Devaluing professions

[Klukie]

The very nature of our educational system plays a huge role in the devaluing of honorable professions. When we have a system that pushes our children to strive to be the "best" rather than striving to do their best, it is no wonder that certain professions will be held in higher esteem.

[Donnachaidh]

1. pushing our kids to be SERVANTS

Have you noticed the for-profit college ads? ALL of the *careers* are based on *serving* - and not at an upper level. Medical assistants, parole officers, chefs....

WHO are they being trained to serve? The elites who CAN afford Ivy League colleges. The middle class is being re-worked into a fascist form of serfdom. And the ironic part? THEY are paying huge fees to learn how to be a servant.

:grr:

[Klukie]

2. I think you misunderstood my post...

I believe there is value in all professions...even the service professions. Every profession deserves respect and with the loss of respect comes the loss of wages and rights. We could and should do better....after all not everyone can be a rocket scientist!!

[Donnachaidh]

6. but when you CLOSE the outlets to the masses who might be CAPABLE of

being a *rocket scientist* -- and that is exactly what is happening, you produce a generation of serfs. We should be opening doors TO the higher classes, rather than telling our kid's that *an honest day's work* is all they can expect to find in their future.

[Klukie]

7. Yes but I thought it was middle class jobs that were being lost

[Hannah Bell]

11. rocket scientist used to be a middle-class job.

[elocs]

3. Absolutely! There is honor in doing anything that is an honest day's work.

That's what I used to tell the kids I was supervising for their court-ordered community service when they were cleaning the floors at our local university.

They would not be worth less or be less valuable people if they were working at the university as custodians rather than attending it. I have a boyhood friend who has worked as a custodian there for years and I have done the same job myself for a good number of years (and I have a bachelor's degree from that university).

I do not judge myself or measure myself by what I do to make money because I am more than that. Each job I do I perform to the best of my ability just as if I were working for myself because in my heart and mind I am.

[Klukie]

4. +1000000

:hi:

[elocs]

5. I was temping a few years ago as a custodian for my local public school district.

It was kind of a kick because I got to work in the schools I went to as a kid, from my grade school as a little boy, to my junior high school, and then my high school. While working at my high school I was surprised to find that one of my teachers from 40 years earlier was still teaching there and still in the same room. I got to meet him in the hallway and he asked my name and then he told me that he remember I was a good student. I told my fellow workers that he probably had thousands of ex-students, so how would he remember me. They told me that if he said he remembered me, then he did. That was nice.

(Read your profile, and I was born in Westfield, NY although I have only been there once in the last 48 years. I would always tell people it is near Erie, PA.)

[Whisp]

8. wonderful post.

sometimes you think everyone is supposed to be doctors and lawyers to be 'successful'. What a bunch of hooey.

Every job is important, every last one.
Lets see how we can survive without the 'garbage picker uppers'.

We are trained to be snobs and too many of us get suckered in, like everything else

[elocs]

9. I happened to arrive home one morning when my garbage collector was at my house.

I smiled and told him "thanks!" and I bet that made his day.

You are right, too many people (even Democrats) are snobs and elitists at heart. It takes many kinds of people doing many different jobs to make this nation run. Not all of them are able or have the ability to attend college, not all of them want to do so.

[Klukie]

10. Every job is important ....exactly!!

[Hannah Bell]

12. look, idealistically, there may be. but IN REALITY, there isn't -- those jobs aren't

PAID as though they had value, the people who do them aren't TREATED as though they had value.

so you can TELL kids anything you like, but kids can't help but see that the SOCIAL REALITY is quite different.

better to tell them a larger story about class struggle; that all work has value & dignity, BUT....