STANDING UP FOR “DIRTY JOBS.”

Rowe explained that “dirty” jobs, like those in manufacturing and farming, used to mean success, but now look like settling. He wants that to change.

“I don’t think the country is going to fall back in love with manufacturing and I don’t think these policies are going to change, until or unless we reignite a fundamental relationship with dirt, work, and the business of making things, as opposed to the business of buying them,” he said.

He said one of reasons this is occurring is because community colleges and vocational education have taken the backseat to four-year college degrees.

“It’s not happening because people hate community colleges, it’s not happening because people hate the trades, it’s happening because we’re promoting a very specific kind of education at the expense of the others,” he said.

Indeed.

UPDATE: Reader Stephen Clark writes:

To Mike Rowe’s comments: Bravo! Decreasing support for vocational education has been one of the great mistakes in secondary education of the last 40 years. My grandmother on my mother’s side was the oldest of five children: 4 sisters and 1 brother. Her father was a house painter and wallpaperer and taught all of his children the trade – in the first decades of the 20th century. He believed, no matter what they did eventually, that all his children should have a trade at which they could earn a living on their own. Not bad advice then … or now.

And another reader emails:

I am a Looong time reader but have never contacted you. This made me want to. I am a very smart woman from a book-smart but not blue-collar family and I am a plumber. I sought this job out about five years ago and I think that I love my job more than almost anyone I know. I need a combination of mechanical intelligence (Obvious), social intelligence (you have to communicate with customers), and independence ( I am an employee of a medium-sized company but am on my own in the field (though I can call if I run into trouble)). I know that there is not an infinite demand for everyone in the U.S. to repair their neighbors house problems but damn, the high efficiency natural gas boilers come with computer controls and a 100 page manual. No-one should be ashamed to be the one who can come and make someone’s life better (If my grammar or spelling is off, I never claimed to have verbal intelligence :) )

No problem.

And reader Hugh Donohue notes that Rowe has a TED talk on the subject.