Yep, took shop (we had metal working and wood working shop, and I took both) in junior high and highschool. It was pretty big at my school.
-XT
In 6th grade, yes (along with home ec). I made a baseball bat, I think. And then we made salt and pepper shakers, maybe? It was one of the courses everyone cycled through. I certainly didn’t sign up for additional classes in 8th grade, when we actually started to have some schedule options (my school system, esp. at the high school level was organized like college, so they started training on how to “choose” classes pretty early).
AFAIK they got rid of all those types of classes at both the middle/high school level right as I was moving on to high school. This was in the mid-90s.
Rachel Dratch is a graduate of the same school system as I went through, and I swear Sully/Denise is basically a bit of a mean-spirited rip-off of the Metrowest suburb I grew up in back when it was more split between the super upper middle class contingent and the shrinking blue-collar population. All the home ec/shop jokes are straight up Lexington.
I took shop in Jr. High. We did metal working and woodworking, and it was great. This was a requirement in many schools until the 1980s when the shops were turned into computer labs. I always liked to build things, and I’ve tried to be self sufficient when it comes to taking care of houses and cars. The shop classes didn’t really make a difference, I would have done that anyway, but there was useful information there. By high school the shop classes had largely become a Vo-Tech program, and the classes had no room for elective students from the academic track.
My first high school didn’t allow girls to take shop. Nope, girls took one year of science, and another year of home ec, which counted as science. Boys got to take two years of science. I wanted to take another year of science, but the counselor put me in home ec, despite the fact that I already had better than basic cooking and sewing skills. I did learn to fill out a check, and balance a checkbook, which I hadn’t known before. However, later on I took bookkeeping, and they taught us about checkbooks in that class, too. So those two semesters of home ec were a complete waste of time for me. My second high school required EVERYONE to take two years of science, so I finally got to take my second year of science. It also had allowed girls to take shop class for a few years. I took wood shop, and my teacher told me that I was the first girl to ever earn an A in his class. I loved shop, and I was very good at it. I still have all the things I made in shop.
Well, I haven’t used a forge or done any welding since my schooldays, but I think there was a lot more to it than just learning how to operate machines and make things.
From those shop classes, I learned how to plan projects–which has been very handy for all kinds of DIY stuff around the house. In shop class, we didn’t just start in on something we had a vague idea of. We were required to plan it: we had to draft up a proper plan to scale, and we had to prepare a bill of materials, listing everything we were going to use. Once we had the teacher’s approval on our plan and our bill, we could get to work. Today, I can (and do) still sketch out a plan, and estimate needed materials. Saves me a lot of time and trouble–and money, as I’m generally not buying more than I need.
I also learned workplace safety. Safety equipment (e.g. eye protection) was mandatory when operating some of the machines, and safety precautions (e.g. removing rings and watches, tying long hair back, etc.) were always in place. Even today, when doing a DIY project, I stop to ask the question I learned to ask in shop class long ago: “What can go wrong here, and what do I need to use/do to prevent it from happening?” More than once, the workplace safety rules I learned then, have saved me a trip to the hospital now.
Those are just a couple of things that come to mind. Regardless, I think there was a lot more to shop class than just knowing how to operate a lathe or a welding kit.
Na, that was my middle school, should’ve made that clear in my post. In high school we got to pick our electives.
6th-8th grades (so very late 80s, early 90s) we were all required to take shop half the year and home ec the other. We weren’t specifically required to take either in high school, but you had to take one of them or an art class. I took art.
I took:
Power Mechanics, two and four cycle small engines
Auto Mechanics
Metal Shop, welding and machining.
Loved it and a lot of it came in handy in various jobs over the years. The shop teacher was very strict and intimidating when you were a freshman and sophmore but was much more relaxed if you were still there as a junior and senior. The other shop teacher covered wood shop and drafting. That was a whole different scene.
In metal shop, I had trouble with very first step, which was pounding our seat number into a piece of steel that we’d use to make something … a mini hammer I think. I couldn’t hit the die both straight and hard enough at the same time. Either I wouldn’t get a deep enough impression in the metal, or the die would fly up and land in the garbage can. It did this no matter where I stood in relation to the garbage can, even flying straight over my head if necessary. After a full class period, or maybe two, I finally got it done, and realized I had embossed the wrong seat number.
I took shop in 7th and 8th grade. Got pissed off because they switched from a half year of shop and a half year of art in both grades to a half year of each in 7th and a full year of shop in 8th. I would have preferred more time in art class.
But I didn’t mind shop. I was inept, of course. In metal shop, I made a ring, and in wood shop I made a spice rack.
My school didn’t offer classes in woodworking/metalworking. It was made pretty clear that students who were interested in those sorts of activities should be at another school.
My dad told me to take shop every year and I wish I had listened sooner.
I took metal shop my senior year and absolutely loved it. Every time I use my shitty welder (temp control literally consists of High and Low), I wish that I would have taken better advantage of all the bitchin’ equipment at the high school.
I actually skipped my second semester of calculus to get more shop time.
I remember it being a safety nightmare. I’m not bullshitting at all when I say that my classmates lit each other on fire every day. I took a cutting torch to some galvanized pipe and created a noxious cloud of green gas. It’s a miracle no one died.
My son is currently in high school, is on the highest academic track, and he is taking a woodworking class on my advice (but I didn’t have to push him to do it). He enjoys it immensely. Last year, in either an after school club or summer school, he got a chance to use a welder or torch of some kind, which he thought was extremely cool.
While of course he would’ve been happy if he got a something like a Kindle or smartphone for Christmas, he would have really liked to get a lathe, drill press or table saw. (Alas, he got none of those. We had a small Christmas this year.)
When my friends and I were of the age when we started setting up our own households, a common lament was that we wished we had taken shop when we were in high school.
Knowing how to use tools and having experience using tools is good for everybody.
Junior High School - elective rotation: Music, Art, Home Ec (1/2 sewing 1/2 cooking), metal and wood shop in 7th and 8th grades.
Electives were in high school: Wood shop, Basic Home Ec, then Foods 1 and Foods 2, Sewing 1 and Sewing 2, and Exploring Childhood, in which we had a play group for 2-3 year olds, then a group for 4-5 year olds. We observed their behaviors, etc…was fun. My littles from those groups are now in their late 20’s…<sigh>
Even worse, the kids I taught Enrichment Spanish to for my graduation project are in their mid 30’s…scary stuff
I took Shop in 6th or 7th grade. I mostly remember making CO[sub]2[/sub] cars, trusses, and mini-catapaults. My Shop teacher teamed up with my programming teacher and they team taught a robotics class I took in 8th grade. We just made Lego “robots,” but it was still one of my favorite classes in middle school.
I took in in junior high, also. We had to make a step stool and a cutting board and a couple of other lame things. I found this cool-looking piece of wood stuck back behind some other pieces and used it for the top of my step stool. Not being exactly a fine woods expert, I cut it randomly and nailed it together. I took it up for grading and the shop teacher looked at it in horror.
“Where did you find this wood?” “In the wood place.” He looked thoughtfully at what used to be a beautiful piece of maple that I had ripped right across a lovely swirl of grain, and said “next time make the grain go longitudinally, not laterally.” I have a feeling he may have had that piece set aside for his own use, and was restraining the urge to punch me in the face. My stool was unusable, of course.
We had mandatory shop in junior high (I think everybody rotated through shop, cooking, and art). There were four possible projects and you made one, either wood, or metal, or plastic or one combined. I remember the plastic one was a really lame pencil holder. I went for the combined which was wooden bookends with a metal base and plastic decorations (I put my name on them). I think my parents still have them. I did take cooking and sewing as electives in high school but I don’t think my high school even had a shop class or if they did, girls weren’t encouraged to participate. I think I might have benefitted from more shop although I might also have suffered grevious bodily harm. However, unlike the rest of 7th grade, I did learn one possibly useful thing; use a slow drill for wood, medium for plastic, and fast for metal. I still have hopes that this information will someday come in handy.
Come to think of it, I probably learned more shop skills in Junior Achievement; I know that’s where I learned to countersink screws and how to do bookkeeping.
6th/7th grade we took wood shop, a course called ‘Electricity’, and drafting. I loved drafting, totally FAILED electricity, which was embarassing because my dad was an electrician…and I was disappointed in wood shop. My dad made his own simple but sturdy and serviceable furniture; I made a ‘letter-holder’, which was one flat piece of wood put at an angle against another piece of flat wood so that it made a V that could hold letters. 
It was the equivalent of a lumpy ‘ashtray’ made in pottery class or something.
I did too. It was the only way I could draw something recognizable.
We had “shop” in 7th grade and “mechanical drawing” in 8th grade.
In shop class, I cut a piece of wood too short, so the shop teacher had me go to another shop teacher to get a “wood stretcher” to make the piece of wood longer again.
Yes, I really was that stupid.
I did better in mechanical drawing (aka drafting?).