I am talking about James Condon on Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/@jcondon1
Why am I talking about him? I randomly ran across him and I have been addicted since. He talks about repairing simple engines and his voice and manner are relaxing. You wouldn’t think that watching about how to be a mechanic would be interesting, but somehow he makes it interesting.
It also is kind of fun to use what he teaches us as he troubleshoots an issue. I have learned so many things from him that sometimes when he is troubleshooting I have my ideas of what is wrong, and sometimes I come to the solution faster than he does. He is very methodical and logical, and when he concludes you know that it is correct. I am not saying that I am smarter than him, but that he has given me the confidence to troubleshoot something that I never would have been able to troubleshoot before.
In high school, there was a shop class that was very popular with my peers. One of my friends was a good mechanic and fixed his old car and truck. I always admired him for that. However, as much as that would have been interesting, being a mechanic didn’t seem like the right job to me. Sure I could do it, but other classes seemed better suited. Still, as I bought cars I tried to learn about them as much as possible when things went wrong so that I could determine if something needed to be done. I am a beginner in car mechanical knowledge but I still find it interesting to learn.
I wonder at times how my life would have been different if I had taken that shop class. Would I have found this to be my calling? I do love to fix things, and I used to play with with kinds of elementary sets of tools in the past. Life gives us a choice and the things we didn’t choose always seem to be interests, don’t they?
Watching this makes me feel like it might have felt like being in that shop class with my friend. Listening to a teacher who does something well shows you possibilities of what you can do, and what your life can be. Teachers inspire others, and for that, they should be given the biggest salary in the world.