Did you have wood or sheet metal shop in school? What did you make?

[BlsdMama]

Yes, I think they miss out. 

 

But I'll admit I made a hideous shelf.

 

I did great in school - ironically, just not in shop or home ec.  And I suspect I'm one of the few adults (who don't do it as a career) who now actually uses these skills on a regular basis, lol.

But i think the early introduction does make one less intimidated?  So that's important!

[SKL]

I just assumed shop and home ec were still offered as options in high school.  Now you have me wondering.  I know the vo ed schools have comprehensive programs, but I'm not sure about the regular high schools.  It used to be a significant program mostly for kids who were not academically inclined.  They also had "vo ag" at my high school, where kids learned how to be farmers.

[wendy not in HI]

My kids are in public school.  Shop or Tech ed and home ec (though it's not always called that) have been available at all 4 public middle schools that my kids have attended.  We have some name plaques and recipe holders and boxes made by middle schoolers.  We also have some airplanes and rockets designed in the tech side of tech ed.  We also have an apron sewed by my son, who is currently doing a cooking rotation.  He has an assignment to cook 5 things at home this month.  It has been really fun to see him show more interest in the kitchen.  

 

In the high school, both our current school and our previous school had different options for shop and cooking through partnerships with a local technical college or through what they called an "academy" which was basically a technical school run through the high school.  There are some really cool certificates available for cooking or dentistry or electrical or construction and more.

 

Not all of our kids have had time to take the shop/tech/home ec classes because they compete with orchestra and band and choir.  

 

PE has been offered all through middle school and high school, though it is not required all 4 years of high school. One of my girls took PE every year through high school and also participated in afterschool sports.

 

We are not living in a fancy place with big schools.  These are regular schools in middle america.  More was offered at our fancy secondary school in Fairfax County, VA, but there's still a lot offered in this po-dunk town that we live in.  I have a hard time believing that shop and home ec are disappearing, when I have seen them at two vastly different schools.  At the high school level, things seem fancier with computer models and CAD and sketch-up, but the basics of shop are still there.

 

 

Edited November 3, 2016 by wendy not in HI

[Tanaqui]

With the sheer number of high schools in the USA, I'm sure there is a LOT of variation in what is and isn't offered!

[LMD]

Oh I forgot drafting! Thanks for the memory jog, Kinsa! I wasn't very good at it but that was an interesting class!

 

Dh took horticulture and wood shop in his last years of high school. He made an impracticably heavy barbecue haha.

[heartlikealion]

Are we talking about high school?

 

The shop class and home ec at my school were offered in jr. high. For home ec it was paired with a semester of First Aid/CPR. We made a pillow and watched the teacher bake cookies once. I was scared of the sewing machine and didn't finish closing my pillow. I think I mostly did the hand stitched parts? I don't know how I was supposed to close the opening after we stuffed it, but I never got around to it. I wasn't strong enough to adequately administer CPR chest compressions on the dummy lol :/

[SparklyUnicorn]

I do think kids are missing out on learning how to use tools (including pocket knives).

 

Huh, I was not taught that in shop class.

 

I don't think there is all that much to teach with pocket knives though. 

[73349]

In 7th and 8th grade, we had the option for one quarter of each year of either home ec or shop. I took home ec both times--it was sewing in 7th and cooking in 8th. I have never even been in a room used for shop, I don't think. (The other quarters were computer science, art, and music. PE was all year.)

 

DH took wood shop and made a little car, which we still have.

 

In high school, academic-track kids were not expected or encouraged to do either shop or home ec. In fact, I think you had to enroll at the voc-tech school to take them. More would've been good for me--especially if offered as summer courses.

Edited November 3, 2016 by whitehawk

[Jean in Newcastle]

I always wished that I had wood shop.  I don't care that I didn't get to have metal shop.  I still have plans to figure out how to make things out of wood.  I just haven't had time and our garage/shop is too cluttered. 

 

One of the first things I did after getting my first car was to sign up for a woman's only car maintenance class put out by the YWCA.  I wished that I had been allowed to take auto shop in school too. 

[TravelingChris]

I had one semester of shop in junior high.  I don't remember if that was seventh or eighth grade but know it wasn't ninth grade even though back then the junior high consisted of 7-9.  They changed it to just 7-8 right after I went to high school.  Anyway, it was an elective and it consisted of plastics, metal and woodshop.  I don't remember what I made in plastics but do know that I went on a tour of an auto factory in Baltimore and that was really interesting.  Metal shop stressed math and we made a small tray with a border.  Wood shop was even more math and I don't remember what I made but that remember that I think I didn't have enough time to finish.  There were many more boys in class than girls.  My shop skills weren't good but my math skills were so I think I got a decent grade.  

 

I also took home ec but I think I dropped it.  We had a teacher who was afraid of the students (all girls) and that class was at least half full of the delinquent girls who were violent and totally uninterested in learning anything.  I think I decided that I wasn't going to learn anything and it wasn't a safe situation too and I seem to remember that I became a teacher's aid instead.  In the short time I was in the class, nothing was being taught anyway because of the wild atmosphere.  I turned to a home economics book from the fifties to learn various skills and I also started watching cooking shows on PBS.