Ratzenberger spoke to a manufacturing conference I attended in Orlando about 4 years ago. He was just starting his push about shop classes at that time. It was a good presentation.
This stuff always reminds me of the Phillip K Dick short story “The Variable man”.
Some 200 years in our future is a war between earth and the Alpha Centauri empire and both societies are fully dedicated to the war and evenly matched. Both societies are so highly specialized and bred for their specialties that they become incapable of doing even the simplest things outside their training and class.
The variable man was plucked out of time from right around the time of the first world war. He threw “modern” society into chaos because he could fix things in a world where he should have been completely useless.
The book is out of copywrite so you can grab it here if you’re interested.
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32154