Do your homework and work hard or you'll end up working in a bloody factory!

[mids2019]

This message was a lot in the 70s where I grew up.

Absolutely inappropriate now but is there a grain of truth in this approach (rephrased of course?)

Why is it inappropriate now?

we had a similar conversation with ds2 yesterday. Don’t waste this time over the summer because whilst you find GCSEs boring, without good grades your options in life are limited and that affects everything, in particular your ability to buy your own home and have the amount of money you’d like to live on
.

Education gives you choices.

Im glad I do have the qualifications I have and the job I do, so I have always said to ds that working hard at school increases your choices in life, yes.

Actually I mostly said that if you start by keeping the rules and behaving well, you can get away with murder later as the teachers assume it wasn't you. Not sure how appropriate that was. But it's true.

You can do quite well for yourself working in a factory, depends what you make of it.

Yesterday my 14yo DD went to get her nails done for the summer. She said "I wouldn't like to work in a nail bar - it's so busy and smells of chemicals". I said "that's why you need to work hard at school then!"

@User952539

Good point.

I possibly meant the phrasing and you seem to have put the point a lot more eloquently.

I was wondering if teachers would ever use the same motivational technique or is it viewed as elitist (by demeaning relatively !is skill labour)

I've always told mine that education opens doors for you - my eldest is going into Y10 this year, and I told her that although GCSE's are not the be all and end all of her life, they are the key to the next chapter.

Why is it inapporpriate to say that working hard at school will give you more employment choices? That's not a grain of truth opinion it's pretty much a fact

Or do you mean that there aren't so mant factories now? The sentiment behind it hast changed because of that.

I use the bin men. (Whose work I totally appreciate, the smell is horrible.)
I wouldn't want my child to study in the summer though, there's a reason for breaks, the brain needs to rest as well in order to perform better later.
Thankfully, there are opportunities for the right people even if they start off in a factory and I've met many people with a degree who are quite useless in a lot of everyday things.

The right job in a factory can pay exceedingly well. I'm thinking the electricians on shift allowance and taking overtime sort of example. But you could tell who were the guys who left school at 16 and learnt on the job were, and who had gone to uni and got a degree - the first lot had much nicer cars!

Why is it inappropriate now , studying hard and achieving something for yourself and family are as relevant today as any other time .

I think it’s inappropriate.

We need bin men and factory workers. It’s a good honest living.

It might make your kids buckle down and do their homework to hold these types of jobs up as an example, but it might also have the unfortunate side effect of turning them into raging snobs.

@mids2019 in school I would never use that phrase but I would say you have more choices to do jobs that are interesting and you will enjoy if you work hard. I'm also conscious of the SEN chn so we talk about very successful people who have SEN and how it's about hard work not just good qualifications.
And there is ALWAYS at least one kid who says 'my dad told me he didn't work hard at school and he now works (insert low skilled low paid job here) and he doesn't want me to do that job' which is a helpful way to discuss

There was a poster saying you could have a reasonable lifestyle in a factory (depending on the factory I guess).

That is interesting because for some of the lower achieving schools in my town I guess there is an invoiced acceptance that a lot of students will work in relatively manual jobs (especially given the schools' academic performance. I am guessing that advice such as given in my OP would possibly come out as elitist if a teacher were to say it especially as many of the parents may have relatively manual jobs?

Unspoken not invoiced

The reality is that anyone with teenagers will have to have harsh conversations with them from time to time. They’re hormonal, emotional maniacs with undeveloped brains who think they know best. If a parent is worried about using “end up working in a factory” (or similar) example because it’s unacceptable then goodness only knows how they will manage some of the tougher conversations.

@Nillynally

Good to have a teacher's perpective.

I would think with SEN children it would be inappropriate to use such a motivational technique in a school.

I like the phrase 'education gives you choices' as it is quite positive and doesn't necessarily demean the work ethic of unskilled/low skilled.workers.

I can think of worse work than factory work!

my DD has been very anxious and one thing she said that struck a chord was “if I don’t work hard at school I will be homeless”. She would be studying late and hysterical

I don’t know where this message came from but apparently some programmes were shown to kids at school about the importance of working hard.

if my child was happy and worked in a factory then I would be happy

If my child was a highly paid abs highly educated lawyer working miserable 70 hour weeks I would be sad for her

I think choice is the key here. There are many things to take into account about which jobs you might want to do. If you have good academic qualifications you may still choose to do a low paid/low status job because it fits better with your health/family/other interests. But that's a very different position from having to take a job like that because you aren't eligible for anything else, especially if you know you're capable of more.

I worked admin side in a factory a while ago. The factory ran itself - productions lines required few humans to keep things running. Engineers were using AI headsets, so when a machine broke, the goggles would flash up on screen the engineering parts they needed and the computer diagnostics to help them fix it.

With robotics and AI and block chain, you’ll be lucky to get a decent job in a factory in the next generation.

I think today my fear is more the zero hours contract - irregular income and no job security.

I don’t like phrases like that at all. There are ways to encourage children to do well academically without implying that people who do certain jobs didn’t work hard at school. Things are much more complicated than that.

Also - my mum worked in retail and she actually had customers say similar things to their children about her while she was standing in front of them. I can’t imagine how anybody could be so rude.

@BeethovenNinth

I can relate to a fear of poverty that acted as a spur for academic achievement but I can relate to the psychological consequences of persistent fear of failure.

Your DD seems to have been quite distressed so it would be interesting to know what exactly had been said/taught.

I came from a relatively working class community in different times and certainly primary school teachers would come out with phrases of a similar sentiment to my original one (this was at the end of corporal punishment in schools so different times indeed)

Bin men where I live earn quite a decent pay. And have a bloody good pension too.

They get paid more than me and I have a job that requires a degree.

(software development & it’s also been my job to fix robotics in factories)

There's nothing wrong with working in a factory or being a bin man. We need people to do all sorts of jobs.
Telling kids they'll end up working in a factory, if they do, they will feel like a failure.

We don't use specific jobs as an expensive, cause who knows that they'll want to to.

But we do go down the line of education and qualifications giving you choice and more freedom. And that sometimes the career path you choose leads to more money, which can make life more comfortable.