Virtually all parts of modern automobiles and other manufactured goods are tooled by robots, and over half cannot be repaired and must be replaced by another component tooled by robots. "No user-serviceable parts inside" is emblazoned on nearly all products, automotive or otherwise. Furthermore, manufacturers have often been shown to design and build unserviceability and obsolescence into their products.
Manufacturing now consists of operating the robots, which requires not manual but logical and mathematical education. Everything from toasters to spaceships is "repaired" by throwing away the dysfunctional parts and plugging in replacements. Chimpanzees could probably be trained for those tasks.
Those who do work with their hands are falling ever further behind economically. The ratio between productivity and wages shows most new income and wealth going to the financial and administrative sectors of all modern economies (see chart). Real wages (salary plus benefits) for manufacturing and service workers alike have flattened since the 1970s. In other words those who manage the system are diverting most new benefits to themselves.
Right now, the few own much and the rest own little. It does not take an advanced degree in economics to understand that extrapolating these trends will inexorably lead to a time in which the few own all and the rest own nothing.
I suggest that courses in mathematics, civics, economics and politics might do more for those boys' descendants than studying how to plug in components.
Finally, one notes that all the students depicted are male. At the same time in the 50s, girls were being taught to cook, clean and sew. My guess is that few young women would sign up for that life today.
* The TV show The Wonder Years was partially filmed in my home town, a visual metaphor for the 1950s.
