[GOPAPA]

Originally Posted by In The Ten Ring

I had three years of "shop class" in jr. high and high school and all three classes were jokes. The classes were dumping grounds for misbehavior cases, I was the only student in any of those with an "A" average or who had any upper level courses at all.

The last shop class was a bit better than the others, we at least made a few metal and plastic projects. The first two were chaos: real "free for all's." It's a shame too. The teacher was beating in time to retirement, he had no control over behavior, and did not care. The substitute came in after the guy had a heart attack, he had a strong, authoritative demeanor, but he refused to let us into the shop and kept us in the classroom. Opportunity lost.

All I ever learned of any use out of three years was what "cold rolled steel" was and to "always tighten at least 2 of the 3 holes in a drill press chuck."

Public schools are their best!

In 1999 at age 24 I entered vocational school for auto mechanics.....it was a complete rerun of jr. high shop. Dumping ground for losers, teacher with no classroom control, no organization, taught nothing. Bullying, fights, wasted opportunities.

A big guy tried to bully me, I was not going to let that fly. I put a stop to it quickly but I did overreact on him. Years later he and his mother came to a car lot I sold on for help, but there was no helping them....no down payment, no trade, no real income, bad credit, you know the drill.

I drew him aside and apologized for how I had handled him......he understood. I had to be overzealous though because of how dangerous appearing "weak" in such a place is. I landed a full time job as a substitute teacher and I quit going. It's a shame that schools operate that way.....I had even gone to the principal of that school myself over how bad that class was but he was not interested. I wonder how many of those rejects are in prison now and how well the ones that wanted to learn turned out.

I am still looking for some part of this where it has to do with a water heater.. lol