Learning manual work

As we all know, we don't learn any manual work in school anymore. It is a subject that should still be taught, especially nowadays when we try to reduce our carbon footprint.

In our current society, we buy everything, and if something breaks, we buy a new one. If we learned how to work with wood and sew, we could buy less and repair things that break or modify objects that we don't need any more to make new useful items that we need and want. For example, with clothing, you can modify a dress to make a shirt if there is a stain or a hole in the skirt, or carve some wood that was from an old box to make a new decoration item.

Furthermore, by learning manual work, we could develop new skills that we are not able to develop in other classes as we are manipulating materials and thinking what to make and how. The art classes that we have in middle school are a great start to develop those skills, but we could go further and it would benefit the students all their life. It would also make it possible to change the popular view that to be intelligent, you have to be good at math and science in general and that there aren't any other ways, by changing it to the fact that there are many different kinds of intelligence. Students that have difficulties with science but are good with the manual discipline would not be marginalised and seen as stupid, but would be helped to find an appropriate study path that would allow them to be happy and succeed in their careers.
Céline