The Demise of Shop Class

It's OK, you can get "practical skills" as an app for your iPod now.

I think all states should instead do what Connecticut does. State run vo-tech schools. High School student have the choice of there local high school or a tech school. They spend freshman year "exploring" the trades by spending a week in each. They then chose which trade they want to learn for the following 3 years. They spend three weeks in shop and then three weeks in academic classes. It's like going to work every day. In total at the end of four years, they get a high school diploma and two years classroom and on the job training. Most make more out of high school than those straight out of college.

Are there differences in the academic offerings of the two school systems? Personally, I think that schools need a lot more hands-on learning. It keeps people focused and engaged.

There isn't much difference in the academics in fact, you receive more credits at a tech high school than you would at a regular high school. Keep in mind you can't choose which academic core classes you want in a Tech high school. However, some of your academic classes are geared towards the trades. All learning IS completely hands-on at a tech school.

As a female A+ academic student who already knew how to sew and cook, I found shop classes to be more interesting and enlightening than learning how to make an apron. The better understanding of the way things work and the hands on drafting and graphics skills I learned in "shop" serve me to this day as I put my degree in Chemistry to work in marketing and new business development. Practical skills combined with an academic curriculum make for a more well rounded perspective and, often times, a more creative approach. I am glad I did not have to choose between one or the other.

I agree with Christian Steinbrecher on the importance of shop classes. "Shop class generates interest in our built environment and provides insight into how things really work." Growing up in an age without TV, video games, cell phones, computers and calculators, more focus was on things we could relate to in our physical world. The focus was on the new technologies of the machine age that shop classes addressed. Since we have shifted from an industrial base to a services base, today's youth has lost interest in the hands-on shop classes. Computer classes are popular because that has become a part of our everyday life.

Shop classes are dwindling because they have low priority in the school system. The trades that once attracted kids to persue careers in the trades, took shop classes. The trades are changing to the point where a young person doesn't consider a trade in their future. A prime example is, the machinist craft. The skill and attraction of operating a lathe or milling machine to create a metal masterpiece, is gone. CNC has taken over and no longer requires a person of journeyman experience. It is a less attractive trade today.

It's not a lost hope. I didn't take any shop classes when I was in school over 60 years ago, but I was always interested in things mechanical and how they worked. In later life, I took shop classes in the community college, a place where shop classes are still popular. I bought some machine tools and build metal projects in my home shop. There are many like me doing metal and woodworking.