Re: ??? ??? ???=the nature of students

[Leigh Palmer <palmer@sfu.ca>]

Hugh Haskell notes:

> Let me suggest another possible reason why students do not interact with
> the real world as much as they used to: complexity.

For someone who has rebuilt a carburetor I think Hugh does not comprehend
the problem fully. Most of these kids have never done anything a tenth so
complicated as that! When I was 13 years old my father, who had purchased
a kaiser automobile and been foolish enough to have its head shaved (to
boost its compression ratio), became tired of replacing blown head gaskets
every 5,000 miles or so. He decided that I was trainable to perform that
simple task (an order of magnitude easier than rebuilding a carburetor,
for those among you who have had neither experience) and it became one of
my chores. Soon after I read "Tom Sawyer" and understood what had happened
to me.

It was so commonplace to remove the tubes from a radio or television and
test them that supermarkets had tube testers conveniently located for
their customers' use. While I did enjoy the status of a hero in my
neighborhood at one time because I could fix radios (often only a dial
light replacement was necessary to get a six tube AC-DC superhet back in
working order), clearly there were many others around who could perform
similar feats. Otherwise supermarkets would not have had tube testers.

I think the problem is much more profound than Hugh makes it out to be. Of
course he is right; the automobile is no longer as approachable as it used
to be*. However I'd love to have a nickel for every major appliance
(microwave oven, stereo, etc.) that has been junked by its owner because
it ceased to work, when often no more than the replacement of a fuse would
have cured the difficulty. On a microwave oven of mine that has now ceased
to work altogether I replaced a fuse at least five times over its twenty
year lifetime. The thing was clearly marked with warnings and the notice
"No user serviceable parts inside" when a Buss fuse was all it needed. I
had to remove the cover, however, to replace the fuse. The notice is CYA!

I get a buzz out of fixing such things; I want my students to have the
same experiences. They don't do these things; as Hugh says, at best they
take them them to repairmen only slightly more competent than themseves,
who then "Re & re" modules, often more modules than are absolutely
necessary to fix the device in question. At worst they discard the items
and purchase new ones!

Leigh

*Last month the side window electric winder on my Dodge Caravan gave up.
I opened up the door and found the difficulty, a single flexible plastic
toothed rack had fatigued and broken. I decided to have the dealer replace
it and put the door back together. It cost me C$100 to fix for one broken
plastic part, incuding our not inconsiderable Canadian taxes.