How did your shop classes effect your life?

I became a shop teacher................................

 

So did I. I checked the member list here once, over 40 listed as "shop teacher", another 200 as teachers

 

I taught High School Industrial Arts (wood shop and Metal shop) from 1967-2005. My students did it all and really got real life hands on experience. I remember one night about 12PM the neighbors called the cops when I opened the metal shop and let a couple of my students put a rebuilt engine in their GTO. Like any job it wasn't always easy( Kung Fu Stars, "pipes", bongs, brass knuckes, etc) but it feels good reading all the posts about how the traditional"shop classes" had such a lasting impact. Today's kids are really missing out.

 

maybe someday we should start a thread on all the really, really stupid and dangerous things we saw or stopped kids from doing just in time...a guy I used to teach with and I kept a notebook called "things nobody would ever believe" about just that, except all the stories were true.

 

Cool thread! In my 9th, 10th & 11th grades, I took Machine Shop, we're talkin' 1969-'71. Mr Hoffman was retired from the Navy and this guy could do ANYTHING! His students won tons of contests over the years. One thing I'll never forget...this had to be in '70...he would have us spend the first hour in the books. Of course, we hated that, but one day he told us "Boys, one day machines will be run by computers and the man that knows math and has an education will be the guy makin' all the bucks" We thought he was crazy, cause back then computers were room-sized things as far as we knew. That man sure knew what he was talking about, huh?

 

High school auto shop class was what started it. After 25 year's in the automotive field I was offered a job teaching at the high school that I graduated from. It is very rewarding to work with a lot of student that are eager to learn. I will always remember my auto shop teacher he was a great guy . I hope my student think that way of me when they use the skills that they learned in my class.

 

...well said Cal...
I was a promising candidate for college (architecture and drafting) and my parents sent me to a college prep high school...in my junior year, my parents got divorced and..to make a long story short, by the time I graduated high school, I was "on my own"...I coulda stayed in school, but how would I pay the bills and fund my projects too?
...BOO HOO right?...I have had to learn a lot of stuff the honest way but I don't regret a damn thing about learning to make my living "with my hands"...Thank God my father was handy and had a great work ethic...I stuck to him like flies on shit and if I hadn't, I would be working in a glue factory (no offense to glue factory workers) paying all my hard earned $$$ to have folks fix idiotic shit and think for me...
...all those guys who went on to college without getting their hands dirty are the ones that PAY US to change oil? fix appliances? roof the house? Cake to most of us...so it's not all bad some of us didn't have shop!

***BUT PARENTS...IF YOU DON"T THINK "SHOP" IS IMPORTANT or YOU DON'T GET THEM INVOLVED WITH THE MEAT AND POTATOES OF REAL LIFE THEY WILL HAVE A HARD TIME STARTING OUT IN THE REAL WORLD WHETHER THEY GO TO COLLEGE OR NOT***

...wish I had "shop"...here's your soap box back, Cal.

 

I am 24 and was in auto body in my school and took all the auto classes i could. Well i have been in touch with my teachers over the years and i know that it makes them happy that i am building a car. It makes them feel like they have actually made a difference. And with all the losers that flow threw their classes at least they see that someone was actually listening.

Since i have left school like i said i kept in contact and my auto body teacher has let me come into class during school (when i get a day off) and work on my cars myself. They only thing is that i have to take 2 kids and teach them and let them work on my stuff. He says it shows the kids that it will pay off later and it helps the connect with someone that is more like them, (age, intrests and speech dude) haha So my shop class has tought me that cars are fun and that you meet great people and it has also let me connect with kids that are 16-17 and show them that their teachers DO know what they are talking about and actually listen to them so it pays off for me the kids and the teachers.

Isnt it funny that even tho your both adults now that you still call them Mr. B or whatever your teachers name was.

 

My grade 12 Auto teacher was a complete asshole.
That convinced me to not become an auto mechanic.

 

The year before I got there, they closed our metal shop to make a bigger weight room for the football team .It was a nice shop too ,even had a forge.

 

I learned to stick weld, gas weld, do electrical wiring and many other useful skills in ag shop back in the '60s. Up until he died last year, I would embarrass my old ag teacher every time I saw him by telling everyone within earshot that out of 17 years of formal education this man taught me more useful things than all the other teachers combined. Every day I use something I learned by taking ag and ag shop.

 

My wife work's at a hospital and I'm always amazed she comes home and tells me about how the other women think its awesome that I do things around the house (remodel, re roof, laying tile and flooring, ETC) that there college educated husbands cant figure out. But its things I was taught to do from a young age (Thanks Dad) and if I don't exactly know how I'll teach myself along the way. But its a good thing they don't think its necessary to teach that shit in school

 

Never had the chance as my school didn't have a program. Rich white suburbs ftl.

 

I got nothing from shop class as our teacher wasn't real great at his job. We used to call him "fido" and not in a flattering way.
I used to ride my bike by the neighbors place a lot and when I'd see him in his shop I'd stop and he taught me to weld and use a torch.
I would take pieces home that I had been welding on to show my dad and soon he bought a welder and I "fixed" from then on, I think I was about 15.

 

I was so lucky to have shop classes. I think we were the last class before the schools cut them and made sports a priority.

We had metal shop, they taught us how to weld, manual machine and cast aluminum. Can you believe that??? If it wasnt for that, I doubt I would have ever started Flyrite Choppers. Its so easy and fun to cast aluminum parts.

We of course had auto shop, but unfortunately we would take the car and go get donuts all the time.

We also had wood shop. Sure comes in handy too.


-Jason

 

I learned that I didn't want to be a carpenter, a draftsman, a welder or a mechanic. I went to college and got a BS in engineering technology and later a vocational teaching certificate. I never used either of those and I now work in a street rod shop, using some of the skills I learned in shop.

Dave

 

I built my first car when I was 12 yrs old. (77 mustang 2) with a hypo 289, 4 speed top loader. (aka the tazmanian pinto)
My dad and uncles were mechanics and builders so I was around it my whole life. To tell you the damn truth my first day in shop class the teacher was giving a class on a 5 horse briggs and wrench sizes. To say the least I was cutting up in class and the teacher called me out on it. I proceded to tell him that I already know this stuff, and he said if you know it you will have no problem tearing down this motor and putting it back together! So I proceded to do just that, my go cart ran a 5 horse briggs when I was 7 or 8 years old, so this was a piece of cake. My dad's rules were always, if I broke it, I had to fix it!!
After that me and Mr. Graham became very close and he would let me work on the tazmanian pinto during class. Really cool guy!

 

Well I had a bit of a head start. My Dad was one of those guys that could do about anything wood ,electrical,mechanical etc. About all I picked up was the mechanical type stuff, house type electrics baffle me to this day. I had pretty much full use of any tools he had at the age of 6 or so. First rule PUT IT BACK !! Had a Maytag powered cart at 9, mini bike at 11 and a motorcycle at 13. Built my first car ground up at 17 after 1 year of auto shop and general shop. Did every shop course I could. HS shop did teach me one thing having the right tool sure makes things work better. And ever since I've trying to get one of everything.
My Dad died at a early age [52] so he never got to see a lot of what I have done/built. He never told me how to do something,but would always give help/advise if ask.

 

ditto

 

I was lucky, Everday when I was a freshman At 14yrs old till I was 17 my SGHS Voc Auto Teach drove a a 283 ci,39 trans closed drive line Burgundy 40 Ford Deluxe to school.

I learned alot off of that car. He didn't know it, but I was infected with that car earlier when I was in 7th grade as I lived rt in front of the HS and saw that car everday that he drove it. One Day Moon Discs the other 46 Ford Rings and caps on school bus yellow wheels.

I remember the day that he sold it to buy a house for his wife and his kids. It was a great time to sell and still a good time to buy a duplex in Highland Pk. He stopped teaching regulary right after that,but still played with cars.

I kept in touch with him over the yrs and even worked @ the same places that he did.
Fast Forward to LARS 03 along walks up this former teacher and I think Wow! Nice to see ya. There isn't a day that has gone by that I didn't call on something that his 40 and he taught me, I thank him for that.

He's back at it again back in SGHS's Auto Shop, do to a death of the previous teacher.(RIP Tony). Last Friday I was driving by and whats parked out in front of the shop. His severly channeled 30 A Bone Roadster.

10 min before class ends he's out there showing the kids this car, They are all over it and with me standing in the background I heard a few them say that they couldn't wait to build something like that in class. Not even being a student there in the past 26yrs I still learned something from him. That even in this day of techno-kids there's still a few Hot Rodders coming up through the ranks!

 

I didn't take any shop in Junior high or my first two years of High School. You could only pick one elective and sine my dad was the Music teacher and a Pro Jazz musician I took that route. Served me well as I played drums as a pro for a while. Even played the Hollywood Bowl and owned some music stores .
We moved before Sophomore year and the music teacher was clueless so I took a brand new course at the school "Power Mechanics". This was in Corona Del Mar (Newport Beach) CA and they didn't want a dirty old auto shop. So we took apart Tecumseh lawn mower engines and learned theory. I was a little bored as I had been rebuilding motorcycle engines for years at that point and had helped my dad restore two British sports cars. Became friends with the teacher and we would ride dirt bikes together and he did teach me some life lessons, some intentionally, some not so .
It's funny, I didn't really learn a lot about mechanical things from him but many other things and we remained friends off & on over the years. I met the legendary Malcolm Smith because they rode dirt bikes together and years later restored Malcolm's most famous Baja race car for him. And the best On Again part of the friendship came when I reconstructed the "Old Hot Rod" that the teacher had bragged about over the years - It was the Rods & Customs magazine first cover car in 1953 and I had it done for the significant 75 at the GNRS, so I guess Shop class was alright! That was 36 years ago.
College I took machine shop and better yet Motocross for PE! Yahoo

 

Auto Shop changed my life! My teacher was a real car guy and loved old cars. Me and my partner had to get a Hemi running for our final. We did get in trouble for putting Zoomies on and revved it up a lot,LOL....

 

im a youngin so i didnt get shop class in highschool but im taking auto classes in college now and all i can say is 50% of your grade is for dumb essays.

ps, hotroddon you got to meet malcolm smith you SOB!!

 

i too was refused entry but unlike littleman i didn't fight it, still regretting that one. i spent every waking minute teaching myself everything i could buildin' a lowrider bike jr & sr year.

 

I got hit in the nuts by the metal brake handle once and learned to always stand away from it when some asshole is on the other side.

 

Ha. In 1951 our HS had three sports seasons, one man taught chemestry, algebra, and coached the sports teams too. For a short season of baseball, then football, then basketball. There was no baseball league they just did it for PT. I signed up for football but didn't sign up for baseball or basketball. I caused quite a rukus. The coach even drove out to dad's farm to talk to him. Dad told him, if the kid don't want to play baseball or basketball leave him alone! The underlying story was that they had to organize a shop class for me during baseball, then I played football and then went would have had to go back to shop for basketball season. I was the only one in there! I made an end table from a drawing and got an A. I wasn't wanting to do that deal again, so I changed my preference and signed up for basketball so that I wouldn't have to take that shop class anymore! My basketball career was bench warmer and towell guy.

 

Like Mr. ModleACoupe, I hated school. I couldn't give a rats ass less what year some friggin' war went on a couple thousand years ago. I could add and multiply so I didn't need any of that other math crap. I could spell and talk and write so I didn't need any of that other english "verb" "noun" crap either. I just barely made it though high school. In my senior year I took woodworking shop. After roll call I slipped out the back door behind the furnace and went and hung out at the APCO station. I did manage to make a wood table during the year which I still have. In my senior year I also took auto-tractor mechanincs. That was good. For the most part the teacher, Stanley Allen, would hold class for about an hour (three hour class) and tell us stuff and then we would tell him we were going for coffee and that's the last he would see of us. I had a 55 Chevy and thoughout the year I did manage to paint it Colonial White and I fixed a couple of motors I blew up drag racin' or just raisin' hell. That class was the best class I took in 12 years of school. I wish I'd have taken the time to learn to weld. I don't really remember if it was available or not, may have been, and if it was I wish I'd have taken it. I did take typing, good thing for today's time and two years of art classes. That was easy stuff and why I took it. Oh and later as an adult I took some college stuff, until my GI benefits ran out, and that was a lot easier than high school was. Over the years I've done alright. I've had a fairly prestigious job and met a lot of wheeler dealers. In high school I didn't do the football - basketball thing or any other school shit. It funny now, when I go to class reunions those snooty bitches that wouldn't give me the time of day when I was I was in high school are all friendly as hell now.

 

Quite a bit actually but it wasn't metal shop or wood shop...it was mechanical drawing classes. I took it all three years of high school. I think the biggest advantage was being able to think in 3 dimensions. Being able to rotate an object in my mind and be able to see what it looks like from a different angle in my head. Being able to look at a one dimensional blue print and being able to see it in 3 dimensions.

I went on later in life to do coordinated shop drawing for the HVAC systems in some large buildings. Finding the conflicts before they were partially built saved a lot o time and money for my employers. It helps with building hot rods too, being able to see in your mind all off the 10 pounds of shit that you need to stuff in that 5 lb bag of a hot rod.

Mr. Hoffman was a great influence on me and a pretty good prophet. He told us in 1959 that the 55 Chevy would be a milestone car. It was just a used car to most of us punks.

 

Let's see,

Exploded a large bowl while turning it on the lathe in wood shop

Cut the back of my thumb nearly to the bone after it slipped off the clamp handle on the electric hack saw in metal shop.

Saw an oxygen tank dropped of the back of the delivery truck, in the Ag shop, breaking off the valve and taking off through the bottom of the overhead door across the parking lot and then planting itself like a battering ram in the outside wall of the gym.

Popped the breaker for half the electric shop after hooking up my circuit board.

Made a cross bow out of a cut down leaf spring, that would put a cold rolled rod half way through a cinder block.

After wich I was encouraged not to find a job as a tradesman.

 

Well, I was in a textiles shop class and lost three fingers in a machine. Ruined my baseball career, made me learn to write with my right hand, and made me learn how to play guitar the other way. But it still makes for good jokes while throwing back a few. And it's always funny to shake someone's hand with gloves on and they only squeeze one finger.........their eyes bug out and they think WTF?