Posted on 12/14/2013 5:50:08 AM PST by Kaslin
Mike Rowe, host of the Discovery Channel series Dirty Jobs chimes in on the US education system in an interview with Nick Gillespie on Reason.Com.
click on above link if video does not play
Rowe: If we are lending money that ostensibly we don't have to kids who have no hope of making it back in order to train them for jobs that clearly don't exist, I might suggest that we've gone around the bend a little bit.
Gillespie: We are doing everything we can to push every kid to go to a four-year college. What's wrong with that?
Rowe: It's not working. You have a trillion dollars in debt on the student loan side. You have a skills gap, something [interrupted by Gillespie]
Gillespie: What do you mean a skills gap?
Rowe: Right now you have about 3 million jobs in transportation, commerce, trades, that can't be filled.
Gillespie: Anything from carpentry to electricians, plumbers,
Rowe: [interjects] Heating, electric, truck drivers, welders is a big one, jobs that typically parents don't sit down and say to their kids - look if all goes well, this is what you are going to do.
Rowe's advice is summed up in the following clip I took from the video.
Get Ready to Get Dirty
The video is a lengthy 41 minutes but Reason.com provides this synopsis so you can skip to topics that interest you.
Work Smart, Not Hard
The 3:20 mark discusses this higher education ad campaign thrust upon Rowe by Mr. Dunbar, high school guidance counselor
Picking up at the 7:50 mark ...
Gillespie: When did the idea disappear that you should learn a skill that is actually useful or in need?
Rowe: That's a good question for a real social anthropologist. My own opinion is there is a kind of inertia that most parents would agree that it exists. And it's a desire see something better for your kids than you had. The question of course is "what is better?" Is it better, right now today, to have $140,000 in debt but a degree from Georgetown, or is it better to be that kid I described in Butler.
It's an excellent interview, please listen to at least a portion of it.
My Take
I have found that one of the problems today is a lack of work ethic among youth. In other words they don’t want to work. They don’t know how to work because their parents spoiled them they expect employers to spoil them.
I was a farm boy, we raised tobacco and we learned to work beside our parents. Today kids lay around and play games and Computers. Most kids don’t even cut the grass outside their homes.
They come in late for work and then they don’t work hard when they get there.
The same goes for Volunteer jobs. Kids today don’t volunteer .
That mentality has completely killed the work ethic.
BTW, Mike Rowe hosts another show called "How Booze Built America." It's very interesting.
If the republicans were smart they would get this guy to run for office. Everything he is saying about education is 100% correct. However, the republicans aren’t that smart. So, they will keep nominating mushy, corrupt, or inept people like to Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, and Paul Ryan.
Actually, Rowe shouldn’t run for office. He’d be a great spokesperson for a campaign.
mike Rowe makes a lot of sense. I really love that guy!
He’s likeable and down to earth. People would vote for him. We need more people like him.
The guy who draws Dilbert also says not to follow your passion. I now follow Jesus. When I was younger I just followed my nose.
Sorry, I still disagree. He’s too good for D.C. The best way to use him would be as a spokesperson. He can reach out to the sheeple.
Wow.....65K a year and they bitch about getting dirty?
I always prided myself on being BlueCollar. Any dirty job, any temps, Any time.
For 65K a Year, I would clean the toilets without a brush.
While I concede your point that Mike Rowe is an effective spokesman, I respectfully disagree with your opinion as to his relative value in that role.
We need good, likable, charismatic candidates, like Rowe would be, more than we need pundits or pitchmen. We have a few good candidates now, but most are insufferable and unlikable turkeys.
Correct. Rowe needs to be a very senior adviser to the RNC and to whomever the Presidential nominee eventually is.
On the radio last night I heard a clip from Steve Schmidt, the idiot who advised McCain and the RNC. I’d love to see Mike Rowe debate him in front of a room full of real people.
Read “The Millionaire Next Door.” The vast majority of millionaires have little or no college. They own their own small business and they are conservative. They have a 10 year old car and very few of them bought it new. They live in modest homes but generally own them. If they see a penny on the sidewalk, they pick it up, not because it’s valuable but because doing so represents and attitude. (I generally pick up anywhere from one cent to 35 cents on my walk into the gym and around the gym. The kids drop it and don’t even stop to pick it up.)
“How many times have kids heard their fathers working in the factories to go to college so you don’t have to do what I’m doing? That mentality has completely killed the work ethic.”
I agree with a good portion of his comment however, I recall my granddad taking me with him when I was about 10. He was digging a ditch by shovel on a very hot summer day. His comment, as he was sweating from every pore on his body was, if you don’t want to do this your whole life, make sure you get a good education. I did and while I worked hard my whole life, I never worked like that. BTW, I graduated from college with no debt in 67 because I worked through school and lived AT HOME while commuting to school and work. IMO, the work mentality is killed at home early in one’s life by parents who kowtow to their kids rather than giving them life’s realities: you get what you work for.
“Work smart, not hard” has always been my ethic, and I tell my employees to go home early. If they can’t do that, it means I have a time management problem on my hands, and another issue to resolve. I also always evaluate myself the same way, so I know when mucking things up for those around me.
I read the previous post and then you read my mind and posted what I was thinking about that post. Amazing..
“Actually, Rowe shouldn’t run for office. He’d be a great spokesperson for a campaign.”
My suspicion is that Mike Rowe is not one hundred percent in line with conservative principles. He’s given indications he’s a greenie, and he is from the entertainment industry. But on this issue, he absolutely nails it.
I bet he grew up surrounded by libs in San Francisco, but his dirty jobs show has opened his eyes to the reality of the world.
He grew up in Baltimore, was an opera singer, stumbled into this TV hosting gig. He’s not a greenie, he does support reduction of pollutions like any sane person, but he believes the best effort on the conservation front are the profitable one, because they’re self rewarding and self sustaining. Totally out of line with modern anti-private property green.
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