Thursday, February 5, 2009

Shop Class

I often look back at high school and just laugh. The laundry list of reasons why could fill your grade school Trapper Keeper. Scholastically, one class stands out: shop class.

What is the good expected from shop class? What is a student supposed to walk away with at the end of the semester? That wood can be cut and carved and filed and stained and -- yes, the rumors are true -- burned? That a hammer will drive a nail into wood, that a saw will cut a board in two, and that disciplining a student with detention in the same room as a hammer and a saw is pretty much a bad idea?

I don't want to say that the public school system failed me with shop class, but... the public school system failed me with shop class. I literally learned nothing. It's not that I was unwilling to learn and showed up to class daily with a bad attitude; it's that nothing was taught. It always made me laugh when my shop class teacher tried to give a written test, as if that was supposed to imply that there was actual teaching going on. C'mon, a test? You mean, with paper and a pencil? Who are you kidding, man -- shop class is recess with tools.

P.E. teachers are often classified as the easiest occupations and the laughingstock of education, but shop class teachers can’t be too far behind. Really, how strenuous is setting out some boards and a box of screws and ensuring that the power tools are returned at the end of the period? Is there a lot of lesson plan preparation to such a curriculum?

The only recollections I can recall with precision from shop class are throwing chunks of wood as hard as possible at a wall, skipping class at least once a week to play pick-up ball in the gym, classmates dipping and smoking outside the classroom's back doors, lots of Carhartt jackets, and actually making a heart-shaped coin bank with a scroll saw.

Unfortunately, I've not technically needed to recall any of this information in any life situations. Yet. I'm still awaiting the moment where my experience with launching wood blocks at painted brickwork at overhand high speeds falls to my advantage.

2 comments:

  1. or how bout bending nails with a vice and shooting them into the ceiling with a rubber band. idk.

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  2. my fondest memory, coach hubbard getting frustrated with me on the wood lay and said "here, give me that" and proceeded to finish my table that took a week to complete....he got an A

    Cary

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