On Mar 13, 10:12*pm, "Ed Pawlowski" wrote:
"RonB" wrote

I know his intentions are good. *But the kids who walk out of his shop
class are not going to be scared enough. *It used to **** me off when
my high school shop teacher yelled about safety. *I understand now.

If they start filling the schools with that technology, guess
what...............

RonB

So you think it is better to have a finger or two cut off to keep the kids
attention up?

No. But I went through two years of high school shop and one college
cabinet course where safety was stressed on a continuous basis. I
never knew of a student who had a serious problem, but I know problems
do happen.

My first few encounters with a Unisaw scared the hell out of me, and I
believe that was a very health emotion at that point of my life. But
if the kid walks up to a machine that he/she knows cannot injure, how
do they learn respect? Frankly, it is difficult enough to teach some
of these kids respect anyway. Some of them will learn when the walk
onto a job site with a conventional machine, then their boss will get
his ass sued off because they did something stupid.

Even worse, they might not learn at all. The budget crunches are
making it difficult enough to keep wood technology in the school's
curriculums. Our school has had a wood-shop since the early 1950's.
The lone remaining, ancient Unisaw is on its last legs (I swear it is
the same one I used in the late 60's). The teacher went to the board
with a proposal to buy a couple of new Grizzly's that would set them
back about $2,300. Guess what? The school counselor advised her to
hold off because, guess what?.... the court cases regarding Saw-Stop.
She said if she has to cough up $6-7K, she is going to have to shut
down the wood shop and go strictly to metal fab and welding. Then they
will be open to litigation when some day-dreaming kid forgets to pull
the hood down and injures his or her eyes.

I just think we should LEARN safety without the government standing
over us. We are becoming so regulated, a damned pocket knife will
cost $3000 one of these days.

RonB