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seven fundamental skills


kmealy

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I took HS woodshop in 1974.

I was not taught ANY of those "essential" skills. If the student wasn't ALREADY knowledgeable or from the "right" family, he was ignored. Plus I pissed off and humiliated the instructor in the first week of class; we had to build a T-square, attaching the cross member with five screws, the instructor saw that I wasn't using a ruler to layout the holes . So he decided to use me as an example (and humiliate me in the process). He gathered the entire class around me and proceeded to tell them in detail what I had done and why it was wrong. Then he got out the machinists rule and started measuring, again and again. The holes were perfect, he then threw the ruler across the room, stamped to his office and sulked the rest of the period. Never got any more help from him, ever.

When Admin types see this type of behavior and get into positions of power, what programs do you think they cut first?

As for the sports programs, locally when the school needs a bond passed, they threaten the sports programs first; works every time.

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now and then my wife will be looking at something and i'll wander past and she wonders how long or wide some item is.  at this point, she's on her way to the kitchen to get the tape measure.  i'll just blurt out what i think the dimension is.  she'll measure it....and more often than not find that i'm within a 1/4" or 1/8" of the measured amount.  she then rolls her eyes and sends me back to the shop.

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If it wouldn't have been for the vocational course (building construction), I probably wouldn't have made it through high school.

 

We are extremely lucky here because the local folks understand the need for trained workers and support our Vocational School. Our school is populated by kids from the entire county and funded by the local school districts. This coming year the student population, of the Vo-Tech school, will be north of 1000 kids.

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many years ago i had a job that involved inspecting some local schools.  we had to visit every room, take dimensions, and note anything that needed immediate repair.  so one day the HS is on our schedule.  we visit, eventually make it back to the "shop" area, and discover that all the machinery had been stuffed into one corner and the area populated with desks and computers.  the maintenance guy showing us around noted that the machinery would be sold at auction later that year.

 

sad x 2.

 

ok mr. tech dude, who is going to build the house you will live in, put in all the mechanical systems, and build the furniture you will use?  you? ha!!

 

me?  pay up dude.

 

 

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Industrial arts at my school was for the less-than-smart kids, or at least it was perceived that way. I took it in my freshman year (which may have been the only year it was offered) and was considered pretty much the same as "Home Economics" for the girls. Home Econ was considered teaching women to be homemakers. Those considered to be shoe-in college material were not encouraged to take either class.

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30 minutes ago, Fred W. Hargis Jr said:

Industrial arts at my school was for the less-than-smart kids, or at least it was perceived that way. I took it in my freshman year (which may have been the only year it was offered) and was considered pretty much the same as "Home Economics" for the girls. Home Econ was considered teaching women to be homemakers. Those considered to be shoe-in college material were not encouraged to take either class.

Same here. 

Girls had three choices : college prep (to be a teacher or a nurse), business (to be a secretary) or home ec (to be a homemaker)

Boys had two : college prep, and industrial arts (known as "shop guys") headed for factory jobs, which in my town were steel mills or auto plants.  Well, and one boy of Q (questioning) gender was in business to be a secretary.

 

Such a terrible school only about 15% of my graduating class even started college.   And I know of few of those that ended up driving truck, being a secretary, housewife, or factory work.

 

I have friends who have kids just slightly older than mine.  Both were mechanically oriented.  I remember going to visit and finding their lawn mower motor in pieces in the garage.  The older one was taking welding in HS when he told his teacher that he wasn't able to register for the second semester because it interfered with AP calculus.  The teacher asked him what the heck was he doing in his welding class. "Well, I wanted to learn to weld."   That boy went on to get a degree in environmental engineering, then a law degree, and after doing law for a couple of years opened a pre-cast concrete company where he enjoyed rigging up the machinery.   His younger brother was not as academic, but ended up getting second place on a national auto mechanics' competition right out of HS.   He got a year in auto, then diesel, then went to work for Navistar where he's in product development and  testing.   Meanwhile, older brother backed off the hands-on concrete and is back into law practice.

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6 hours ago, kmealy said:

Same here. 

Girls had three choices : college prep (to be a teacher or a nurse), business (to be a secretary) or home ec (to be a homemaker)

Boys had two : college prep, and industrial arts (known as "shop guys") headed for factory jobs, which in my town were steel mills or auto plants.  Well, and one boy of Q (questioning) gender was in business to be a secretary.

 

Such a terrible school only about 15% of my graduating class even started college.   And I know of few of those that ended up driving truck, being a secretary, housewife, or factory work.

 

I have friends who have kids just slightly older than mine.  Both were mechanically oriented.  I remember going to visit and finding their lawn mower motor in pieces in the garage.  The older one was taking welding in HS when he told his teacher that he wasn't able to register for the second semester because it interfered with AP calculus.  The teacher asked him what the heck was he doing in his welding class. "Well, I wanted to learn to weld."   That boy went on to get a degree in environmental engineering, then a law degree, and after doing law for a couple of years opened a pre-cast concrete company where he enjoyed rigging up the machinery.   His younger brother was not as academic, but ended up getting second place on a national auto mechanics' competition right out of HS.   He got a year in auto, then diesel, then went to work for Navistar where he's in product development and  testing.   Meanwhile, older brother backed off the hands-on concrete and is back into law practice.

 

My situation was a little different...

 

I went to a Catholic school. There were no vocational classes available to me. I had seven full periods for four years, except for one study hall in my Junior year. When I graduated I had twice as many credits as I needed. If I had vocational classes available to me, then you can bet your butt I would have been in them instead of some of the crap I didn't need and was forced to take.

 

I learned auto mechanics on my own which helped put me though college, I had to teach myself welding (with a little help from friends), woodworking, and I can run and repair most machine shop/sheet metal equipment. In addition, I'm passable on a lot of heavy equipment. I could run concrete; form, mix, pour, and finish by 10. I learned to build a house from the foundation up, including finished work and top outs. All of it the tip of the proverbial iceberg.  All of it was learned outside of vocational classes by actually doing. I don't regret one minute of all of the hard work that was involved.

 

I saw a guidance counselor ONE time in four years of HS (I was in the college prep group). When he asked me what I wanted to do, his condescending attitude torqued me off and I told him I wanted to be a gunsmith. It drove him nuts, he kicked me out and never discussed it with me again.

 

The worst thing about the lack of vocational ed is, that, most of the kids today will never learn these things. Most will never take the initiative and learn on their own.

 

Not everybody is college material. Yet we don't give those kids the choice... they either fail, go on to dead end jobs or they're pushed into college. When some fail to make it in college it sets some of them on a perpetual path of failure for the rest of their lives. We really need to get back to pushing service oriented, hands on skills. That means we start with the HS vocational educations, tech schools and apprenticeships.

 

Keith, your example of those two kids is great. It is heartening to see success stories like them. Both took their passions and brokered them into, I'm sure, a very happy and productive lives. They did what make them happy and by anyone's standards were/are very successful.

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i wasn't allowed to play sports in school.

i wasn't allowed to sign up for any type of shop class.

i was required to take the "college prep" (and believe me, i wasn't prepared).

the only "irregular" class i took was typing my senior year.   We had good old manual typewriters and i was the only guy in the class beside the teacher.   Stood me in good stead typing my own papers in evening college and working computer keyboards all these years after.

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Yeah, I took typing in high That's where I met my future wife, (married now going on 55 yrs.), and served me well as a commissioned and appointed community ministries missionary with the North American Mission Board of Southern Baptists. On the job, I learned a lot of different ways to help people, and one of the most enjoyable has been and still remains building wheelchair ramps, replacing roofs, for needy folks. That led me to eventually setting up a great wood shop. Never sold anything, but at age 74, I have a great time in the shop! 

I can't retire until the devil does!

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On 6/18/2017 at 10:02 AM, shop guy said:

Did you notice that with cutting of shop and home economics there was and expansion of sports programs? Not really money saved but plenty of smoke and mirrors. 

When my oldest was a senior in HS, a lot of classes were cut in the top academic path.   As a result, she didn't have many classes to take.  Thankfully, the state instituted a program where under certain conditions HS students could take college classes and get both HS and college credit.   She got some of her electives out of the way.  A college accused her classmate of "slacking off" in his senior year.  He said he took all the classes that were available.  Football program still went strong though.

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I'm rather proud of our little backwater county. A few years ago several school districts and the county supt. of schools, banded together and started a Vo-Tech program. They offer instruction in HVAC, welding, auto mech., plumbing and construction tech. They are trying to set up a course(s) in metal machining. In partnership with the local Jr. college, they have some IT instruction. 

Other than the carpentry involved in the construction courses, no strictly woodworking courses are offered. But most, if not all, of the participating districts have fairly robust shop programs at the high school level. A few at the Jr. Hi. level, also.

Not bad for a county with a population of just over 100K residents.

 

 

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eraser shield.jpg

That would be the thingy that was used to develop the first emojis  :) (four years of straight A- 's in Drafting)

 

I still use mine all of the time.

 

However, I was never all that great at drafting...I got a B in Mechanical Drawing and that grade was responsible for me only getting a 3.98 GPA when I got my second college degree.

 

I guess you can figure out from that statement, this got used a lot! :o

 

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