Introduction:
(page number)(content or question)
3 What are you being educated for? What kind of job?
3 Virtualism. What does the author mean by this term? What does it mean to work in the virtual world?
3 Much skilled labor requires localization. "skilled labor is becoming one of the few sure paths to a good living." WSJ. So, why are you here? Why not become plumbers?
4 What does the author mean by full human flourishing?
4 Does the use of tools answer to some permenant requirement of our nature?
6 The author refers to an "ethics of maintenance." What is
6 Is the life of labor simpler? What are the relationships we can think of when we think of "labor" and "working class"?
7 Why is it that simplicity in interface requires increasing complexity of our technologies and devices?
7 What do you consider to be meaningful work?
7 How do you ensure a high degree of self-reliance? What is autonomy if not self-reliance?
7 Are we becoming stupider?
7 How are we able to control impersonal forces and influences coming from afar? What are some examples of impersonal forces? What does it mean to "move in channels that have been projected from afar by vast impersonal forces"?
8 How much of your own stuff do you feel you can take care of? What are some degrees of "taking care of"?
8 Can we take care of problems we don't understand very well? What does it take to make our world intelligible?
8 Teamwork... how many of you like teamwork? What is it that you don't like? What is it that you like?
9 What is the difference between knowledge and projection of confidence? Does knowing something make you confident? Does having an experience make you confident?
9 Productive labor as the foundation of all prosperity.... versus meta-work. What value is created in shuffling mortgages? What value is created in turning raw materials into tools?
10 How do you make yourself useful?
I. A Brief Case for the Useful Arts:
(page number)(content or question)
11 "We have a generation of students that can answer questions on standardized tests, know factoids, but they can't do anything." How do you feel about this statement? How does it compare with your experiences before getting to college? How does it compare with your experiences in college?
13 What is the "best job you can imagine?"
14 Why do something well, for its own sake?
14 In what ways can you tranform the world and the way to world works? What is this process of transformation?
15 "The satisfactions of manifesting oneself concretely in the world..." Can you give me an example here?
15 What activities are worth pursuing? Should we only pursue the things that save us or make us money?
16 Things can be made to help us with our needs, but when something doesn't work, we are forced to ask what it needs.
17 To get outside of one's head and to notice things, looking carefully and paying attention.
18 "Being able to think materially about material goods, hence critically, gives one some idependence from the manipulations of marketing, which as Sennett points out typically divert attention from what a thing is to a backstory intimated through associations, the point of which is to exaggerate minor differences between brands."
18 More utilitarian in approach, and more independent. Independent of what here?
19 "Such a strong ontology is somewhat at odds with the cutting-edge institutions of th enew capitalism, and with the education regime that aims to supply those institutions with suitable workers- pliable generalists unfettered by any single set of skills."
19 How do your skills determine your possibilities? How does your skillset limit you? Do you feel as though your future is already determined? Or do you feel it is open?
20 Taking pride in being good at something specific comes from experience it took get get good.
21 Linking hand and brain. (Reference to Mind at Work)
21 "Manual labor entails a systematic encounter with the material world..." What is a systematic encounter? What is it about manual labor that entails systematic encounters? "...precisely the kind of encounter that gives rise to natural science."
21 "Sophia" greek for wisdom, but also for skill. What is it about skill that relates to wisdom?
22 Technological developments typically preceed and even give rise to scientific understanding. Why would this be the case? How do the two opperate differently?
22 In science, wisdom remained connected to nature, yet science adopted assumptions and "esoteric" concepts to adhere to a mathematical reality.
24 What does it mean to produce a "realistic" solution to a given problem? The origami? Why can we not reduce all aspects of mechanical work to rule following?
26 "...the attractiveness of any hypothesis is determined in part by physical circumstances that have no logical connection to the diagnostic problem at hand, but a strong pragmatic bearing on it."
27 The author discusses having a feeling of a place in society. What is this place/feeling he is talking about?
27 Given the richness of manual work, cognitively and socially, why is it so routinely undervalued?
28 Stepping back a bit, we are now concerned with the idea of the assembly line. What is the idea of the assembly line? Who invented it? What did it do?
31 Two-tracked scheme for training industrial education in this country, labor versus gentleman craftsman,
32 What do you think of in terms of "the knowledge economy"? Is this what you think you are being trained for? Are we "postindustrial"? Yes/no? What are the signs of being "post-industrial"?
33 What kind of jobs require high levels of education? Why?
33 What sort of jobs cannot be off-shored?
34 Architects can be offshored, but can builders?
34 Not whether it is a service industry job, but if it is rule-based / procedure-based.
35 What is the difference between problem solving and problem finding? Or, defining the problem?
(page number)(content or question)
3 What are you being educated for? What kind of job?
3 Virtualism. What does the author mean by this term? What does it mean to work in the virtual world?
3 Much skilled labor requires localization. "skilled labor is becoming one of the few sure paths to a good living." WSJ. So, why are you here? Why not become plumbers?
4 What does the author mean by full human flourishing?
4 Does the use of tools answer to some permenant requirement of our nature?
6 The author refers to an "ethics of maintenance." What is
6 Is the life of labor simpler? What are the relationships we can think of when we think of "labor" and "working class"?
7 Why is it that simplicity in interface requires increasing complexity of our technologies and devices?
7 What do you consider to be meaningful work?
7 How do you ensure a high degree of self-reliance? What is autonomy if not self-reliance?
7 Are we becoming stupider?
7 How are we able to control impersonal forces and influences coming from afar? What are some examples of impersonal forces? What does it mean to "move in channels that have been projected from afar by vast impersonal forces"?
8 How much of your own stuff do you feel you can take care of? What are some degrees of "taking care of"?
8 Can we take care of problems we don't understand very well? What does it take to make our world intelligible?
8 Teamwork... how many of you like teamwork? What is it that you don't like? What is it that you like?
9 What is the difference between knowledge and projection of confidence? Does knowing something make you confident? Does having an experience make you confident?
9 Productive labor as the foundation of all prosperity.... versus meta-work. What value is created in shuffling mortgages? What value is created in turning raw materials into tools?
10 How do you make yourself useful?
I. A Brief Case for the Useful Arts:
(page number)(content or question)
11 "We have a generation of students that can answer questions on standardized tests, know factoids, but they can't do anything." How do you feel about this statement? How does it compare with your experiences before getting to college? How does it compare with your experiences in college?
13 What is the "best job you can imagine?"
14 Why do something well, for its own sake?
14 In what ways can you tranform the world and the way to world works? What is this process of transformation?
15 "The satisfactions of manifesting oneself concretely in the world..." Can you give me an example here?
15 What activities are worth pursuing? Should we only pursue the things that save us or make us money?
16 Things can be made to help us with our needs, but when something doesn't work, we are forced to ask what it needs.
17 To get outside of one's head and to notice things, looking carefully and paying attention.
18 "Being able to think materially about material goods, hence critically, gives one some idependence from the manipulations of marketing, which as Sennett points out typically divert attention from what a thing is to a backstory intimated through associations, the point of which is to exaggerate minor differences between brands."
18 More utilitarian in approach, and more independent. Independent of what here?
19 "Such a strong ontology is somewhat at odds with the cutting-edge institutions of th enew capitalism, and with the education regime that aims to supply those institutions with suitable workers- pliable generalists unfettered by any single set of skills."
19 How do your skills determine your possibilities? How does your skillset limit you? Do you feel as though your future is already determined? Or do you feel it is open?
20 Taking pride in being good at something specific comes from experience it took get get good.
21 Linking hand and brain. (Reference to Mind at Work)
21 "Manual labor entails a systematic encounter with the material world..." What is a systematic encounter? What is it about manual labor that entails systematic encounters? "...precisely the kind of encounter that gives rise to natural science."
21 "Sophia" greek for wisdom, but also for skill. What is it about skill that relates to wisdom?
22 Technological developments typically preceed and even give rise to scientific understanding. Why would this be the case? How do the two opperate differently?
22 In science, wisdom remained connected to nature, yet science adopted assumptions and "esoteric" concepts to adhere to a mathematical reality.
24 What does it mean to produce a "realistic" solution to a given problem? The origami? Why can we not reduce all aspects of mechanical work to rule following?
26 "...the attractiveness of any hypothesis is determined in part by physical circumstances that have no logical connection to the diagnostic problem at hand, but a strong pragmatic bearing on it."
27 The author discusses having a feeling of a place in society. What is this place/feeling he is talking about?
27 Given the richness of manual work, cognitively and socially, why is it so routinely undervalued?
28 Stepping back a bit, we are now concerned with the idea of the assembly line. What is the idea of the assembly line? Who invented it? What did it do?
31 Two-tracked scheme for training industrial education in this country, labor versus gentleman craftsman,
32 What do you think of in terms of "the knowledge economy"? Is this what you think you are being trained for? Are we "postindustrial"? Yes/no? What are the signs of being "post-industrial"?
33 What kind of jobs require high levels of education? Why?
33 What sort of jobs cannot be off-shored?
34 Architects can be offshored, but can builders?
34 Not whether it is a service industry job, but if it is rule-based / procedure-based.
35 What is the difference between problem solving and problem finding? Or, defining the problem?
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