curtisrider":1cs4ulqc said:
Keith 66":1cs4ulqc said:
Pity they are starved for time!
This is one of the key problems, limited hours along with sharing with Textiles and Food means that Resistant Materials can't always make use of all the lovely equipment as well as it being incredibly difficult to create an original achievable project that kids will enjoy producing that covers using such a wide range of equipment. It's a very hard thing to achieve, having a good technician certainly helps! I only encountered a couple of kids that did not like doing D&T whilst I taught it, most thrived in it and the rest felt it was a great release and break from typical sit down and listen subjects.
It's sad that DT teachers with limited experience/not knowing how to use certain equipment are getting flack, many are very young and will not have had the opportunity to gather a Jack of all trades skill and knowledge set. The job is not exactly well paid for the amount of work you do therefore won't attract many older more experienced people.
Design and Technology is all about moving forwards and embracing new developments in manufacturing and materials, incorporating them into designs. For this to happen then unfortunately more traditional skills and knowledge that many of the people on here will have encountered and enjoyed will no longer be relevant to most of the students (and their futures) and pushed aside in favour of the next big thing. This is perfectly acceptable as that is the nature of the subject, the trouble is people confuse D&T with wood working or metalwork as that is what they studied and they can't see that it's actually a very different subject entirely. It's not all about making, their is plenty of theory to overload their brains with and that is a necessity as otherwise the subject isn't considered academic enough and therefore no value would be seen in it by all too many people resulting is the death of a fantastic subject that I guarantee inspires more kids than most think, even if they don't get to play with all the cool toys in a workshop.
I'd like to put a slightly different point of view, if I may. I feel that one of the problems of education over the last couple of decades is that it has become too obsessional about the 'new' and 'relevant'. It should, instead, concentrate on the basics, to build a foundation of knowledge and capabilities that will fit young people for wherever life leads them. For example, I gather that the teaching of History concentrates rather heavily on WW2 and it's aftermath, without exploring the context of the development of European (and world) civilisation since before Roman times.
How does this apply to D&T? I think there's too much chasing after today's flavour-of-the-month technology, forgetting that in a couple of decades it will be old hat and probably superceded. Technology (and thus design) is such a broad subject that no school can give anything like a basis for most. For example, the largest employer in my area is Airbus at Broughton, who are using technologies way beyond the scope of any school to teach. Consequently, they train their staff, many through apprenticeships or graduate training schemes, with the specialised knowledge they need.
The education establishment rather sneers at practical subjects (and I include applied sciences and mathematics in this) on the basis that manufacturing is dead in the UK. Firstly, they're wrong - it's far from dead - and secondly, they forget all the nation's infrastructure (houses, roads, railways, electricity generation and transmission, gas supply, telecommunications, buildings of all types, and public services) all of which requires operation, maintenance and periodic renewal. That will need a significant workforce of competent engineers, technicians and craftspeople, and we can't just import them all. The need for practical skills and knowledge is growing, not shrinking.
Primary and secondary education should concentrate on basic stuff - introducing youngsters to using tools and making things. In that sense, the old subjects of woodwork and metalwork are actually quite valuable, because even if people never need to chop a mortice in later life, they will have had the experience of doing something practical and (hopefully) introduced to the pleasure and satisfaction of having made something useful or beautiful by their own hand. I don't think you can give that knowledge by using a 3D printer.
