Just felt like posting an opinion on something that's happened in my area over the past ten years or so, and seems to be happening all over the country: the end of wood shop in high school. In my area, most high schools have already cut the program years ago, with the poorer high schools first. Just recently, my high school, one of the most wealthy in the area and one of the last to have it, cut it as well. I graduated three years ago, and was actually the last class to ever have it. I took the class all four years, and my senior year the program was ended, and replaced with a CAD class and Architectural Design class. Luckily for me, my instructor was able to incorporate some woodworking into the Architectural Design program, since he viewed building what you designed an important aspect. However, after I graduated, the school put an end to that aspect as well.
I find this completely disappointing. My high schools reasoning for cancelling this was because they viewed it as irrelevant to the high schools curriculum, and that students interested in woodworking would simply enroll in a Vo-tech program. This is just so dumb in my opinion, because there were many college bound students who took the class, including myself, who wouldn't go to vo-tech since we didn't plan to become carpenters. Wood shop was a great opportunity to give your mind a break from the books while doing something productive, and also put some things to practical use like math, drafting, and CAD. Not to mention, I can think of many of the mandatory courses I had to take in high school that will never apply to myself or 95% of the other students. Wood shop also gave me love to the woodworking hobby, which I ending up continuing after I put together my own wood shop after high school and continue it. Pretty soon I feel like any of the other free minded elective such as art will be cancelled as well.
Another issue with cancelling this, which may be the high schools intention, is it takes away peoples ability to find love for the trades. In my high school, you're not allowed to take vo-tech until 10th grade. They also cancelled middle school wood shop, so basically for those who cold have gotten a taste in middle school or 9th grade, they no longer get that opportunity.
One last thing, sure about half the kids in the class were students simply trying to "get by" in high school and took the "easy" class, but the other half as mentioned were college bound students interested in wood working.
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