Our History
Growing up in the 70’s, my friends and I had the great blessing of being exposed to building and tinkering through our grade school and high school shop classes. We built rockets, airplanes, soapbox cars, and ceramics. High school electives gave us drafting, metal shop, wood shop and auto shop. As a result, many of my close friends went on to very fulfilling and well-paid careers as engineers, builders, pilots, and skilled tradesmen. (I became a Manufacturing Engineer.)
The Great Folly
Shop Class nurtured our natural aptitudes to solve problems and create the physical things that surround us every day. But in the 1990’s the American education system largely dismantled Shop Class in favor of the new computer economy. Today we see this was a great folly. Kids with aptitudes and interests not geared for college, are ringing up astronomical student loan debts for degrees that have little or no value in the marketplace. (How many Philosopher jobs actually exist?) The kids who graduate high school and go into the trades, have no student loan debt and are making far more money and have a more fulfilling life.
