Great article on the need for tactile intelligence in high tech jobs

Great article on the need for tactile intelligence in high tech manufacturing jobs

Why kids and workers need to get their hands dirty - Harvard Business Review
https://hbr.org/2013/10/why-kids-and-workers-need-to-get-their-hands-dirty

"Expertise is built through practice. The more time our “digital native” kids spend on entertainment media, the more we lose the tactile intelligence critical to design and manufacture physical products.   So let’s encourage children to start physically building and tinkering again. Let’s encourage schools to let students dirty their hands in projects and experiments. Let’s close the gaps we already see in the next generation of workers. And let’s enable the tactile intelligence we need to remain competitive in our growing global marketplace."

Good insights about people who take blacksmith classes

Good insights about people who take blacksmith classes, a series of four blog posts by Rhoda Weber Mack. I think the Keyboard Geek is a lot of us these days:

 

"Many of us spend our days working our qwerty in the cyber economy. Our backs sag into a chair all day, while our fingers make small rapid motions, and our eyeballs flick over the screen. Except for a twitch of protest now and then from unused muscles, we barely move anything but fingers and eyeballs.

The essential wiring between brain and body unravels, and the connection between willpower and physical action frazzles.  We’re not even sure anymore what the body can do, and we certainly have no connection to the demanding physical life that 2/3 of the planet’s human population experiences.

Now look at the body of the blacksmith. His body moves easily between the fire and the anvil. His hammer hand swings with intention, and the iron bends to his will. Watching the blacksmith work hot iron is a dramatic display of human thought and will changing the physical world."

Who Takes a Metal Arts Class? Part 1, Master Classes
http://archive.iceforge.com/blog/?p=1

Who Takes a Metal Arts Class? Part 2, The Career Explorer
http://archive.iceforge.com/blog/?p=5

Who Takes a Metal Arts Class? Part 3, The Artist
http://archive.iceforge.com/blog/?p=15

Who Takes a Metal Arts Class? Part 4, The Keyboard Geek
http://archive.iceforge.com/blog/?cat=3