Supreme Court Ruling Griggs v. Duke Power in the mid-70's ruled that you could not test for general intelligence in hiring. Of course this has been expanded by lawyers and their social ilk into not testing for much of anything. It's all CYA. It's worse in large businesses than small because of professional HR. Perhaps the best route is through a "trial period" as a temp or intern, if someone is smart and wants to work, just about everything else (within reason) will follow. Take it from a former philosophy major, bicycle mechanic, prison warden who now designs circuit boards and manages a lab which does radiation hardness testing. Go figure... -----Original Message----- From: David J. Sanchez [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Friday, January 05, 2001 11:15 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [TN] IMHO I am wondering why you don't test your applicants on those basics before you offer them a job? Can't you make a year of high school electronics a minimum prerequisite for those positions? To me you are really scraping the bottom of the barrel and you may need pay more money to attract better people. I guess that is what happens when the economy is good. You can start a high school work experience program. With internships or with work experience programs you don't even have to pay them or you can pay them less then minimum wage as they learn. (Check your local labor laws) Once they graduate they are ready to work for you. If they can't deal with decimals or fractions, throw them back. TTFN David Kelly.. Maybe we need MORE preaching!!! We definitely need MORE parenting and LESS worrying about political correctness. Enough.. Have a great weekend. Regards, Bob Mike & All - Happy New Years - You too Aussie-lek, if you're awake, My personal feelings are that too many parents, of these folks, have spent too little time getting in behind the kids at a time when it counted and leaving the problem to those of us out here!!! Our social systems, at least here in the U.S., these days, seem to tolerate even less than mediocrity. Thankfully, I went thru the schools, in years gone by, when a kid who was inattentive or had an "attitude" problem had a whole lot more to be concerned once he got home. The last thing I ever wanted my was for my folks to learn about was that I over stepped my bounds or goofed off in class. I never doubted that Mom, Dad or anyone else in my family loved me. I simply understood that I had an obligation to them and my future, and no quarter was allowed. As a family, we just didn't have any room for failure, nor did may others, back in the early '40's. Having spent some time in the military in various projects reinforces my overall feelings in this matter. Fractions and decimals are a normal part of life if a person just pays a bit of attention to their surroundings and does a minimal amount of brain work!!! Pardon me for preaching. Y'all have a good day, a wonderful week, and try to stay warm - Kelly -----Original Message----- From: Mike Fenner <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> Date: Thursday, January 04, 2001 3:20 PM Subject: Re: [TN] As an aside I mentioned this to my (primary school) teacher friend. For what it's worth I pass on her remarks: What they do is to use clementines (small easy peel oranges). These neatly segment into halves quarters and so on, apparently the difficulty is getting the "numberness" of fractions over and this is a good way of illustrating it visually. You can see a quarter [1/4] and three quarters [3/4] etc.. Apparently once this concept has been grasped fractions are then easy. A further benefit for her pupils anyway is that you can then eat your work..... Mike ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kelly M. Schriver" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Wednesday, January 03, 2001 9:32 PM Subject: Re: [TN] Hi Phil - I had to teach the fraction and decimal reading many years ago and took the following approach, which seemed to work. I prepared Vu-Graph slides, to scale, of both types of rulers (decimal & fraction), adding actual markings to them to help the students grasp the concepts, then had them work along using identical rulers at their training work stations. The final exercises consisted of a test of taking measurements of small wood blocks, then we graduated to the use of calipers, micrometers and feeler gages.. For a few students, I had to use graphic illustrations of squares, subdivided by both decimal and fractional elements. IMHO (in my humble opinion), it worked, but I always wondered where these folks were during third and fourth grade math classes which were paid by our tax dollars. Regards - Kelly -----Original Message----- From: Phil Nutting <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> Date: Wednesday, January 03, 2001 11:56 AM Subject: [TN] Happy New Year All, In our in-house training program we include not only soldering, but through hole assembly techniques, print reading, component identification and reading a scale or ruler. One problem we have encountered is there are some assemblers that have no understanding of fractions. I'm looking for a good method of teaching fractions and what all those little lines on a ruler mean. Any comments? Feel free to contact me online or offline. Thanks in advance. ps, I give up. What is IMHO? I know ROFL, LMAO and LOL, but IMHO? Phil Nutting Manufacturing Engineer Kaiser Systems, Inc. High Voltage Power Supplies That Work(tm) 126 Sohier Road Beverly, MA 01915 ph: 978-922-9300 fx: 978-922-8374 [log in to unmask] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- Technet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8d To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt delivery of Technet send the following message: SET Technet NOMAIL Search previous postings at: www.ipc.org > On-Line Resources & Databases > E-mail Archives Please visit IPC web site (http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm) for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5315 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8d To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt delivery of Technet send the following message: SET Technet NOMAIL Search previous postings at: www.ipc.org > On-Line Resources & Databases > E-mail Archives Please visit IPC web site (http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm) for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5315 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------