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I learned a lot more about things like flaring lines in high school
than they taught at trade school, but our high school was much
better
than most. We consistently had the top grads at trade school. Frank
Mader and Gerry Fry were EXCELLENT instructors, who were, first and
formost, excellent technicians. I saught to emulate them during my
teaching years.

Teaching automotive Mechanics in high school is a real challenge
because they tend to say "we'll never make an (engineer,
electrician,
plumber,or whatever of this duffus, so let's put him into auto
mechanics" This means the auto instructor has to bring them up to
speed on their physics - electrical/electronics theory - hydraulics,
their math (ratio and propartion as well as measurement) and make
them
into electronic technicians/plumbers/machinists/welder-fitters - the
whole works - before you can make a mechanic out of them....

The local trade school recently turned their Diesel shop into a
computer lab, so there'll be no more small engine repair courses.
Welding is the only night class left that isn't an art or craft. A lot
of my machine shop stuff came from auctions of school shops being
repurposed into something more 'relevant' to a dumbed-down service
economy.

When I was in high school the college-bound kids took drafting and
wood shop and really learned from them since we competed to outdo each
other. However auto shop was for parolees from Juvie.

-jsw