What is it about shop class that made it different from math or science?

A wooden paddle with holes drilled in it was the difference between shop & other classes.
I personally wasn’t discouraged from math or science or any class for that matter.
As for aptitude tests, my interest in flying airplanes is next to nothing.

Well, shop has little to do with engineering and more with practical “hands on” generic handyman stuff. Even in the 90’s when I was in school it’s where all the fuckups were. I can’t say I was “encouraged” to do much of anything which is itself discouraging.
@Dutchess_III That pendulum has shifted a complete 180 these days. We are begging women to go into engineering, there are endless programs aimed at getting women in STEM. It’s had an effect but it’s apparently a tough sell for many.

I enrolled in shop class. A day or two later a counselor showed up and, well, he discouraged me. I wasn’t real good at standing up for myself so I caved. :(

So why would they discourage me from taking shop classes @ARE_you_kidding_me?

What does a wooden paddle with holes drilled in it have to do with anything @lucillelucillelucille?

@Dutchess_III Can’t say, there could be all kinds of different motivations. Honestly, I was discouraged from taking vocational courses, A.K.A. “Shop” I remember my guidance counselor dropping her jaw and saying something to the affect of “but, but you’re in college prep, why would you consider vocational?” I was like fine, I’ll just take those courses too. I did not learn jack shit in those college prep courses but I go a lot out of the vocational ones. I could have just goofed off like most in them but I did use the time to learn a thing or two.

@Dutchess_III -I started to explain my answer, then half way through decided that I just don’t give a flying f@ck about explaining it to you ;)

@ARE_you_kidding_me In the very end, the class that really helped me in the Real World the most was…typing. There were several guys in my class. And the class was taught by a guy.

It is frustrating, though, that they couldn’t see encouraging you to take an elective unless it was going to help with your college prep. What is wrong with simple curiosity as a motivation to learn? Grrr.

@Dutchess_III It affected the bottom line in school funding I suppose. More college enrollment = better school ranking.

Oh. That sucks.

Eh, shop won’t really teach you much of anything that’s applicable to engineering. Math and science, however, will.

The teacher’s name was Bob. That was the one difference, because there is only one so that was it.

My High School guidance counselor tried to get me to take a Special Education certificate instead of a High School Diploma. She thought I could graduate a Junior instead of a Senior, and that College was not a realistic goal for me.

Upon graduating, I found a Technical School with an open-doors policy and didn’t discriminate. I ended up transferring to a University and then got a Masters Degree. But maybe original predictions were true. Even with all of this, I never really was successful in a career nor financially.

Shop was for guys who would never do well in the sciences. Sometimes smart guys took it, but mostly it was about callouses. I imagine their biggest concern was you being bothered by the ass grabbers, not about holding you back.

I was in a class of all guys by a simple issue of scheduling once. I was asked if I wanted to switch out one of my other classes so I could be in a mixed group for that one. I told them I was fine.
The boys dig get rowdy a couple of times, but I handled it well, and nothing got out of line.

Funny, the most useful class I took in high school was home economics. I still use the info taught there to this very day.

For some reason in 6th grade I was put in the average math group. I really don’t know why. After a few weeks I went to the teacher and told him I should be in the advanced group. He made me do a problem that the advanced groups was currently doing. I solved it, and he moved me. That was the only time that I can think of where I was I we looked for my math ability. I never thought it was a gender thing, but I don’t know. I think there were other girls in the group if I remember correctly.

Overall, I did not see gender preferences for academics in my schooling. Girls and boys had access to all classes. Girls took shop (I did) and boys took Home Ec. In high school I had male and female science teachers. My accounting teacher was a woman. In Jr. High in PE the girls cycled through playing football (co-ed). There was a term where you learn various sports and play for two weeks. Two weeks of football, two weeks of soccer, two weeks of basketball, etc. You learned the rules, scoring, and you played. I think it was really good.

If you scored very high on IQ and knowledge testing, they probably were trying to track you for academics and college. In Jr. High they tried to increase my reading comprehension to track me into honors classes.

A lot of students in shop can’t do the advanced math classes, but if they think a student can, the school would likely encourage the math to reach their protection. They probably would view shop as a waste of time if taken for more than a semester. My wood shop class was one term (9 weeks) and I do use the knowledge I learned in there more often than one might think. I’m very glad I took the class. I never would have known the name of the various tools and machines, sanding, staining, and other basics about carpentry. I wish I had taken a term of auto shop, although somehow I do know the basics regarding cars. I use what was taught to me in Home Ec also. These basic classes should be for everyone. In Jr. High there was time for math, science, and woodworking class in my school.

Yeah, in my 8th grade boys took 6 weeks of Home Ec. and girls took 6 weeks of shop. I learned far more useful stuff in the Home Ec. class than I ever did in shop class. I wish I could have stayed in Home Ec. honestly.

@Darth_Algar Your school didn’t have additional elective classes that were Home Ec related? Like cooking or Sewing?

@Patty_Melt considering at least 3 of the male teachers were ass grabbers, they were looking in the wrong places.

Cooking and sewing were part of Home Ec.

Cooking and sewing were part of Home Ec for me too, but then after Home Ec you could take additional classes if you chose too. I took Sewing and made trousers, a dress, I don’t remember what else. In basic Home Ec we didn’t make garments so complicated, we just learned to sew on a button and thread a sewing machine, and very basic. The Cooking class you learned more advanced techniques and dishes, while in Home Ec we learned really good basics, making bread, pasta, cheese, butter, the various terms like sauté, mix, fold, and how to cut properly, etc.

I sewed the cutest pair of shorts that strapped up over my shoulders. It was done and in my cubby, ready to be graded. Somebody stole it. When I joined FB in 2010 I may have had reason to comment about that because of of my former classmates knew who had stolen them. I wasn’t surprised to learn it was her.
Anyway, I hate sewing and I hate sewing machines.

I still make food from what I learned in Home Ec, like baby pizzas (English muffins with sauce and mozzarella cheese.) However, I found my teacher’s insistence on measuring ingredients so minutely to be tedious. Like heaping your teaspoon with baking powder then carefully leveling it off with a knife….NO! I scoop up roughly a teaspoon of the stuff, shake it down, and dump it in! I don’t sift, either.

I don’t think they offered any classes outside of home ec. If they had, I wouldn’t have taken them.

When I was in Jr High & High School, girls weren’t allowed to take shop. Our ONLY option was Home Economics. Girls weren’t allowed to use dangerous tools & boys didn’t need to know how to cook or sew. Plus neither of those classes were considered necessary for going to college. Engineering was a male dominated field & girls were NOT welcomed!!!

^^Where did you live growing up and how old are you?

My sister, who was a year older than me, had to take home economics, and boys had to take shop—in eighth grade. That was in the 1976–1977 school year.

One year later, in the 1977–1978 school year, ALL eighth graders, male and female, took ½ semester of science, health, shop, and home economics.

@JLeslie I’m guessing she is close to my age. The time frame would have been the 60s and 70s.
The boys in my school were allowed to take Home Ec, though. Although one of them told me he took it so he could be around a bunch of girls.

@JLeslie “Your school didn’t have additional elective classes that were Home Ec related? Like cooking or Sewing?”

It was all under Home Ec.. Even still, applying for an elective didn’t mean you’d be placed in that class. And at my high school the unwritten rule was they didn’t place boys in a “girls” class like Home Ec, and they didn’t place girls in a “boys” class like auto mechanics or welding. Might turn some boy into a homo or some girl into a dyke if they did that.

I was in 7th grade in ‘79—‘80. I know other people my age who went to school where the girls had Home Ec and the boys didn’t. Usually from the Midwest, but some parts of the Midwest were like my school.

@Darth_Algar And, how old are you, and what part of the country?

No guy would want to be in home ec—but there were a fair number of girls who would take shop. Never knew a girl to take auto mechanics.

@JLeslie

42, and I grew up in a small little ass-backwards town in extreme Southern Illinois.

42! Wow, that is ass backwards and way behind the times. I hope they are a little more caught up now.

I doubt it. If anything they’re even worse there now.

@Yellowdog Rick’s niece is a master auto mechanic.