The Future of Shop Class

[xchrom]

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/12/the-future-of-shop-class/282389/



What used to be the woodshop at Georgia's Dalton High School is now free of dust. Instead, it's filled with welding stations, a 3-D printer, and a computer-controlled plasma cutter. Students work with the engineering students across the hall on robotics projects, building their knowledge of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Seventy-four percent of Dalton High's students are enrolled in career, technical, and agricultural courses. But this isn't your father's vocational ed. Here, training for particular careers is considered part of a well-rounded college-preparatory education. "It's not an either/or with us," said Principal Steve Bartoo.

Dalton, Ga., a city of just over 33,000 in the Appalachian foothills, calls itself the Carpet Capital of the World. (Northwest Georgia produces 90 percent of the carpet made in the United States.) It's also home to a fast-growing Latino community. Latinos comprise 48 percent of Dalton's population—although only 9 percent statewide—and 70 percent of the students at Dalton High.

The community is still struggling to emerge from the recession; about 70 percent of the school's 1,640 students qualify for federally subsidized lunches. But despite changing demographics, falling incomes, and declining state funding, Dalton High's students are graduating at higher rates than ever. By combining a rigorous approach to career and technical education, known as CTE, with high academic expectations, the school has lifted its graduation rate from 56 percent to 92 percent over the past decade. Almost 70 percent of the class of 2011 enrolled in college within two years of finishing high school.

[GladRagDahl]

1. bright spot

in education! Nice story

[marmar]

2. k/r

[RC]

3. If word of this gets out, the usual suspects will try to shut it down or sabotage it into oblivion.

I mean, how can this apply on the standardize test, so we know how well the teacher is teaching and so the school get more money?
That is the purpose of schools isn't it, profit for those running them? It sure seem like it in far too many places.

[lumberjack_jeff]

4. The book "Shop class as soulcraft" dealt with this subject well.

Boys need opportunities to learn with their hands.

[chalky]

5. Why just boys?

I would have loved to have taken shop when I was in jr. high and high school.

[LeftyMom]

8. Do you ever have a thought that isn't sexist?

[Gravitycollapse]

9. Nope.

[Gravitycollapse]

10. Don't tell me, you think more women should take home economics...

[XemaSab]

6. I was pontificating at dinner tonight about Breaking Bad

and about how Jesse is a kid who wasn't into the whole "school" thing but making meth and carpentry were things that he could engage with and really refine his skills at.

We need to give all kids opportunities to do things they love.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

7. Yep. This is covered quite well in "Makers: The New Industrial Revolution" by Chris Anderson

http://www.amazon.com/Makers-The-New-Industrial-Revolution/dp/0307720950

He talks about MakerBot and other great companies springing up to fill this new realm of our 21st century manufacturing and design economy.

[Buns_of_Fire]

11. Everything I ever made in shop class wound up being an ashtray.

But with a welding station, a 3-D printer, and a computer-controlled plasma cutter, I could have made really NEAT...

Ashtrays.