any of you spinny guys want to give this a try?

Kudos John great job by both you and the students.

From news reports here looks to me like society is beginning to realize having shop class at school was in fact kind of important.

There is now a serious shortage in trades and the reasons are being debated. DUH.

You look at these knobs and its a no brainer to me the value of shop class. But hey i am just a 60 year old fart that benefited immensely from great shop teachers. Was called Industrial arts in my day.

I don't see why a modernized version could not be taught today with Cad draughting , CNC, 3D printing, Laser cutting etc and then a mechanics shop class for vehicle diagnostics. But that would require school boards to change and adapt.

Keep up great work with those kids you will be remembered for their entire life. I cannot remember names of many teachers and other things but i recall the names of my shop class teachers even their faces.

Rob Keeble said:

...I don't see why a modernized version could not be taught today with Cad draughting , CNC, 3D printing, Laser cutting etc...

Click to expand...

I have a niece who teaches pretty much that exact curriculum (minus the laser cutting - so far) at the middle school level. She's had to fight tooth and nail to get funding for equipment. I agree that auto shop class these days should/would need to put a lot of emphasis on diagnostics, but there's still the need to learn the actual mechanical end of it, too. I know the local high school near our house (my old alma mater, as it turns out) still has an active auto shop class.