In an accompanying aritcle to the PM's list of 25 skills every man
should know!
a discussion of whether Americans are losing their DIY skills.

Are they or are the skills needed just changing?

Your thoughts?

I suspect it is a bit of both.

TMT

http://www.popularmechanics.com/home...o/4221637.html

By Glenn Harlan Reynolds
Illustration by Paul Blow
Photograph by Burcu Avsar
Published in the October 2007 issue.


Science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein once wrote: "A human being
should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog,
conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts,
build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders,
cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch
manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die
gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

That's a tall order. Although I can only do some of those things, I
approve of the principle. Now*adays, though, we're specializing more.
A popular Internet essay is titled: "I Can't Do One-Quarter of the
Things My Father Can." Are hands-on skills-building things, fixing
things, operating machines and so on-really in decline?

I think so. SAT scores provide a record of academic performance, but
there's no equivalent archive for tracking handiness. There is,
however, a lot of anecdotal evidence that what used to be taken for
granted as ordinary mechanical skills now amounts to something
unusual. When I recently wrote on my Web site about the importance of
giving kids hands-on toys, a reader e-mailed: "Boy, can I second [your
point about] the lack of basic skills in adults. I volunteer with
Habitat for Humanity here in Los Angeles. The volunteers who come out
frequently can't do something as basic as using a tape measure. ...
Many of my Saturdays are effectively clinics on how to pound a nail."

Even the simplest of automotive tasks, changing a tire, seems to be
beyond the ken of many people. According to AAA, nearly 4 million
motorists requested roadside assistance last year-for flat tires.

And just look at the Popular Mechanics Boy Mechanic books to see the
kinds of skills that boys and teenagers were once routinely expected
to possess. These books (which PM published in the early 20th century
and recently reissued) assumed that young readers would be prepared to
construct a fully rigged ice boat, a toy steam engine, or-I'm not
kidding-a homebuilt "Bearcat" roadster powered by a motorcycle
engine.

It's hard to imagine too many teenagers tackling projects of that
magnitude these days. To be fair, young people today are likely to
have skills that earlier generations never dreamed of-building Web
sites, say, or editing digital movies. But manipulating pixels and
working with physical materials aren't quite the same thing.

Does this matter? And if people are becoming less mechanically handy,
is that so bad? I think so-and not just because specialization is for
insects.


We don't all have to be MacGyver, but from time to time all of us will
face problems that can't be addressed with a laptop and a cellphone.
In a genuine emergency, having some basic manual skills could be the
difference between surviving comfortably and being totally helpless.

I think that a modicum of ability in dealing with the physical world
is good even for those of us whose jobs are mostly cerebral. Engineer
Vannevar Bush, one of the great minds of the 20th century, made his
mark on everything from the Manhattan Project to the development of
computers. But when he wasn't commanding vast enterprises, Bush spent
a lot of time in his basement workshop building things. He said that
trying to make a finished project match his blueprints taught him
humility and problem solving.

Shop classes and the Boy Scouts used to teach a lot of real-world
skills, but both have faded under the onslaught of budget cuts and
shifting political winds. (Shop isn't just for boys: My wife took shop
in high school, and is glad she did.) The traditional father-son route
for teaching these skills has also weakened, as many fathers lack the
requisite skills themselves, and others, because of divorce, don't
have as much opportunity.

I don't think the decline in hands-on skills is irreversible. In fact,
it might be starting to turn around. The boom in home reno*vation has
led many people to brush up their DIY chops. Home Depot and other
retailers are finding success offering workshops in basic techniques.

We're also seeing changes in our popular culture. One example is the
best-selling status of The Dangerous Book for Boys, by the brothers
Conn and Hal Iggulden. It hearkens back to the Boy Scout manuals and *
other boys' books of the early 20th century, with instructions on how
to build go-karts, bows and arrows, rafts and more. The book's success
tells me people are interested in regaining lost ground. (It works,
too: I gave my 8-year-old nephew a copy, and it got him away from the
Xbox and into the outdoors.)

Conn Iggulden tells me he hopes the book inspires fathers to get out
in the yard with their sons to build catapults and the like. "Most
boys will value something they do with their dad, and they'll have an
experience they'll value for the rest of their lives," he says. "If
you show them how to beat the next level on the Xbox, it won't last
the rest of their lives."

We can start with our own families, but there's no reason to stop
there. Most people can do more than they think they can, and it's
often fear of failure as much as lack of skill that keeps people from
tackling hands-on tasks. So the next time you see somebody by the side
of the road, waiting for AAA, pull over and show them how to use a
tire iron. Who knows? It just might catch on.