Shop Class College Shop Class

Shop Class College Shop Class as Soulcraft: Packaging for College In Shop Class as Soulcraft, his philosophical look at modern society, author Matthew Crawford uses a fair amount of space to draw a connection between the changing way in which college "prepares" students for professional life and the concept of the "corporate culture" to which most will -- or at least will hope to -- matriculate.

He does not limit his criticism of the modern collegiate system to one area, but rather examines several ways in which it fails to live up to the ideals either of the past or even those it purports to instill and represent today.

He also mentions the possibility of a way in which colleges ironically do prepare students for professional careers, though not at all in the ways they mean to -- or at least, not in the ways that the students, their parents, and other less cynical members of society expect them to.

College, Crawford asserts, is no longer perceived as a means towards the intrinsically valuable ends knowledge and personal fulfillment, but rather is simply an another way for society to codify and classify individuals into a hierarchy of success, which then self-perpetuates. In a way, Crawford maintains, this actually does prepare individuals for life in a corporate culture, where the work has no real concrete output and success must therefore be measured by adherence to certain intangible standards.

It does not prepare students for real work, however, or for engaging in what Aristotle thought was the natural human desire to learn. Corporate culture also shifts the focus from an internal sense of achievement and worth to something measured externally by the group at large, again because there is usually no tangible product. An office worker can't point to his spreadsheet and say, "see, I did it perfectly!," so instead the group must determine if the method of the doing was adequate and fulfilling.

I completely agree with the conclusions Crawford draws in this section of his book, as I have agreed with almost everything else he says in Shop Class as Soulcraft. I was recently exposed to some excerpts from the Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell, in which the retired general basically says that so-called "theories of management" and "leadership styles" are a useless waste of time -- each and every situation calls for an examination of facts and a plan of action. That's it, plain and simple.

Issues of respect and responsibility are also important, but the corporate culture that purports to bolster these things through team-building seminars and sexual harassment workshops actually limits personal responsibility, including the responsibility to show respect, and places the onus on the corporate community as a whole.

This cuts both ways; not only is the individual fault of an act reduced because of blame placed on the system ("its not is fault he's a misogynistic jerk; our company needs more sensitivity training"), but credit must also be shared ("this new innovation that John brought to.