Iron Ore

The National Endowment for the Humanities sponsors summer workshops for teachers using your tax dollars. Shop Teacher Bob is taking advantage of this fact and is living on the dole this week. I'm attending one of the Landmarks of American History & Culture workshops sponsored by the NEH and the Minnesota Humanities Center. The itinerary goes something like this:

Leave St. Paul on a bus and hit all the high spots of iron ore history on the Mesabi Range. We're talking hematite and taconite here and the history there of. Ely, Hibbing, Duluth, Virginia and lots of stops in between including the Greyhound Museum. When you've seen so much iron ore history you want to puke, back to St. Paul.

This will be the third workshop I've attended and these things are great. Previously, I was in Dearborn, Michigan and Lowell, Mass. Both workshops dealt with aspects of the Industrial Revolution as does this one. Both places put on quite the show. Excellent speakers, exceptional staff and lots of history where it actually took place. I'm expecting the same this week. If you teach, you should definitely look into these.

If I can, I'll post some pictures later in the week. Have to wait and see what the computer situation looks like.

Common Schools: The Hope For Our Country

While working the fair last week, I took a couple of minutes and walked through the rest of the buildings the historical society had open. The old school had a certificate on the wall dated 1909, if memory serves, and on it was the inscription: "Common Schools: The Hope For Our Country". Having taken plenty of educational courses in college, I had heard of Common Schools, but it hasn't been recently. So, I searched Common Schools on Google and I had more info than I could ever possibly want. But like most internet searches, one thing lead to another.

In a nutshell, Common Schools were schools that everyone would be able to attend. Not expensive schools that only the wealthy could attend but schools for the common man and by extension, a common curriculum. I'm sure 100 years ago they were hoping for more than what we've ended up with. We've certainly succeeded in creating common schools. In fact, they're just too common. You don't normally hear them being described as exemplary or excellent but rather, it's common to lament the state of our schools, especially in big cities.

While looking up Common Schools I ran across the Ludwig Von Mises Institute, a think tank in Alabama. Apparently Ludwig was a heavy hitter in the Austrian School of Economics. The following comes from their site:

The Institute is named to honor the life and work of Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973). In six decades of teaching and writing, he reconstructed economic theory and method on a sound basis of individual human action and showed that government intervention is always destructive, whether through welfare, inflation, taxation, regulation, or war. His vision of the free and prosperous commonwealth is carried forward in all the work of the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

From the Institute site the conclusion of an article on Common Schools by Barry Simpson:

Public education reduces opposition to wealth transfers by teaching students that redistribution, public works, and democracy are the American way. War and crisis increases the size of government. Public education tells us we need government all the time. Public education introduces the mantras of democracy to the young. Democracy keeps the two major parties in power, keeps their spoils flowing in, and tells us that intervention is okay because the majority voted for it.

The conclusion is that public schools and compulsory attendance laws benefit educators, administrators, and politicians more than citizens or their children. But one could draw deeper conclusions. Through the Mises Institute and other free market organizations, one can find books on the evils of all kinds of intervention and democracy, and how once instituted these evils begin to destroy us as individuals, then our families, and even society itself.

Public education is the glue that holds all of these ideas together. It is how these ideas are spread to society at large. Thus, one might argue that public education is the greatest evil of all, and that it must be struck down in one mighty blow before we begin to find ourselves as persons, families, and a people again.

I'll readily admit to not knowing much about the Austrian School but I'm pretty much in agreement that government intervention is always destructive. As a shop teacher, I might disagree that public education is the greatest evil of all but I'm willing to concede things could definitely be better. In fact, that was the whole premise behind this post. Things need to be better and "shop" classes can help do that. Anyway, lots of interesting and thought provoking information at the Institute website. Might be good for a rainy day.

The Flight of the Phoenix

The Honda officially runs. I took it for a drive down the lane last night. The carbs still need a little adjusting and I need to get a couple of grommets for the side covers but other than that, it's a runner. Looks pretty good even with that chopper wheel it's sporting. Now that I've got the tools out, maybe I should start on another one.

The Hard Part of Teaching

I ran into a couple of former students in my travels this week, plus I learned of the loss of one. One guy is working at a body shop, married and apparently doing real well for himself. Another one is a cart wrangler at Wal-Mart. He's a nice young man but his prospects are limited, so to speak. The third one passed away, from what I was told, of a drug overdose. He too was a nice young man, with a great sense of humor and way too young to die. That's kind of the long and short of it. Some go on to great things, some don't and some barely get out of the gate. That's also the part you never think about when you're deciding if you want to become a teacher.

My professional philosophy is first of all, try to teach them the trade. Next, teach them the skills to get and keep a job and then try to have as much fun with it as they'll allow you. The way I look at it, I'm not a success if they're not a success. Now, some of the little darlings are really tough to love but the majority appreciate what you do for them. Those of us in a shop environment have an advantage, in that we get to know most of our students on a more personal level. As long as the work's getting done, we can shoot the breeze a little. Talk a little shop, hunting, fishing or whatever is important to them. We can sneak in the occasional donut breakfast or even a barbeque in the vocational class. As any good manager will tell you, you need to know your people to get them to perform at their highest level but it's more than that. I really enjoy the chatter from guys that are planning to set the world on fire. Unfortunately, this can be a real heart-breaker.

Over the many years I've been doing this, I've been to their weddings. I've visited them in the hospital, their homes and jail. I've worked side by side with them and I've been to their funerals. Some of them you never forget, some of them you wish you could. Some come back to visit. Way too many of them just pass into oblivion, never to be seen or heard from again. You always hope you did the right thing by them or at least you didn't do too much damage. I learned the first year of teaching that you can't save them all but I damn sure wish someone could have saved that 19 year old kid.

Gym Update

Worked on the gym a little bit today. The ring is ready to go now. Just about everything inside is done except for a couple of small details. I need to make a gate for the driveway to control the traffic flow. The other two guys put up a fence, poured a sidewalk and did some landscaping. We're looking to open right after Labor Day.

Worked a little on the Honda after I got back from the gym. I need to get some new fuel and vent lines. I thought I had a battery but the terminals are on the wrong side. Looks like a positive cable just a little longer would do it. I hate to start changing to non standard parts but I would like to have it go. I might just put the jumper cables on it and light it off. Make sure everything else works before I spring for a battery. I put the ducktail on it today. The paint is really going to look nice. Also, I bought a new jacket the other day so I'm pretty well committed now. New jacket, helmet, plates and insurance. I've got everything except a functioning motorcycle.

Making Stuff

Finished out the week of smithing at the fair yesterday. It was a real slow day, actually a real slow year. Not near the traffic past the shop as in previous years. The weather wasn't unbearably hot but I noticed when I came in early today to take a walk around and check things out, not much of anything was open other than the animal barns and 4-H exhibits. Maybe evening hours are the way to go. With only a few visitors, that pretty well took the pressure off of us to do much, however. Made for a nice relaxing afternoon with a minimum of sweating.

We did get some stuff pounded out during the week. I finished my set of tongs and Craig got his blanks ready for drilling and riveting. We made a dinner bell and hanger for a customer and of course, we made a couple of "S" hooks. Knocked out a couple of dragon heads and a couple of other doo-dads as well. Pretty elementary stuff but Craig had a chance to spend a lot of time at the forge that way. He's a really good helper and a great young man. He's heading off to Purdue pretty soon to study engineering. I wish him all the best.

So I've got a year to think about what to change and what to work on next year. I'm thinking, bring my treadle hammer in and go through the tongs and get those organized. Maybe work on a bigger piece and auction it off like we did last year. There was some interest in hosting a beginning blacksmithing class, also. And last, but certainly not least, try to get people to stop asking if we shoe horses. That's a stereotype that should have run it's course a long time ago.

Tractor Parade

Craig and I worked the evening shift at the blacksmith shop last night. The shop is right next to the tractor building and usually you get a few more people stopping by than in the daytime. It seemed to work out for us. The tractor parade and corn shelling brought quite a few people our way. Saw some family and friends plus your average fairgoers.

I included a photo of the big Oliver because it's got a polished supercharger on it. I included a picture of the Minneapolis Moline because it's pretty rare with the LP power and I included a picture of the Cockshutt because the name sounds like some weird venereal disease. The photo of the garden tractor pulling the train - well that's all about kids having fun at the county fair.