[asn007]

While I was lucky to have shop classes in my school, this curriculum makes me extremely jealous, to be honest. We didn't have neither welding, nor forging, nor working with fiberglass composites nor "big" projects, had to learn it all by myself. Still, those classes taught me the basics of actually doing something with my own hands, which is pretty important.

I also remember that we were trusted to behave like adults in front of heavy machinery like routers, circular saws and lathes. No incidents whatsoever aside from minor cuts, which is normal. We were genuinely interested and behaved accordingly, nobody wanted to get hurt and / or get kicked out of the class

P.S. Not sure of how it works in the US, but we also had "shop classes for girls". The curriculum for those consisted of the basics of cooking, baking and working with fabrics (starting from sewing two pieces together in grade 5 and gradually evolving to designing and sewing clothing for yourself by grade 9). Though, in my opinion, those things shall be taught to everyone, not just girls

[chasd00]

I had “agtech” in HS. Learning how to use a cutting torch and weld was the most memorable. Heh our welding unit was pretty much all about working on our teacher’s horse trailer. We also did hunter’s education which spent a lot of time on gun safety and was very useful. (Yes, I went to HS out in the sticks)

[dlgeek]

The latter class would have been called "Home Economics" ("HomeEc") back in the day.

[skinkestek]

Both these (sløyd /woodworking, heimekunnskap/cooking and home economics) were mandatory for everyone in Norway back in the nineties(although to be fair shop time was limited to wood, we weren't allowed to use metal lathes etc anymore), as was sewing (both with hand and machines).

I'm still thankful because of all the stuff I can relatively easy cook, fix or make thanks to those few hours in school.

(I'd also say they made for extremely welcome breaks between boring stuff in other subjects and being bullied during breaks.)

[theshrike79]

Still mandatory in Finland.

They have "soft materials" (fabric, sewing, knitting) and "hard materials" (wood, metal working, 3d-printing etc).

In upper classes they have cooking and more of the same.

[wildzzz]

My highschool had one of the few county vocational schools attached to it. We had things like construction tech, auto tech, PC repair (got your A+ in that class), networking (you get a CCENT), engineering drawing and basics, criminal justice, cosmetology, and what was essentially preschool teacher class along with many others I don't remember. Other schools in the county had different classes but ours was the biggest. The engineering classroom was my adhoc homeroom and the place I spent most days after school my senior year due to joining our FIRST robotics club. We had everything for doing woodworking but also had an old Bridgeport mill, a CNC router (I was the resident mastercam X expert) and a lathe. We did just about all of our robot fabrication there except for the TIG welding (local shop did it for free). The engineering drawing class also had a small woodworking shop too. Our engineering teacher taught freshmen at the local university so we came out of his classes being thoroughly prepared for college.

I bailed on my mechanical engineering major sophmore year and switched to computer engineering. I love building stuff with but just didn't enjoy statics class.

Bonus pic: our 2010 FRC robot "hanging out" after the match: https://www.chiefdelphi.com/uploads/default/original/3X/8/b/...

[S_Bear]

For all the focus on STEM education in the past couple decades, I'm surprised cooking never really came back in vogue. Cooking is applied science that we have to do every day. I had to figure it all out in my late 20s, because shop and home ec were gutted in the 90s in my district.