check, is this the 2021 timeline? The 2021 where lightbulbs rarely need changing, plugs cannot be changed, nobody hangs wallpaper any more and maps are supplied by google? The 2021 where if anyone wants to learn to wallpaper, there are loads of YouTubes? Did you also teach them how to write cheques, use the yellow pages, get photos developed, set video recorders and use a dictionary?

Plugs can be changed. Did so on our vacuum cleaner because sparking indicated insulation break down. Cut off molded plug, strip back cable insulation, attach to plug purchased from B&Q. And bulbs occasionally need to be changed. What do you do in similar situations? Call an electrician?

[Gfamily]

Are there YouTube videos on how not to be an arse to randoms on the internet?

Maybe they're all on Tik-tok now.

[Stephanie]

Can I just check, is this the 2021 timeline? The 2021 where lightbulbs rarely need changing, plugs cannot be changed, nobody hangs wallpaper any more and maps are supplied by google? The 2021 where if anyone wants to learn to wallpaper, there are loads of YouTubes? Did you also teach them how to write cheques, use the yellow pages, get photos developed, set video recorders and use a dictionary?

lmao. i'm pretty sure I never watched a video to change a lightbulb, it's pretty obvious innit?

i've never wallpapered anything, as i don't own a house, and my parents couldn't really afford to decorate (other than an occasional tin of paint). I have painted, but again, I never did any deep research for that.

plugs... everything comes with a plug, so... no need.

compass. never gone anywhere that needs one? when i was in london pre-google maps, i had a london a-z.

I mean, I get that some folk here might be proud of having those skills, but like as an older millennial, I've never needed to know them, so why would gen z?

[Lydia Gwilt]

When I was a student and up until my 40s I had almost no money at all and could never have afforded to employ someone to paper a wall, equally changing a plug on a piece of equipment was a lot cheaper than trashing it and buying a new one.
Not knowing how to use a compass or map is the reason for a lot of mountain rescue callouts, endangering the lives of the rescuers (see RNLI for the maritime version). Google coverage is not universal in places like moors and mountains and phones run out of batteries. I also know several people who were navigating on known waters on 9/11 who suddenly found that their nav system was telling them that they were several miles from where they knew they were (800 feet up a volcano in one case).

[Stephanie]

Wallpapering - just searched and B&Q have some videos on their site, and there are guides from the other diy stores, if I needed to do it.

Plugs - for most of the things I have, it's not the case that you can change the plug - it would be "buying a new lead" or "buying a new charger". You can't unscrew and get to them, because they're not built like that. As it is, any electrical stuff that has failed has done so for other reasons, so I haven't needed to know how to change anything there.

Compass - I live in the South East. There's a slightly big hill near my house. That's it. Sure, if I was suddenly to get into mountains, I'd check out equipment. But for now... google maps is fine.

ETA: added a bit to the plugs part

[malbui]

OK, I'm an old fart and don't know the answer to this, but ... how much time is devoted, in 2021, to teaching kids optimal search techniques?
My library training in how to look for things, and think critically, has been enormously helpful over the decades.

Malbuisister has spent her entire career working in various county libraries and archives, doing archival stuff and book cataloguing and purchasing and various other good things. She says that the most necessary skill she has had to acquire is one needed on the front desk, where it's critical to be able to translate from what the visitors ask for to what they're actually looking for.

[lpm]

Are there YouTube videos on how not to be an arse to randoms on the internet?

Maybe they're all on Tik-tok now.

Now there's a useful lesson for 21st C schools. Alongside lessons on how not to be boring on the internet.

[Squeak]

Malbuisister has spent her entire career working in various county libraries and archives, doing archival stuff and book cataloguing and purchasing and various other good things. She says that the most necessary skill she has had to acquire is one needed on the front desk, where it's critical to be able to translate from what the visitors ask for to what they're actually looking for.

So much this. I am my office's IT guru (gods help them!) because my google-fu is the best in the office (all of us with science PhDs, so apparently with some research skills). My boss asks me if we can do X; I figure out that she really wants to do Y and then google the help forums until I find a useful answer. I think of it as "just googling for it" but my "just googling" seems to be a lot more direct and informative than my colleagues'.

The metaskill of translating someone's vague want into the slightly more abstract actual requirement and then mapping that onto the filing system of the library/internet/other information source is a useful one in any environment. Though many people can get by with the simpler skill of knowing a person who can do that for them.

[Millennie Al]

I am my office's IT guru (gods help them!) because my google-fu is the best in the office (all of us with science PhDs, so apparently with some research skills). My boss asks me if we can do X; I figure out that she really wants to do Y and then google the help forums until I find a useful answer. I think of it as "just googling for it" but my "just googling" seems to be a lot more direct and informative than my colleagues'.

Are you aware that this is literally called the XY problem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem)?

[Squeak]

I am my office's IT guru (gods help them!) because my google-fu is the best in the office (all of us with science PhDs, so apparently with some research skills). My boss asks me if we can do X; I figure out that she really wants to do Y and then google the help forums until I find a useful answer. I think of it as "just googling for it" but my "just googling" seems to be a lot more direct and informative than my colleagues'.

Are you aware that this is literally called the XY problem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem)?

I wasn't aware of that. How did they come up with such an imaginative name for it?

[Gfamily]

I am my office's IT guru (gods help them!) because my google-fu is the best in the office (all of us with science PhDs, so apparently with some research skills). My boss asks me if we can do X; I figure out that she really wants to do Y and then google the help forums until I find a useful answer. I think of it as "just googling for it" but my "just googling" seems to be a lot more direct and informative than my colleagues'.

Are you aware that this is literally called the XY problem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem)?

The example of 'the elevator problem' in the wiki seems to be an example of 'how to suggest a distraction rather than a solution'.

[Hunting Dog]

Reason for plugs to still need to be changed:
Fridge (etc. is below worktop, the nearest available socket is above the worktop, so the easiest solution is small hole in worktop to stick/draw the cut wire from fridge through, then reconnect new (non-sealed) plug above worktop.

Of course if you're actually redesigning the electrics, having a socket/spur below the worktop is much better... when we re-did our kitchen we put sockets below the worktop which were wired to fused switches above the worktop - I have no idea if that is now a technically legal arrangement but it works well in practical terms.

[Stephanie]

I totally get that people might have reasons for changing a plug. The point I'm making is it isn't an essential skill.

[dyqik]

I totally get that people might have reasons for changing a plug. The point I'm making is it isn't an essential skill.

In my experience there's more often a need to change a light fixture or a light switch than a plug.

Both are pretty much the same skill as changing a plug, but as you say, most people can and will pay someone to do it.

[Cardinal Fang]

It amazes me the things people aren't taught.

I had a male colleague who complained once that he had some shirts he couldn't wear any more because a button had come off. I asked him why he didn't just sew it back on. He didn't know how to (I told him to bring one in the next day and I'd teach him. Literally next day I took in a needle and thread and we sat in the coffee room at break time and I showed him. By the end of my 5 minute demo I have an audience of 7 or 8, mostly guys. A couple days later my colleague came in very excited to tell me he'd repaired the buttons on all his shirts). I don't understand why someone, whether it was a parent, or at school or somewhere, didn't teach that, but he didn't go to school in the UK, and sewing was always a "woman's job".

In the lab I seem to have the reputation as the "go to" person for minor repairs. Because my father died when I was very young, grew up with my Mum doing all the DIY bits, so never got into that mentality of "that's a man's job" which a lot of my female colleagues seem to have. They seem surprised when people tell them to go and see Cardinal Fang before calling someone out to mend simple things. I replaced the wheel on a trolley yesterday for another department - the company that made it wanted to charge £300 to come out and replace it. It took me 10 minutes with an allen key and a hammer (to get the allen key moving). I always talk them through what I'm doing so that the next time they can do it themselves if possible.

CF

[Cardinal Fang]

Ironically although I can put up a shelf, hang wallpaper, change a plug, change my car's sparkplugs etc, but I'm not so good at "girly" things like following a sewing pattern.

CF

[jdc]

The two jobs that my mum hated were ironing and sewing. Which is why I learnt to (a) sew and (b) buy clothes that didn't have to be ironed, just shaken and put on a hanger. If she hadn't given me a sewing demo I imagine I might have been able to work it out for myself eventually. I mean, it's not rocket surgery is it.

It's usually just holes in pockets from keys that need sewing up or the occasional gigantic rip in under my coat sleeve, but I did recently have to sew a food bag tie into a blind so I could rehang it after the plasticky bit at the top broke.

My top tip for n00bs is not to buy the sh.tty £1 sewing kits because the eyes of the needles aren't big enough and it's an absolute arse to thread them.

[discovolante]

Seconded. I have a cheap as chips sewing kit and I can't wait until I can justify buying a new one so I can get something proper.

[Squeak]

Ironically although I can put up a shelf, hang wallpaper, change a plug, change my car's sparkplugs etc, but I'm not so good at "girly" things like following a sewing pattern.

CF

Sewing patterns generally only work if you're very close to the shape the pattern designer imagines you should be. And the measurements are frequently wrong, so it's hard to figure out which size you should cut them out at. (The last pattern I tried to make told me I was a size 24 on the back of the packet. I turned out to be a 14, which gives a sense of how wrong it was.)

My first sewing revelation was when I got some pattern making paper and copied pieces of clothing that actually fit me, you can usually find them to expose the relevant seams.

My second was when I learnt to make darts and realised that I could start with a sack that's as wide as my widest point and then take it in wherever necessary until it fits. If I'm feeling fancy, I do that with what will ultimately be my linking and then use it to cut the outside nicely.

When you're tall and muscular, women's dress patterns from the shop are completely sh.t.

[Bird on a Fire]

This reminds me that I have a few buttons needing sewing.

I'll have to put my sewing pile somewhere prominent. Pretty sure I have done it before but if not the internet exists.

One thing I've noticed is that some people instinctively try to figure things out and have a go (I like EACL's word "bodger", despite its association with mashed potatoes), and others just go "ooo i dunno" and give up. Like CF I was raised in a single parent family, and from the age of about 7 was called upon to help make meals, sew stuff, house and garden upkeep etc. We didn't have the internet in those days (f.ck I'm old) so sometimes we went to the library to look things up.

OTOH I also have a pair of trousers that I tore the arse out of in the field. A machine will do it faster and stronger than me, so when we're out of this lockdown I'll take them to the seamstress over the road.

[Millennie Al]

I totally get that people might have reasons for changing a plug. The point I'm making is it isn't an essential skill.

Changing a plug isn't an essential skill, but children should be taught that when they need to do that sort of task they should start with a presumption they can learn how to do it rather than assume they're incapable and have to get someone else to do it. And this is especially the case for things which might be subject to sterotyping - they should be very suspicious of ideas that a type of task is not really suited to whole groups of people.

[bmforre]

Ironically although I can put up a shelf, hang wallpaper, change a plug, change my car's sparkplugs etc, but I'm not so good at "girly" things like following a sewing pattern.

CF

Not properly taught at the College of Cardinals?

[Bewildered]

As it is he - miraculously to some perhaps - manages to live an entirely independent and productive life that does not include shoelaces.

*

I reckon abandoning velcro was a bad move on my behalf.

I haz these now. https://www.hickies.com/. Life-changing.




*I can technically tie my laces, in that I can follow the instructions so the rabbit goes round the tree and in the hole and everything. It is just 30 seconds later the buggers are undone again and dragging along behind me**. It is odd, a person stops to tie one shoelace and nobody takes a second glance but stop to tie both shoelaces and they stare at you like you are mental.


**and in the 40+ years of proud shoelace-failing I have fell over precisely zero times because of them***.


***I have however had about 8 months of my life stolen from in pointless conversations with strangers along the lines of "Tie your shoelaces or you'll fall over".

I think this thread really needs to get back to the laces discussion, because that’s what really matters.

I have never been able to understand why we still have show laces that need thing.

I had smart Velcro shoes once, they looked better as they were just smooth on the front, the Velcro worked the entire lifetime of the show and the it never came undone while I was walking around. What’s f.cking wrong with Velcro shoes? Why would anyone want to have to constantly tie and in tie f.cking laces instead?

I have walking shoes with a single connected lace looped through a thingy* to tighten and loosen when putting them on or off. Also works perfectly and frees me from the f.cking god awful lace tying.

In my ideal world shoes with regular laces are illegal and the f.ckers who have supported them in the past are hunted down with packs of dogs.

*technical term

[Bewildered]

As it is he - miraculously to some perhaps - manages to live an entirely independent and productive life that does not include shoelaces.

*

I reckon abandoning velcro was a bad move on my behalf.

I haz these now. https://www.hickies.com/. Life-changing.




*I can technically tie my laces, in that I can follow the instructions so the rabbit goes round the tree and in the hole and everything. It is just 30 seconds later the buggers are undone again and dragging along behind me**. It is odd, a person stops to tie one shoelace and nobody takes a second glance but stop to tie both shoelaces and they stare at you like you are mental.


**and in the 40+ years of proud shoelace-failing I have fell over precisely zero times because of them***.


***I have however had about 8 months of my life stolen from in pointless conversations with strangers along the lines of "Tie your shoelaces or you'll fall over".

I think this thread really needs to get back to the laces discussion, because that’s what really matters.

I have never been able to understand why we still have shoe laces that need tying.

I had smart Velcro shoes once, they looked better as they were just smooth on the front, the Velcro worked the entire lifetime of the shoe and the it never came undone while I was walking around. What’s f.cking wrong with Velcro shoes? Why would anyone want to have to constantly tie and untie tie f.cking laces instead?

I have walking shoes with a single connected lace looped through a thingy* to tighten and loosen when putting them on or off. Also works perfectly and frees me from the f.cking god awful lace tying.

In my ideal world shoes with regular laces are illegal and the f.ckers who have supported them in the past are hunted down with packs of dogs.

*technical term

Fixed!

[Stephanie]

I totally get that people might have reasons for changing a plug. The point I'm making is it isn't an essential skill.

Changing a plug isn't an essential skill, but children should be taught that when they need to do that sort of task they should start with a presumption they can learn how to do it rather than assume they're incapable and have to get someone else to do it. And this is especially the case for things which might be subject to sterotyping - they should be very suspicious of ideas that a type of task is not really suited to whole groups of people.

Where have I said people should get someone else to do it?