"Arch" wrote in message
...
snip

Probably most schools could afford to budget for shop space, tools and
teachers, but not to budget for out of control liability risks.


Turn to Safety, Arch
Fortiter


Not in Palm Beach County. It seems like they want to cut every class
that is not considered `academic'; when my daughter was in middle school,
the parents and kids had to protest to get the school to keep offering the
Band class. I think (not sure) that the only high schools offering any kind
of `Shop' class are Charter schools.

When I was in high school O' So Many Ages Past (1975), I was planning to
be an engineer and most of my classes were the ones to help me get ready for
college - the only non-academic classes I took were Band and Electronics. I
didn't even think about taking a `Shop' class - they were just for the kids
who were not going on to college (because they couldn't get high enough
grades for college). Burned my self out in college, dropped out, worked
retail for 12 years, went to a Tech school for my A.A. and became a CAD Tech
for an engineering company. Did some woodworking over the years, with what
I picked up from my Dad (who was a farmer, who told me to never become a
farmer) and stumbled into Woodturning a couple of years ago thru a class at
WoodCraft.

Being smarter now (I hope) than I was back then, I REGRET that I never
took Wood Shop. To have been taught the proper way to use all the tools
would have been great - there are so many things I don't know about
woodworking. And the kids who took those courses weren't dumb, they were
just looking for something different than college. So please consider this
my apology to all the `Shop' kids I might have looked down on back then. And
I hope the school systems will come to their senses and go back to offering
all of those classes - we (society) need them.

Tom S.