Hello again and welcome back to America under the Microscope. Hello again, Brad.

Hello.

So in this episode, I thought we talk about something again, more related to, let's say, working with your hands or a tech—related since that's what you're into. You're actually doing a degree, another degree in mechanical engineering?

Electrical engineering.

Electrical engineering. So you're quite the engineer. So I am going to ask you about shop class. For those of you who are listening, if you watched enough American TV shows or movies, you probably have seen shop class or at least heard people talking about shop class. This seems to be a specific classes, more like a DIY working with your hand class in middle school?

It starts in middle school. Usually they don't started in an elementary school, but usually in middle school or high school. And many middle schools when I was younger, all the students had to take a shop class regardless of whether a boy or a girl, everyone had to take this class.

So it's a compulsory. Everyone had to take it.

Yes.

How frequent is this class? Like once every week or?

If I remember correctly, we met at least twice a week, I think, maybe three times a week.

Three times a week when you were, you said in middle school. So that would be what? 12, 13?

Yes. I I took my first shop class when I was 12 in 6th grade.

Three times a week. That sounds a lot. Each of these would be one—hour sessions?

One hour. I think the other days we took a music class or something like that.

So what is this shop class for? And why is it called shop class? Because the first time I heard shop class, I thought it was a class that teaches you to shop.

Shop comes from like the word workshop here, working in a workshop here, in a room that has lots of tools. But basically the whole point of the class is to introduce like trade skills, working with materials like wood, plastic and metal using.

But it's not really handicrafts, it is not arts and craft. It's more like using actual tools to make things with wood, with metal?

Like kids will have an art class where they go and they paint...

That's more the arts and crafts.

And they make crafts and things like that. But in shop class, people work with tools and actually build things. They might...

Real life problem solving.

Yeah.

And you said trade skills. Here trade would be like a certain trades. Like carpentry is a trade. So this is trade skills.

Within trade. We usually have a carpenter or an electrician. We have more engineering type jobs. But when you're looking at someone who puts in the wiring in a house, they are an electrician. So they'll learn a trade. Construction work is usually a trade like not doing the basic construction work, but may be driving the crane or something like that.

So it's like a specific skill that's needed. Why would shop class be mandatory or compulsory when you were growing up? I'm not sure now, but what was the logic behind it?

Most people didn't go to university. It would maybe be half of the students went to university. The other half of the students, they would actually go out and have a trade. And so usually by the time you were done with high school, you should have the ability to have a basic understanding of one of these trades. So you could go off and be an apprentice.

It's more vocational education.

Part of it is.

Okay. What do you actually do in shop class? First of all, how big is it?

Usually it was a normal size class about anywhere from 20 to 30 students.

Do you have a specific room for shop class? Or is it just any?

It was in my middle school, it was a very large room. It was probably about the size of four normal classrooms. They have large tables for people to work on their projects, and they had all the different tools that normally you would use like an electric saw. Different types of things.

So you guys were 12, 13 years old and you were given electric saws to work with.

Right.

And you have like a class of 20 to 30 people with one teacher? I wouldn't wanna be that teacher.

Yeah, the teachers were usually little bit more strict. And so if someone was using the table saw, they might be right there watching it while the students were using the table saw. But my teacher, he was a little bit more relaxed, he would be off doing something else while a student was using the table saw.

Have you seen accidents happen?

Never with the table saw, but with like other things like maybe a hacksaw, someone cut their finger or something like that. I've never seen someone cut off their finger, but maybe just a really deep cut.

I can just paint that picture of the entire class, trying to locate someone's missing thumb. So all these tools, but what were you building?

One of the things that I built was a a candy dispenser that looked like a robot. Every time you move the robot's arm, candy would come out of the dispenser. So typically it's something mechanical or something that would have like a purpose. For example, a bird feeder, but not just a typical bird feeder, one that might prevent something like a squirrel from getting into the bird feeder and taking the birds food.

Like you said it has a mechanical structure inside. So I guess this is where the real life practicality comes in. Do you get grades? Do you get graded on these finished products?

Yeah. Usually as long as you followed all the criteria, like you had some sort of mechanical thing on the inside that works, and you showed like the process of building it, then you would get an A. but if you didn't finish your project or if you're missing something, or if you didn't have something mechanical or something that followed the rules of your project, then you wouldn't get a passing score.

Or perhaps if you are losing fingers, wouldn’t get a passing score. So jokes aside, do you get to keep these finished results, these machines or these things?

Most of the time you did. I gave my candy dispenser to my grandma. The other projects, though I don't remember what happened to them. Usually you keep them. It depends on what you're doing as well. There are some clubs and things that might work in the shop and build something and then sell them and make money for like a party or something like that.

I see. So that was all about when you were growing up. But shop class I would imagine with the whole technology these days with AI, computer with the internet, shop class wouldn't be too much up to date nowadays, would it?

Right now. A lot of middle schools have forgone the shop class. A lot of times when they're building a new school, they won't include this type of facility with inside the school itself. So a lot of schools don't have this particular class. They might have some after school activities related to STEM where they might do computer programming or work with 3D printers and things like this.

Remind me of STEM again. It's science, technology, education, engineering? and then Math. Ah. Ok. So now it's more obviously up to date. And perhaps it's also because shop class can be quite costly. And just the space alone.

A lot of the higher cost programs like music and shop class have been cut in many districts, just because they do cost so much. They might have music clubs and things like this or orchestra. And a lot of times if you're in that, you have to have your own instrument already.

So schools because their public schools, they wouldn't pay for that.

In the past they would, they would have a lot of instruments. But nowadays they don't.

I see. I think that wraps up today's episode. In the advanced episode about shop class, we're gonna get into this topic a bit more and talk about gender gaps, perhaps, and also the role of design and technology in the American educational system. We'll see you next time.

Thank you.

Bye.

Bye.