[somewhereoutth]

Excellent article, and a very interesting look into how a society may accelerate its development.

Perhaps maker spaces are born of a similar ethos, though of course very stem driven.

Unfortunately it seems that as formal education has become more institutionalised and more necessary as a marker for employability, doing anything remotely 'bookish' in your free time has become almost definitively 'uncool'. A shame.

[jacquesm]

> doing anything remotely 'bookish' in your free time has become almost definitively 'uncool'

This is a very serious problem and I can see this every day with my kids. They have so much peer pressure on them that they find it very hard to do those things that they would like to do because it makes them 'uncool'. The result is that they have a part of their life that they keep away from their school mates. Supporting them in their endeavors helps them but it isn't enough to fully compensate for the desire to belong and have approval from their peers.

[bsder]

> Perhaps maker spaces are born of a similar ethos, though of course very stem driven.

Huh? Most makerspaces are not at all STEM driven.

In the US, most makerspaces are driven by woodworking. Metalworking and 3D printing generally take up the next tier in a makerspace of usage. Electronics and STEM stuff is generally the bottom of utilization, sadly.

It's simply really hard to come up with good electronics projects that don't also need a pretty solid software background nowadays. That's just really a step too far for most people.

By contrast, there are lots of projects that a couple of hours in a woodshop makes something interesting and semi-useful.

[somewhereoutth]

Anytime you try to make a 3D thing (and many 2D things) you are doing STEM. I feel the distinction between 'blue collar' e.g. woodworking and 'white collar' technology, and indeed 'purple collar' art & design, to be unhelpful - unless of course to segregate out the 'bookish'!

[bsder]

A carpenter, woodworker, roofer, plumber, welder, etc. would be kind of surprised with your definition of STEM, but, okay.

If that's your definition, you do you.

[somewhereoutth]

> you do you

What? Such an asinine statement.

Clearly anything that involves shaping the physical world will have the hard sciences as its foundation. There is a sort of reverse snobbery going on here - 'too cool for school', it is unfortunate to see.

[bsder]

STEM means "science, technology, engineering and math". And, in fact, is almost always about a degree in the aforementioned areas as it was coined by the NSF in 2001.

You can fool yourself and try to appropriate the acronym STEM for whatever definition you please in service of whatever goal you wish; however, the US government is quite clear as to what a STEM job or degree is. I guarantee that welders, woodworkers, etc. will not be granted a STEM visa to the US.

[somewhereoutth]

In the context of this discussion I was using STEM in the most general sense, i.e. maker spaces tend to be more STEM or craft and technology orientated, as opposed to e.g. literature, social sciences, etc. That should be clear to most I feel - informal learning environments don't provide degrees (almost by definition), so the rigorous usage of the term does not apply.

[dsq]

Better defined as occupational tradesmen/tradespersons.

[yobbo]

> Perhaps maker spaces are born of a similar ethos

There are strains of ideas and phenomena here that are probably not decipherable to outsiders. Applying for subsidies for "study circles" would be considered as abuse of the system or even fraudulent in some circles. In other circles, receiving any subsidy from the government is considered justified and right by default.

Its effect on economic development is probably negligible (but how would you determine that?). It can rather be viewed as one of many tolerated ways of receiving money in exchange for the effort of doing the paperwork.

It's a phenomenon that looks different to different people.

[dsq]

I can reassure you that the uncoolness of books had existed for at least since I was in school (a looong time ago). Books have never been the cool thing.

[rhn_mk1]

It sounds like you're comparing the situation outlined in the article to somewhere you're familiar with when you say 'bookish' is 'uncool'. Where is that?

[zdragnar]

A friend of mine from college said he was accused of "acting white" for trying to get good grades in school when he was younger. I forget if it was Detroit or Minneapolis, but either would be likely. Minnesota has (or at least had) the US's largest gap between racial achievement in education.

More broadly speaking, even when I was growing up being a "nerd" (what the kids would say instead of bookish) was always uncool. It's practically a trope in American media since we had media as such. Smart, brainy kids are juxtaposed against the "cool" jocks and popular crowd.

[somewhereoutth]

Gen X Anglosphere

[embedded_hiker]

And long before Gen X.

[heywhatupboys]

> doing anything remotely 'bookish' in your free time has become almost definitively 'uncool'

teaching kids work-life balance seems like a great idea