My dad was an engineer. He never stopped; he brought his engineering work home and most probably took his home engineering to work. He was always looking for an alternative or ‘borrowing’ a technique from another field.

He was my role model, or maybe it was in the genes? Some of my primary teachers liked the way their “Day on The Beach” composition title became my “Life of the Crab” - half didn’t. As a budding artist I was told, “The sky is blue, the grass is green” or “Draw your people larger”, (ignore perspective). Stick to convention, to what they had been taught. Don’t question.

My work life has been similar, amazing half my employers and disturbing the rest; no analysis’, no questions. I haven’t learnt!

Why do ‘we’ need engineers? We the Institution? Well it exists only to meet a need, it has no intrinsic right to survive. We the nation? I have my doubts. The nation is still ruled by a classically trained administrative class, the heirs of Churchill, who kept his ‘experts on tap, not on top’. What sort of engineers do we need? Does it matter what ‘group’ they come from? Do we question the disproportionate use of steel in bridge building? Shouldn’t we be using more silver or silicon?

Should engineering be a ‘trade’? Teach the approved syllabus, pass the approved exams, and follow the approved procedures? A trade that if not exactly ‘feminised’ has become that of the conventional, compliant and conforming ‘craftsperson’ that fits the social ‘engineers’ (sic) ‘equality’ and ‘diversity’, (diverse in appearance, identical in thought), models?

Should it be a trade that can be taught at school? “Here is the specification, here is the design, here are the parts, put them together”, or “This is how to format a paragraph in ‘Word 2000’ – yes I know your parents have ‘Windows 10’ and you won’t meet either at work”. Trades like those of the wheelwright, the saddler and the weaver, unchanged, unchanging and now essentially unwanted.

There are a lot of questions to be asked before we go looking for our ‘Rock Stars’.

 

 

My dad was an engineer. He never stopped; he brought his engineering work home and most probably took his home engineering to work. He was always looking for an alternative or ‘borrowing’ a technique from another field.

He was my role model, or maybe it was in the genes? Some of my primary teachers liked the way their “Day on The Beach” composition title became my “Life of the Crab” - half didn’t. As a budding artist I was told, “The sky is blue, the grass is green” or “Draw your people larger”, (ignore perspective). Stick to convention, to what they had been taught. Don’t question.

My work life has been similar, amazing half my employers and disturbing the rest; no analysis’, no questions. I haven’t learnt!

Why do ‘we’ need engineers? We the Institution? Well it exists only to meet a need, it has no intrinsic right to survive. We the nation? I have my doubts. The nation is still ruled by a classically trained administrative class, the heirs of Churchill, who kept his ‘experts on tap, not on top’. What sort of engineers do we need? Does it matter what ‘group’ they come from? Do we question the disproportionate use of steel in bridge building? Shouldn’t we be using more silver or silicon?

Should engineering be a ‘trade’? Teach the approved syllabus, pass the approved exams, and follow the approved procedures? A trade that if not exactly ‘feminised’ has become that of the conventional, compliant and conforming ‘craftsperson’ that fits the social ‘engineers’ (sic) ‘equality’ and ‘diversity’, (diverse in appearance, identical in thought), models?

Should it be a trade that can be taught at school? “Here is the specification, here is the design, here are the parts, put them together”, or “This is how to format a paragraph in ‘Word 2000’ – yes I know your parents have ‘Windows 10’ and you won’t meet either at work”. Trades like those of the wheelwright, the saddler and the weaver, unchanged, unchanging and now essentially unwanted.

There are a lot of questions to be asked before we go looking for our ‘Rock Stars’.