How many schools still have a shop program? I think there was post from last spring that mention the number of programs left. I remember that the very low number scared me. How appropriate for Halloween.

What used to be trade schools are now called community colleges, what were community colleges are now called colleges, and what were colleges are now called universities. Haven't noticed any great change in the missions they pursue despite the name changes. I think what were universities still are, but not sure what's next.

I don't know what high schools teach, actually. Practical knowledge, appreciation of history, literature, and philosophy that used to be enough to set you on a course of self education through life, probably not. A minimum of English and the tiniest bit of grammar, some math relating to computers rather than the ability to do sums and simple division, likely. How to be a good victim so you can be lead to vote for people who will provide for you since society hasn't allowed you the chance to do so yourself, certainly. At least, that seems to be the average public school curriculum.

Several years ago, when I was still trying to develop the Savannah project, I was cornered by a German businessman whose company was having problems finding qualified mechanical / technical trades people in the USA. In Germany, it seems, students are tested to determine their aptitudes and abilities and interests, and from about 12 years on, follow an educational track leading down roads to probable success, whether that be academic, technical, medical, hospitality, bureaucratic, whatever. Trade school tracks provide well-qualified students who have also had classes in basic math, language, history, etc but focussing on learning to be employable and capable machinists, electricians, etc. He was interested in talking about restoring the ruins of the machine shop, and setting up a trade school for machinists in there, who could also work on museum projects as gained experience. The machine shop is still a ruin today, and while Savannah Tech tries, by the time a kid reaches trade school the damage has already been done in terms of making him a failure in a terrible system, assuming he didn't drop out.

Do we REALLY think all students are college material? Do we really think they all want to be? can we truly support this fantasy by dumbing down high school curricula to try to accomodate everybody?

Any wonder why truly talented academic students with parents who have the resources find private schools a better option, or why poor parents of talented children want vouchers?

We want good public schools, two words: parental accountability. If we had that, decent programming for a wide ranging array of different aptitudes and abilities would graduate students able to productively contribute to society, since parents would be legally forced to require it, take part in it, and support it or face severe consequences. If you can't hack it, don't have children. Not hard to understand.

So Mark, this is why we don't have shop classes anymore. That and the liability-scare thing. And, BTW, summer vacations are obsolete in non farm school systems, as well as limiting the productive hours of school days to 7 and elimination of homework. Don't get me started on the traditional one hour class periods and how that breaks up the ability to do real, in-depth learning.

dave

I'm sorry I can't answer your question Mark, but I too am disappointed that Industrial Arts education has languished. Dave, I respectfully disagree with you on many of your points, a bit harsh to me. If you look at what the 'definition' of each institution is, you'll see how they get their name and why they change as they expand their opportunities.
Let's take a look at our society and economy - we have moved toward a research, science, technology, and service based economy. So that is what schools try to teach and prepare students for in the future. I'm not saying that it's perfect, in fact I agree that the Germans have a good system - however, just last week I read an article about how our nation was 'behind' in producing engineers and scientists/researchers and the line of thinking was that this would hurt our economy in the future for lack of producing innovations. I think we have to balance those areas of advanced science and math with the trade skills as they are mutually important. Having gone to school myself for a degree in teaching Industrial Arts, I can say a few things about teaching; 1. teaching is not for just anyone, you really have to love what you do to put up with the kids, the parents, and the System. 2. In my area of the country, (and yours Dave) I would have had to get a second job or lived very very simply. 3. That liability thing is a big one, we talk about human error on boiler explosions, what if your child came home missing a digit or was in the hospital from a table saw? People are pretty darn protective of their children's health and well being.
Anyways, I agree that Industrial Arts needs to make a comeback, we all need to let school officials know and take action that you can to help new programs or existing ones.

Sully

I am saddened by the way I see my trade being forgotten due to the lack of teaching the old methods. In my personal situation, I was taught at a Vocational School a lot of the ins and outs of machine work on a manual lathe and mill and then some CNC on a CNC mill. We were taught how to write programs as well as how to manually manufacture parts.

That being said, I went on to college and was just stunned by the lack of hands on work the my fellowstudents recieved. One example was in an injection mold design class when we had to create a two piece mold and machine both halves the same dimensions. A fellow student was dumb founded when I showed him a way to square up a block in the lathe. He thought that the lathe was only good for cutting round parts. He also told me that he had only 1 semester to learn all the tools in the shop.

I am very thankful for the opportunity I had to learn this great trade from one of the masters. Unfortunately, the school has turned into a Community College now and I am afraid that the students will not get the great education that I recieved from this man due to the other classes now required for an associates degree.

The answer for me is to find someone to mentor and pass the knowledge along. This needs to be done at ALL railroad museums. The young people can learn if we have the patience to encourage them to do so.

Ok, I'm stepping off my soap box now.

JD Johnson, Morehead and North Fork Railroad Historian

I am a teacher in a vo-tech high school in Delaware. I teach one of the only (or maybe the only) power plant technology program at the high school in the country. My students operate and maintain the schools boiler room. We cover a wide range of equipment from piping systems to learning how to roll boiler tubes. My students leave my program and are able to work in jobs paying over $20 per hour. Most students who work hard are homeowners within 3 years of graduation.

My program is in danger of being shut down because only small numbers of children are choosing my career area. At the same time I get calls from plants hundreds of miles away looking to hire my students. Children today are not interested in industrial jobs. It is a national trend and I don't know what to do about it. In the next two years my program will either morph into something else or be eliminated.

As a onetime IA teacher (who wouldn't do it again if it paid $100,000 a year, and it doesn't), I know the two jobs where I last taught are now one, and the guy teaches computer classes half time also. I think its called Tech Ed today. I know St Albans, Vermont did away with its machine shop in the high school. Most vocational programs today consist of auto mechanics, welding, carpentry, culinary arts and landscaping. Had a vocational program been available when I was in high school, I likely would not have gone to college to become a shop teacher. My masters degree isn't worth much on the railroad, but it did get me back to Colorado for three summers while getting it..

I was indulging in a little bit of hyperbole in a purposely overlong and disjointed response to a much smaller inquiry, but hyperbole only works if grounded in truth. Most everybody who knows me recognised that, if it encourages others to avoid bothering me so much the better.

It is the parents job to educate their offspring, with the viewpoint in mind of making them contributing, valuable, civilized members of society. I wouldn't let schools take charge of educating a child of mine anymore than I would allow HMOs to take charge of their health issues without doing my own research and consideration.

We as a society provide opportunity for publicly funded resource centers called schools to supplement the parents efforts, not to displace them. Parents have to work, and may not have the depth of knowledge in every subject their child needs to know to teach it all themselves - but it is their responsibility to see the child learns it by supporting the schools, backing the teachers, and enforcing appropriate standards of behavior whether "fair" or not. It is in this area where I think many parents are letting themselves, their children, and society as a whole down.

FWIW, I waited until I was out of school before cutting off my first digit, and I took as much shop as I could. I'd imagine a parent would hope if their child did so in shop class, it would have learned something about care and clumsiness in the process, and might be less likely to make that mistake again. Worked for me.

If we are falling behind, and I believe we are, it is due to the very dumbing down to which I refer, in an effort to force all students, regardless of their individual aptitudes, into academics. I don't care whether our economy is based on transfer of information, taking in each other's laundry, or building machines, somebody will need to make sure the lights go on and the toilets flush. A good trade school path can provide a cost effective way to build those skill levels and give less academic students ways to make very good livings in the process, and needn't wait until after high school graduation. We need shop classes - and trade-track education - now more than ever.

dave

Industrical Arts education historically was intended to prepare students for jobs in manufacturing - which don't exist anymore. Industrial capitalism abhors a skilled employee - much more profitable to have a hi-tech machine run by an unskilled button-pusher than a low-tech machine run by a skilled employee who someday might get sick or hurt or grow old and want a raise or a pension. The skill-set which made American industrial wealth possible has been largely cast aside. Its sad to think that running a South Bend lathe, for example, is becoming a "lost art," something to be seen in museums like someone running a spinning wheel or a butter churn.

my school dropped the metal shop a year or two after I graduated in '81. Still had the wood shop. They want the kids to go to the Vocational school.

This is a very interesting thread and has shown a number of failures of our American society. I wish more people could read it. Technical skills will always be necessary. The academics, of course, do not realize this. We are in trouble.

The kind of mindset and thought process involved in doing machine shop operations is also an essential part of engineering design work, but as was mentioned earlier, if you don't have a manufacturing base any more, you have much less need for both machinists and engineers. We are getting closer to the day when all working people in the United States are employed as sales clerks selling each other products made in Southeast Asia.

Dear Bob:
I too taught IA (3 years in a Chicago inner city upper grade center) and would consider going back for $100K (2X +/- more than I make at The Valley plus there is a pension...).
We (The Valley) has been thinking about trying to start an apprenticeship program here. We have an aging work force (my youngest guy in the shop is pushing 40) and no real prospects for younger people wanting to come here to work. In truth, the only reason that most of our employees are here is that they WANT to work here. Trust me, it isn't for the pay or benefits.
But think of it, how many young people WANT to pursue a career where the work is so hard and dirty and noisy and at times rather dangerous?
I told our President the other day: "working on steam locomotives isn't a job, its a calling".
Back at IRM we used to laugh about "being on a mission from God", we were believers.
At The Valley, I don't see kids with "the fire in the belly", it is older people who have either become tired of the rat race or have the means necessary to do what they want with their lives. Perhaps the future of "steam" (read historic railroading) is with older folks.
J.David

I attended a lecture last evening by author Kevin Phillips, who helped Nixon develop the "Southern Stratgey" and has written numerous political books since. He asserted that at the end of World War II, more than 25 percent of the USA's GDP was in manufacturing, while 11 percent was in service and finance. Today, he continued, those numbers are reversed. Draw your own conclusions about where we are headed.

AH, but you are partly wrong! The nation is in peril of a sagging economy due to the lack of qualified machinists, sheet metal workers and automotive technicians just to name three. The Army and Hyundai just signed a pact to partner in placing deactivated vets into dealership technician jobs, Hyundai's own figure for the demand is a lack of 35,000 industry-wide today!

I sat on the State of California Dept of Ed Blue Ribbon Task Force for 2 years. Our job was to research teh decline of Industrial Arts (now called Industrial Technology Education in CA). We found that most of the damage had already been done by the time we were seated on the committe. In the 70s and 80s, a full 70% of shop classrooms were closed in California. We performed focus groups with parents students and guidance counselors to assess their attitudes toward ITE. WHat we found was surprising. THe higher income families saw shop not as a place to stow the dumbells (as some have implied in this thread.) Rather, they suggested that hands on (kinesthetic) learning only bolster a student's intellect and problem solving abilities. In fact, kids, parents and counselors from the lower income LAUSD groups were the ones who saw shop as a less than desirable alternative to a "real" education.
As a result of our findings, we began a graphic communications academy (printing) and integrated six subjects around unit teaching. The projects required Algebra, English, Health Sciences, Graphics and History skills in order to be completed. We found that our graduates rather than landing workforce positions immediately (some did and were well paid.) our students opted to go on to college. Over 80% of our graduates were still there two years after graduation! This from a high school that annually sends less than 40% of its students to college.

What does all this mean for us? Our Museums are ready made shop classes. I take my son's friends out to ours and they have hot riveted, welded, used high pressure equipment and multiple power tools. The back side of all this educations is a bunch of lifelong memories and skills that can be used at home or in a place of business, primarily problem solving and critical thinking. Our 501-C3 is for education, why not shop as well as history??

If you want to read our report. Find it at:

http://www.citea.org/images/resources/I ... Report.pdf