Schools reviving shop class
223 comments
·March 2, 2025ljsocal
WillAdams
The best advice I ever got (after my Kindergarten teacher telling me, "Now young man, you should _never_ pass up the chance to go to the bathroom.") was my shop teacher advising:
>Before hitting the switch on a power tool, slowly count to 10 under your breath to yourself on your fingers, visualizing all the forces involved and planning out the entirety of your movement and how you will be moving the stock/tool, and considering what might go wrong and the results thereof and what will protect you (all guards should be in place and all suitable PPE worn) or where you should be positioned so as to avoid any potential projectile, reminding yourself that you want to be able to repeat that count in the same way when the tool is switched off.
Sawstop wouldn't have a business model if all tablesaw accidents were tried by a jury of shop teachers.
analog31
I have a similar habit: Before applying power, I manually turn the blade (or workpiece on the lathe) through one full rotation. I also think my way through the entire cut, including where my body and hands will be, and what I'll do if something goes wrong.
I've also mentored younger colleagues. I think there's a problem with shop safety, which is related to computer programming: Some people are able to learn it, and others just aren't. There's a certain situational awareness that you have to develop -- a sixth sense for when something is unsafe, that goes beyond just remembering all of the rules. There's also an intuition that you develop, like in programming, of being able to "think like the machine."
Like it or not, there are people who shouldn't be in the shop.
theshrike79
Pattern recognition. Some people have and some don't. It's also situational for some people.
I had a friend who could immediately see patterns in fighting games, after a few plays they'd immediately know how the CPU would react in certain situations. I could never.
I can see patterns in code, how it relates to other code and in the processes surrounding it, especially when I'm not taking my ADD meds. It's a superpower when shit's on fire and needs to be handled fast.
Similarly some people form this "sixth sense" situational awareness for physical tools and safety. They'll just look at a worksite and "feel" something is off. Or they pick up a tool and immediately know something is off - something in the balance or how it feels in the hand, or maybe it made a noise it's not supposed to.
zerkten
The same applies to firing ranges, scuba diving, etc. too. I'm not from the US but have some firearms experience before moving here. When I was learning shop from my father, or how to handle firearms the core messaging was very similar. Everything you said about the situational awareness and intuition aligns with my experience.
There are many people who can do the main activity (shoot down a range that is clear), but can't setup safely, or muzzle sweep folks when they're asked to step away. These are the really critical situations where you need to be ready to safely do the activity or safely transition to the next thing (which might have its own unique dangers.)
reverendsteveii
>There's a certain situational awareness that you have to develop
The term you're looking for is executive function and in a nutshell it's the brain watching and controlling the brain. There are deliberate, methodical tasks in which executive function is a great predictor of safety and success. Wood shop is one of them. There are also flowy, improvisational tasks where a lack of executive function allows one to be in the moment and respond quickly to changing conditions. Off the top of my head I'm thinking of a jazz drummer or an freestyle rapper, someone who has to move quickly and guess a lot without much assurance of the results of their actions.
I also wanna throw some support behind the idea of "thinking like the machine". Us coders have a lot of weird little quirks but one that's stuck out for me ever since I read it in the jargon file back in the 90s was the tendency of people who are good with computers to also anthropomorphize them. Most people speak in terms of what computers are programmed to do and what they require, but all the best coders I know speak in terms of what the machine is trying to do and what it needs. The anthropomorphization seems to engage empathy, and that empathy leads to a deeper understanding.
null
ggm
I touched what I thought was a stationary wheel on a lathe as a child. it was of course under flouro tube lighting: it was synced to the tube, the strobe effect made it look stationary. I've never forgotten it.
The guy owning the lathe made some short, sharp observations. But I also suspect he sweated blood later on. Explaining his role in this had I lost a finger or worse would have been nasty
Aardwolf
> it was synced to the tube, the strobe effect made it look stationary.
Why is it synced like that? Seems dangerous, and I don't know much about lathes but lighting synchronization doesn't seem something that would affect the mechanical parts being processed :)
WalterBright
My high school woodshop teacher simply showed us his short finger. Lost in a table saw. We got the message.
Xfx7028
I don't get that advice from the kindergarten teacher. Can you explain please?
II2II
A lot of young children will have accidents because they forget, or don't want, to go to the washroom. That's true even if it is urgent. (They either don't know what their body is telling them, or they are fearful of washrooms, or they are simply having too much fun to be bothered by what their body is telling them.)
dghlsakjg
Its simpler than you think:
No one really regrets going to the bathroom when it isn't urgent.
Plenty of people regret waiting until it gets urgent.
mystified5016
If something unexpected happens and your saw kicks a board back at you, you don't want to piss yourself as well as screaming
spirotot
Think before you act.
asn007
While I was lucky to have shop classes in my school, this curriculum makes me extremely jealous, to be honest. We didn't have neither welding, nor forging, nor working with fiberglass composites nor "big" projects, had to learn it all by myself. Still, those classes taught me the basics of actually doing something with my own hands, which is pretty important.
I also remember that we were trusted to behave like adults in front of heavy machinery like routers, circular saws and lathes. No incidents whatsoever aside from minor cuts, which is normal. We were genuinely interested and behaved accordingly, nobody wanted to get hurt and / or get kicked out of the class
P.S. Not sure of how it works in the US, but we also had "shop classes for girls". The curriculum for those consisted of the basics of cooking, baking and working with fabrics (starting from sewing two pieces together in grade 5 and gradually evolving to designing and sewing clothing for yourself by grade 9). Though, in my opinion, those things shall be taught to everyone, not just girls
chasd00
I had “agtech” in HS. Learning how to use a cutting torch and weld was the most memorable. Heh our welding unit was pretty much all about working on our teacher’s horse trailer. We also did hunter’s education which spent a lot of time on gun safety and was very useful. (Yes, I went to HS out in the sticks)
dlgeek
The latter class would have been called "Home Economics" ("HomeEc") back in the day.
skinkestek
Both these (sløyd /woodworking, heimekunnskap/cooking and home economics) were mandatory for everyone in Norway back in the nineties(although to be fair shop time was limited to wood, we weren't allowed to use metal lathes etc anymore), as was sewing (both with hand and machines).
I'm still thankful because of all the stuff I can relatively easy cook, fix or make thanks to those few hours in school.
(I'd also say they made for extremely welcome breaks between boring stuff in other subjects and being bullied during breaks.)
wildzzz
My highschool had one of the few county vocational schools attached to it. We had things like construction tech, auto tech, PC repair (got your A+ in that class), networking (you get a CCENT), engineering drawing and basics, criminal justice, cosmetology, and what was essentially preschool teacher class along with many others I don't remember. Other schools in the county had different classes but ours was the biggest. The engineering classroom was my adhoc homeroom and the place I spent most days after school my senior year due to joining our FIRST robotics club. We had everything for doing woodworking but also had an old Bridgeport mill, a CNC router (I was the resident mastercam X expert) and a lathe. We did just about all of our robot fabrication there except for the TIG welding (local shop did it for free). The engineering drawing class also had a small woodworking shop too. Our engineering teacher taught freshmen at the local university so we came out of his classes being thoroughly prepared for college.
I bailed on my mechanical engineering major sophmore year and switched to computer engineering. I love building stuff with but just didn't enjoy statics class.
Bonus pic: our 2010 FRC robot "hanging out" after the match: https://www.chiefdelphi.com/uploads/default/original/3X/8/b/...
S_Bear
For all the focus on STEM education in the past couple decades, I'm surprised cooking never really came back in vogue. Cooking is applied science that we have to do every day. I had to figure it all out in my late 20s, because shop and home ec were gutted in the 90s in my district.
tkgally
I entered junior-high school (as it was then called) in Pasadena, California, in 1969. In seventh grade, all of the boys took four 10-week modules: electricity (make an electric motor), print shop (typesetting by hand and printing with a platen press), wood shop, and drafting (pencils and straightedges). The girls took a year of home economics; my two older sisters learned how to sew in those classes, and one made most of her own clothes when she was in high school.
The next year, the classes were made co-educational, with students choosing which stream to take, but at least in that first year the gender divide remained sharp. I chose to take drafting for all of eighth grade; there was only one girl in the class.
I can’t say that what I learned in those classes paid off for me directly, but I did pick up knowledge and skills that I applied indirectly in my later careers: from printshop for writing and editing work, and from drafting for learning how to use drawing and graphics software.
It would been nice if I had learned how to sew and cook then, too.
SoftTalker
In middle school we could take Industrial Arts, Home Economics, and Art. Seventh graders took all three, so they were each 2/3 of a semester, with one of them broken across the semester break.
In eighth grade we got to select two of the three, and they were each one semester. I took Industrial Arts and Home Economics because the Art teacher was a complete wacko who in the seventh grade class destroyed any interest I had in the subject.
I am pretty sure seventh grade Industrial Arts was co-ed and everyone took it. But maybe girls had another option, I don't quite remember. In eighth grade since it was an elective, it self-selected to almost entirely boys.
kstrauser
I had to take either home ec or shop in high school. I’d already done all the shop stuff I’d wanted to while growing up helping my dad make things, so I took home ec instead. I was one of two boys in the class. It was awesome. We baked. We sewed. We hung out with a roomful of girls. It was one of my better high school decisions.
rvense
A basic education should include a lot of stuff you never use. If you're not exposed to things that don't interest you, how are you going to find the ones that do?
WalterBright
My shop classes paid off handsomely for me. I recommend taking them.
SoftTalker
Did a lot of the same in middle school in the late 1970s. Less of the home repair stuff, and no welding or machining.
We used hand tools and small power tools (hand-held drills and sanders), and drill press and scroll saws. Only the teacher could use the table saw, planer, and jointer.
One kid made a muzzle-loading rifle as his project. Can only imagine the hue and cry that would cause today.
II2II
I was in middle school in the 1990's, in Canada so the legal bit wouldn't be all that different from the US. We had welding, machining, and all sorts of power tools. That said, the teacher used their discretion while deciding who could use the more dangerous tools and supervised their use carefully.
thijson
Attended an elementary school in Canada in the 80's. There was a shop trailer that went from school to school. It had all the wood working tools like band saw, or drill press. My parents still have some of the items I made in it.
prpl
i went to middle school starting in ‘98 (7th grade). I used a hand saw, glass cutter, sandblaster, and drill press. That was just a quarter. The second quarter we had home-ec. Stitched and baked and maybe something else. In shop I made a book shelf thing and a nameplate (sandblasted mirror)
In 9th grade I used a jointer and a band saw, built deep bookshelf out of poplar. In 10th grade I built a night stand (used shaper, Joiner, jointer, etc..)
The table saw was off limits in every class I remember, but most the other things were usable. With saw stops available, I think that reduces liability quite a bit.
Also in high school I did drafting and cad (2D and 3D).
Anyway, that was across 3 school districts in two states, and was as recent as 2003 - so it’s not like shop/industrial arts stopped being a thing 40 years ago.
fn-mote
> it’s not like shop/industrial arts stopped being a thing 40 years ago.
Unfortunately, I live near two school districts - one in a major metropolitan area in the US - which have closed down shop classes in the name of preparing students for college instead of work in the trades. It is hard to undo those decisions.
Fortunately some local “industrial arts” departments continue to thrive.
HeyLaughingBoy
Yep. I remember going to one of my kids' concerts about 12 years ago and the guest musician mentioning how happy he was to be there because so many schools were closing their Music programs. Same thing is happening to shop class. At least here in a rural district, there's more pressure to keep it going since a lot of what the students learn has immediate use (or they already learned it at home).
rkagerer
Wow, I wish I'd had this.
Closest I got was building theatre sets. But they were some awesome sets, with huge moving parts counterweighted via airline cable and sandbags, and we conceived and designed it all from scratch under very little supervision. Come to think of it I'm sure it wouldn't fly these days (I remember a substitute teacher walking into the gym flabbergasted at one point when I was climbing in the rafters drilling anchor holes for pulleys... the regular guy knew well enough when to be present and when to stay away).
nicoburns
I didn't have access to heavy machinery or welders until high school (14-18), but I was very fortunate to go to a high-school that taught most of the above while I was there in the late 2000s.
The "product design" class (which was really either woodworking or metalworking depending on which stream you ended up in) was definitely my favourite class, and I think the most useful for later life too.
bwanab
My step-father taught shop for over 30 years at the 7th-9th grade level using all the tools you mention. I can't recall a single serious accident under his watch. Not to mention, at his funeral, you'd be shocked at how many of his former students came to pay their respects. Many talked about how it had changed their lives irrespective of the fields they worked in as adults.
Further not to mention, I'm sitting next to two Appalachian dulcimers that were among the 100s he built in the 70s and 80s.
ryandrake
My old man taught shop at the high school level for a similar amount of time, and (even though I am admittedly biased) I can say that he was measurably the most beloved teacher in the school. To this day, he gets messages from former students who are now successful tradesmen, thanking him for getting them on the right path.
jazzyjackson
I think the return on investment is underplayed, it's not just what skills you graduate with, it's whether you find going to school at all rewarding. I was bored stiff in most of my classes, but having marching band to look forward to and the reward of traveling to different cities on the band bus kept me from completely checking out of school.
Maybe another aspect missing from schools lacking shop is the sense that you're trustworthy enough to put in front of a potentially lethal machine, a little bit of self worth goes a long way.
lolinder
> Maybe another aspect missing from schools lacking shop is the sense that you're trustworthy enough to put in front of a potentially lethal machine, a little bit of self worth goes a long way.
I have the distinct memory of this thought crossing my mind during orientation in shop classes. The instructor gave us the rundown of how to be safe and then he actually let us use cool machines without hovering around us every second of the period! The trust involved in that exercise was immense, and even kids who were the class clowns in other classes rose to the occasion and were responsible in shop class.
I can only imagine how important this kind of experience would be for today's kids of the helicopter generation, many of whom would be receiving this type of trust to handle danger like an adult for perhaps the first time in their lives.
SoftTalker
We had to watch a movie on day one (or very early in the class) with pretty graphic scenes of shop injuries. Blood, fingers getting cut off, a guy speared in the stomach by a scrap of wood binding and then thrown from the table saw blade.
__MatrixMan__
I also got the scare treatment. 25 years later and I still refuse to buy a table saw despite being characterized as risk-tolerant is many other dimensions.
WillAdams
This is why Sloyd woodworking is taught in northern European countries:
>Students may never pick up a tool again, but they will forever have the knowledge of how to make and evaluate things with your hand and your eye and appreciate the labor of others.
https://rainfordrestorations.com/category/woodworking-techni...
makeitdouble
A slightly different angle could be whether it needs to be school and can't be handled by the town in a different setting for instance.
I grew up in a town that had a community center where kids of my age played in bands, learned crocheting etc. School was boring, but it was short, and it was easy to meet with other kids from other schools, including other towns. Kids doing classical music have the same experience in general I think.
johnkizer
Maybe - but if it's not handled by the school, then there's going to be some sort of access problem for some kids. Transportation, time to do it, financial for the parents, etc.
floatrock
What's the right balance on perfect-is-the-enemy-of-the-good here?
On the one hand, centralization makes a potentially low-interest or high-expense experience more viable. On the other hand, equity.
When is it appropriate to trade some equity for an experience that would otherwise be unfeasible in a every-school-does-it-themselves cause everyone's budget cutting?
makeitdouble
Yes, depending on the city it can be more or less complex. It comes down to how kids are viewed, and a good indicator could be how libraries are handled.
How much does the local library cost ? is it easy for kids to access ? is there a library in the first place ?
If the local library is thriving, a community center can be an extension of that. If it's dead, that city is in a pretty bad place from the start.
gonzo41
I generally agree, young people respond well to responsibility. And whilst it doesn't help me day to day, knowing how the make dovetail joints is one of the things I cherish most from year 10.
paulryanrogers
As someone who was shoved and occasionally bullied while operating machines like belt saws... I'm not sure it was worth it.
Perhaps with stop-saw like inventions it could be safer, if the patents ever expire so schools could actually afford them.
hyperold
All it takes is installing cameras and if anyone is caught up doing stupid shit the shoptime is over for them, permanently if it's anything serious.
I remember one clown kid in my class back in the days put a hottish drillbit to another's kid neck acting like a cool spy or something like that (we were 14 years old, luckily got only a mild burn which healed quickly). The teacher punched him in the face, probably not with full force but it was not a soft slap either, and banned him from the shop for some time. No incidents after that.
fn-mote
> The teacher punched him in the face […] and banned him from the shop
Incredible story for another generation.
Thank you for sharing!
alexjplant
> As someone who was shoved and occasionally bullied while operating machines like belt saws... I'm not sure it was worth it.
This. It's all fun and games until one of your classmates shoots you in the face with an air compressor while you're using a bandsaw. I still have all my fingers but did end up in trouble because everybody only saw the immediate aftermath of me making it abundantly clear how much I didn't appreciate his antics (only verbally, of course).
rckclmbr
We had a metal lathe in our high school shop class. I still can’t believe someone didn’t kill themselves on that. I think wood lathes are fine, but honestly that should be kept out.
mitthrowaway2
Wood lathes are much more dangerous than metal lathes IMO!
They run at high speeds, the workpiece is typically less secure, the material has a grain structure prone to catching the tool and digging into it, ventilation is required, and most importantly, the cutting tool is gripped in the operator's hands instead of being secured on a toolpost.
jcgrillo
A metal lathe is the fundamental machine tool. You learn how to calculate feeds and speeds, plan depth of cut, thread cutting, parting, etc. You learn about surface finish, chatter, cutter shape... Why rob students of this? Should nobody learn basic machinist skills? It's no more or less dangerous than any other shop tool.
potato3732842
These things aren't actually as dangerous as Reddit and the white collar internet make them out to be. The "being dumb" to near miss conversion ratio isn't that high and the near miss to someone gets hurt conversion ratio is abysmal.
WalterBright
In metal shop, one kid left the key in the chuck and turned the lathe on. It punched a hole in the wall opposite it. It would have killed anyone in its path.
I'm not real comfortable around lathes.
varjag
Wood lathes, and generally woodworking tools like saws and routers are substantially more dangerous. Especially at the scale of machinery you have in vocational classes.
artursapek
wood lathes + long hair = very risky business
WalterBright
My dad (AF pilot) eschewed long hair. He said it was a convenient handle for your enemy to pull your head back and slit your throat.
blackeyeblitzar
Are shop classes mandated by states anywhere? No schools I know offer it. I am not sure if it’s a good or bad thing. I’ve heard of children having accidents in those classes - sometimes not just an accident but the result of other children intentionally harming them. On the other hand, I feel like our society has lost the ability to DIY and do things that are … less online. Maybe shop classes can help with that.
spicyusername
They should also revive or create classes that teach other important, basic, life skills - budgeting, banking, getting a loan, investing, hiring a contractor, buying appliances, tiling, roofing, drywalling, etc, etc.
rawgabbit
I would create a modern version of Home Economics to teach things the average person should be able to do.
1. Basic cookery. Including how to use the stove top, induction range, microwave, air fryer, stand mixer, and oven. How to choose a refrigerator, dishwasher, and other big ticket appliances.
2. Basic economics and finance. What is taken out of your paycheck e.g., state and federal taxes, social security and Medicare taxes, health insurance premiums, and contributions to 401k etc. How do credit cards work, how do car loans work, and how do mortgages work. Understand the different interest rates they charge. How do medical, auto, and home insurance work. How to file a tax return.
3. Elementary engineering. Basic concepts of how things work and how not to get injured. How electric circuits work (avoid touching the hot wire to something other than the terminal). How the house electrical circuits work. What is the purpose of the breaker panel and the GFCI mini breaker. How fires start and how to put out an oil fire vs regular fire. How to start a wood fire including feather sticks, fire steel, and steel wool & a nine volt battery. How house plumbing work including where does the pee and poo go. How the HVAC, furnace, and mini split work.
4. Basic technology. How to stay safe online. What to do if your credit card or identity is stolen. Password managers, MFA, and passkeys. How to shop for a mobile phone and understand all the fees the carrier will charge. How to use a LLM and ChatGPT.
crooked-v
#2 there reminds me of all those "got a first paycheck" teenager reaction videos, when having to pay taxes and everything else sinks in for the first time because nobody bothered to tell them about that stuff earlier.
floatrock
I wonder if the best way to teach #2 is abstractly or hands-on.
Abstractly, people's eyes glaze over on a spreadsheet.
Hands-on exposes kids to the vast inequalities out there, and that sounds terrifying without the right societal contextualization. What if the doctor's kid analyzes daddy's W2 and the other kid can only analyze their parent's 1099 uber returns. Or, a kid grasping the mathematics of compound interest doesn't necessarily mean that mean they can understand why their friends' parents have a 16% auto loan while theirs is only 4%.
Not saying we should protect The Children from the messy realities of the world -- our current approach of "they'll figure taxes out on their own" is about as effective as the "don't even mention sex" philosophy used until the mid 1900's -- I'm just saying to really understand these financial concepts requires guiding kids through a whole lot more ugliness of the world, and I'm not sure many schools know how to do that kind of integrated life learning. Hell, even most adults don't know how to think about such things.
I dunno... maybe the easiest thing here is to just go live in income-segregated neighborhoods so we never need to ask such difficult questions with our neighbor-friends.
rawgabbit
Like most folks I learned consumer finance the hard way. I learned for example, the best way to purchase a car is to arrange a loan with your own bank or credit union...email a bunch of car dealers until you get the price you want... when you come into the dealership to get your car just say "no" to everything and be prepared for the hard sell for hours until they agree to the deal they agreed to. My parent's way of dealing with car salesmen were a lot of shouting and anger.
I guess what I am saying is there is always a textbook/spreadsheet component of consumer finance. How else can you explain the effects of interest compounding on your credit card if you never pay off the balance? But you can also try to role place scenarios to show why you want to know this stuff. e.g., if you are low income but working there is a good chance that when you file your tax return you will get cash back due to the earned income tax credit.
Buldak
We called that "Home Ec" (as in "Home Economics") when I was a kid. (I'm an elder millennial.) To be honest, I didn't find it particularly useful, and I think many of the calls for "practical" classes in primary or secondary education miss the mark.
tejohnso
Oddly, "Home Ec" for me was all about baking and knitting. It was basically "home ec" is for girls, shop is for guys.
waste_monk
We had something similar, our home ec classes had some household management, but the focus was largely on cooking and making/repairing clothing. This further split into seperate elective classes in the last few years of high school. That said some aspects of homekeeping were absorbed by other classes (math module on balancing a budget, social studies modules on how you'd start a business, etc.).
> It was basically "home ec" is for girls, shop is for guys.
We didn't have too many girls in the shop classes, but we had a surprisingly large numbers of guys taking the clothing and textiles classes. It was regarded as one of the most relaxed and enjoyable electives, and there was an unofficial exemption to the uniform policy that you could wear things you'd produced in class, so it was nice to see the schoolyard brightened by students wearing strange and colorful clothing.
slumberlust
Did you by chance receive supplementary lessons at home? I didn't take a home ec class, but my mother made it a priority to teach me budgeting and such.
alistairSH
Something like 25% of high school students can’t do basic arithmetic and you want them to budgets and retirement planning? I’m not saying “home ec” (as it was called through the 90s - no idea what happened to it) isn’t potentially useful, only that we might have bigger fish to fry.
As for trade skills, sure, no issue with that.
c6400sc
Those students might do better if they are taught practical uses of math, rather than STEM-focused abstractions.
(I was one of those kids going "why the hell are we learning this" until I got to grad school and was able to put it together).
shalmanese
Except they're not practical uses. Every well meaning civilian attempt to propose these topics is rebutted by educators who report back that these concepts are totally alien and abstract to teenagers until they actually own and are responsible for their own money.
The retention rate for these classes are abysmal, which is why you have people propose they should be taught, despite they themselves actually sitting through these classes, simply because any memory of these classes have been erased from their memory.
p_j_w
If we taught kids the basics of compound interest then maybe we’d have fewer people struggling under the load of some extremely heavy debt burdens. Good for usurious banks, I guess, but probably not society as a whole.
alistairSH
You can’t do compound interest without basic arithmetic.
hnthrow90348765
Of this list, budgeting and banking are probably the only two that still need to be taught in high school because it's directly applicable during college.
Save the other stuff for college. If you want to incentivize the population to take those classes, give credits or discounts on tuition or find some other mechanism.
I always dislike trying to stuff more classes in high school because you're still kids.
pengaru
What %age of Americans attending high school attend college afterwards?
What %age of Americans attending high school will take out loans in their lifetime?
Financial sense shouldn't be knowledge of the privileged class, we ~all have to deal with money/debt.
slackfan
Why. If you're going to college, often times you're being pressured into taking a loan. You're moving out, so finding contractors, etc, etc, is useful.
If you don't have all of your lifeskills in order by the time you're 18, what are you even doing.
millerm
Civics, ethics, and cooking too. :)
blooalien
When I was a kid, cooking was part of the "Home Economics" class, which also included budgeting, shopping, basic repairs (home, clothing, etc), and some other useful "adulting" skills they apparently don't teach in school anymore.
millerm
I think about how great my home economics class was. I still think of my teacher decades later. All that she taught me (I took several of her classes). From grocery shopping trips, food inspection, food preparation & safety, sewing, how to inspect clothing for quality, basic home maintenance... like, so much stuff that has been more impactful in my life than any other thing. I'm sad to think that my teacher is probably no longer alive after all these years. She also encouraged the hell out of me to play the guitar, which I still do. Cheers to you, Marlene. I'm sorry for those days where I might have been a bit of a pain, but I was just a young one then.
Teknoman117
It's shocking how recently this all seems to have been removed. I'm in my early 30s and learned most of this in public school.
bloodyplonker22
I found that in ethics classes, a lot of it was holier than thou and virtue signaling instructors preaching but not necessarily practicing. I am not saying all of the instructors and people who teach ethics are bad, this is what I have observed.
gameman144
This is interesting to me, none of the ethics classes I've ever taken even had room for a holier-than-thou instructor; they were taught as "here are various ways that people have tried to determine the right thing to do throughout time".
A professor saying "And I'm great at doing the right thing" would be as out of place as them bragging about their fitness or wealth.
jackcosgrove
It is mind-boggling to me that one of the most important numbers in life - the 2% inflation rate target - is not taught to everyone.
It's the financial equivalent of not teaching what temperature water freezes at.
ajsnigrutin
Half of those are things that parents should learn them, and the other half are things most won't ever actually do. Buying an appliance is not a thing you need class for, your parents can take you with them when they're buying one and show you the process... and roofing.. well, let's be fair, most people won't be doing that themselves.
In my small country we have a website where random people can post suggestions for the government, and if it gets enough votes, some PR representative has to look at the suggestion and write a answer.... every few weeks there is a suggestion about how schools should teach kids stuff that their parents should teach them at home... even cooking, cleaning, etc. Have the parents really "failed in life" so much, that they can't even teach the kids to cook and clean and wash, etc.?
Shop class... somewhat understandable, power tools are not realy a thing parents living in apartments in large cities have, so yes, that's beneficial to kids... but other stuff?
WillPostForFood
Half of those are things that parents should learn them
I think the goal is to help boost the kids whose parents don't know some of the basics, like budgeting, balancing a checkbook, buying an appliance, typing, etc... The people who aren't doing well in modern society lack these skills, and teaching their kids is an opportunity to boost them out of potential poverty.
abdullahkhalids
If you start teaching all the kids this, then the vast majority of parents will stop teaching their kids, because "school will teach you". This is fundamental human nature. So society ends up in a degraded state where instead of most kids learning these things well from parents and few not at all, you have all kids learning it a lower average rate.
This is not the way. If some kids have lacking home life, intervene directly for those students. Don't take away responsibility from parents.
jcgrillo
> and roofing.. well, let's be fair, most people won't be doing that themselves
Do you have any idea how much it costs to get a roofer out to fix your roof? In my area if the job is less than $50k you can't find anyone who is interested. Not doing it yourself is an incredibly expensive luxury. Best know how to do it properly and safely.
giardini
Learning to fix a roof is like learning how to build a boat hull upside down: if you can do it properly then you can make lots of money doing it. That said,
" if the job is less than $50k you can't find anyone who is interested"
is difficult to believe. I only use experienced roofers and make sure my and their insurance coverage is good. I've always felt roof repairs were well worth the price.
throwaway48476
Even kids with access to power tools usually don't have access to shop tools.
jjkaczor
Media (and now social media) awareness and understanding (I was lucky enough to take a course in this, back in... 1989/90)
Symbiote
It was a core part of GCSE English in the 2000s, so almost everyone in England studied it.
Things like reading a Daily Mail article and identifying all the nonsense parts.
I don't know it out helps society. I suspect people don't think like this once the class is over.
trentnix
It’s not just about acquiring “basic skills” or “marketable skills”. Shop enables practical, skill-appreciating minds to use geometry, physics, and science in concert to solve problems. You learn about symmetry and measurement, force and torque, and materials and chemistry simultaneously.
Many learn better at a workbench than at a chalkboard. And even those that don’t often appreciate the chalkboard more when they can relate what they’re learning to what they are doing.
gorgoiler
Hah, I’m currently enrolled in machinist classes and one of the big NOs is no ties! Funny to see one at the top of the article.
SoleilAbsolu
2 of my big safety lessons from elders when I was growing up:
- my Nana always wore her hair up when in the kitchen, she had worked somewhere she saw a woman get scalped by having her long hair pulled into a mixer
- my Dad was wary of synthetic clothing after having seen people in fires have synthetics melt onto their skin (not sure if this was in the Army or growing up in St. Louis)
deskr
It's very interesting how many "non-trivial" things can go wrong with power tools. Kickbacks for example. They sound very trivial when you know about them. But to the layman that does a one off cut with a table saw, circular saw, chain saw, angle grinder, ... it's not so intuitive.
One might say and be very careful but then a kickback shows up and causes brown pants at best, a life changing injury or death at worst.
dekhn
See also: "degloving" (note: if you are squeamish, DO NOT SEARCH)
dekhn
I had a shop class in middle school (mid-to-late 80s) and I learned a ton of useful skills even though i went on to software engineering. Got experience welding, etching, knew what a "tap and die" was, did drafting (and got exposed to AutoCAD). I also had "home ec" which taught how to cook, clean, and sew. A few others that I would have liked to see: basic plumbing repairs,working with hand tools (plane, chisel, etc), building structures from framing lumber.
It really seems like having a good non-academic curriculum for life skills is broadly useful beyond folks who are going into the trades.
jcgrillo
I think there's another really important set of lessons available from basic tool use which translates directly to the software industry--intuitive understanding of what makes a tool good. Tools (as opposed to appliances) scale with the user's ability. A good lathe in good condition does better and better work as you learn its behavior and capabilities. You could spend 5 decades with one hammer incrementally improving your forging technique day by day and week by week. Your dishwasher, however, just always does the same thing.
Knowing the difference between a dishwasher and a hammer is something it seems like many of the engineers, designers, and product managers in the software business are completely incapable of.
stego-tech
Long overdue, in my opinion. I grew up desperately looking forward to wood, metal, and automotive shop classes to compliment my computer electives; by the time I reached High School, all but wood shop had been replaced by more weight rooms for the football team to use.
Primary education should always include basic skills in craftsmanship, inclusive of at least shop class and cooking/home economics. Hopefully this marks a more general rebound of these long-neglected skillsets.
cryptica
This is an excellent subject to teach in schools. I'm a software developer and I felt like I benefited from woodwork and metalwork lessons at school. I think if the future generation is to automate systems, they will need to understand the manual processes.
Another thing that's needed through is to make it easier for young people to buy land in remote areas and/or to access funding to start companies. It's insane how difficult it is to obtain funding for any venture dealing in the word of atoms. I hear stories of young people moving to China to access opportunities; in the west, it feels like entrepreneurship in the space has been regulated out of existence.
It's bad enough that you have to compete with China on price and quality, but regulations make it essentially impossible.
_bin_
the cover photo wearing a tie is uhh an interesting choice for literally any kind of shop. same reason women have to keep their hair out of the way.
basisword
I remember wearing ties but tucking it into the shirt (in between the buttons) and also wearing an apron. Incredibly unsafe to just have a tie on normally around machinery so imagine that is just for the photo op.
yapyap
hard agree, that might be the end of him if it wasn’t just for a photo op
jdougan
Might be a clip on tie.
ThinkBeat
I have not been paying attention. I had no idea they were gone.
It is not one of my favorite classes when I took it, but what I learned, has been useful in a lot of situations, and still is.
So please bring it back.
I was very fortunate to be in middle school (ages 11 - 13) in the late 60s when shop classes were still going strong. Here's what I recall of our curriculum:
6th grade: industrial drawing, hand tools, shop safety, home maintenance: replacing windows, wiring bulbs, switches and outlets, faucet installations. Basic fabrication with plastic, hammered metal forming and band sawing wood.
7th & 8th grade: Metal: forge, lathe, welding (electric arc & acetylene), sheet metal (cutting, bending, punching, riveting, soldering) Wood: turning on lathe, table sawing, planing, routing, laminating, veneering, clamping, etc
In high school, all of the above plus architectural drawing, project management, metal machining, and fiberglass (mold design, making and part-making). Student projects included dune buggy car bodies, boats, water skis, furniture and all the usual (cutting boards, knife blocks, spice racks, etc.)
In today's world, parents (and lawyers) might find it unsafe for boys (very few girls elected to take these classes) but in seven years of shop, I only recall one serious accident involving the loss of a finger tip.
I went on to college major in Industrial Design and business then spent a career designing and producing projects for major consumer product company clients.