That's the way education - ESPECIALLY for younger kids - should be. Explore and Expand, not Depress to the Test.

Laughing out loud.
funny, those old typewriters had a lot of play in the keys...very similar to a cheap warped guitar, only it is easier to lower the action on a guitar than shortening the throw on a typewriter.

Sharpening drill bits by hand/eye is an old school talent we share. :) I have guys that just can't do it. I had to buy them a machine. I often get out on the floor and sharpen lathe bits and drills for them. My work usually out performs the machine sharpened ones!

Yes, "timing" is important in internal combustion engines and the brain. TDC......LOL

To me, a "balanced education" is as mythical and devoid of support as the "balanced diet". The idea of a balanced education requires that there be important aspects "missing" or bad if not counterbalanced by their opposite. But I find this untenable. Pardon, if you would, a bit of a rant, but it is somewhat needed to explain that assertion.

A person can not excel at all things. The notion that we all need to be "well rounded" individuals is not one in accordance with what history teaches us. The most significant and life-altering advances were not made by "well rounded" people with "balanced education" - but by people who know what their strengths were and leveraged those. Teams that are the most productive are not teams of "well rounded" people, but of a variety of complementary strengths. Ok, now back to schooling.

If young students find they have an aptitude for something, they should be encouraged and permitted to build on those strengths. If that means more academic work, so be it. If that means one of the various shop classes, home economics, or some other means of production, all the better. Simultaneously they need to be exposed to various aspects of reality such as economics - home and otherwise - in order to round out their experience and introduction to things that they are not particularly talented in. What follows next is highly opinionated, and assumes the present structure of school persists (government run/funded, 12 years to graduation, etc.).

That means they should be taught reading, writing, math, science foundations, and critical thinking by sixth grade. From there on, the next six years should be the following:

Exploration
Going into 7th grade is were you either already know what "you want to do", or are starting to figure it out. So exposing children to the various aspects would have the most benefit. One semester of a tradition art such as drawing, painting, or sculpting; one of a performing art such as playa music or theater; one of "creative writing" (logical and persuasive should already have been covered". Note the emphasis is on doing, not "appreciation". This is important because "appreciating" art can lead to "a passion" for something you suck at - which is not a fun life. Not to mention it is telling someone what to think about various tings and wide open to a teacher pushing their views on "art" onto moldable children.

Along with the actual arts must come exposure to the manual crafts. Here we have the various "shop" classes. A semester of such things as wood or metal shop or, ideally, a semester that mixes them; a semester of "construction" which can include things like drafting and how to do the site work: leveling, concrete, plumbing, framing etc.; and a semester of the "soft labor" trades often associated with "home-ec" - gardening, food prep, sewing, etc..

Finally we have the more intellectually oriented exposure. Here we are talking the hard sciences such as physics, chemistry, and engineering but also the softer ones such as economics. A semester of hard and a semester of soft ought to do.

The "middle/school" or "junior high" (depending on where you are) should be about taking what you've learned so far and finding what you may be good at. It is highly elective, while continuing certain aspects such as basic statistics, more advanced reading composition, etc.. Then you enter high school with a fairly broad exposure to various things you might good at, thus ready to focus on those. In this sense we treat high school similarly to the way we used to treat college.

High school is where you get to expand on what you've discovered. You did well in shop? Then here are courses that build on that. Oh, you excelled at the construction oriented classes? Here is a four year line of classes that provide you the opportunity to graduate with a solid grounding of those skills. Oh look, you did really well at physics, so here is a track aimed at making you even better at it.

Not everyone will find something. Thus you also have a more "vocational tech" track that gives them the opportunity to learn a more non-specific trade. Some schools have this and, frankly, I'm rather envious of the opportunities my daughters have in high school. Our high school ("Ronald Reagan H.S.") provides a track for students to graduate with the needed training and certification (right down to an apprenticeship!) to be a pharmacy technician. Thus right out of high school my daughters could (my oldest didn't take that route, my youngest still can) graduate with the ability to walk into a $36,000+ job. I think the option to take a four year apprenticeship alongside the minimum core high school classes should be there as well. But I lament the loss of apprenticeship for a lot of other reasons.

You still continue with a core set of classes for things such as reading/writing, some P.E., and foundational classes such as biology, government, history, math, etc., and you have some electives to provide additional nuances or mixing of topics. An example might be a budding chemist who likes to play the flute or do woodcrafting. And of course "remedial" classes for those who struggled with the foundations. But you shift the system away from what to think, and orient it (back?) to being a productive and civil member of "society".

Of course, to go along with that we have to drop the mindsets that "smart people go to college", "if you don't go to college you aren't as smart", and "vo-tech is for losers". Mike Rowe does some amazing work in this direction with what he refers to as the skills gap. That gap is also part of why I think so many of us are, as Rowe puts it, "disconnected" with that makes our society function.

Personally, because my father was military and we thus moved a lot I - a solidly scientific minded child - took shop (both metal and wood - the latter included a semester where we mass-manufactured and sold breadboxes), "agricultural tech" (we built a baseball dugout for our school, did welding, etc.), "mechanical drawing" (drafting), orchestra (violin) and band (trombone) alongside my more advanced economics and physics classes. I credit this with my more broad understanding and appreciation of these talents than the average scientist.

However, I am certain my economic life would have been greatly improved had I been allowed/encouraged to pursue the path my economics had taught me would be better: get a trade, then get a degree. Even the teenager me would have taken the aforementioned pharmacy tech path while taking my science classes. The heavy parental/familial obsession with the "first family member who can go to college did me in, which is part of why I think we need to eliminate this negative association with "vo-tech", or trade skills, training and overly focused "ZOMG go to college!" mindset.

So that was rather longer-winded than I intended but, then again, I tend to be so about these particular subjects. Now a funny thought occurs to me: could you imagine the sudden wild opposition to "common core" from the current proponents if the above was "common core"? :D

Mike Rowe's "skill gap" is large, growing, and addressing it has the potential to cushion the coming "college bubble bursting", all while producing a more solid economic foundation and more robust economy. Frankly, he is probably the one guy I would want to see as Secretary of the Department of Labor. I don't think we could do any better than him in that role. If Trump had/were to nominate him he would virtually have block on the next election. We don't need to create more jobs, we need people who can fill the nearly six million open ones we have. For perspective, the current official "unemployed person" count is around seven million.

We have no balance....all most schools have is the Art. While it might have some value....learning how to change the oil in your car first is much more valuable. Art by itself will do nothing for you....learning to change the oil by itself will!

I disagree....the education olegarchy has been pushing this line for years...while eliminating shop and gym... but it just aint so.

For us, actually, it was junior high. We had wood, mechanical drawing, metal or plastic, and printing or plastic. Printing was the only shop class that stuck with me. And I use it even today. We set type by hand and ran mechanical presses that we powered with foot levers and our weight. (In Printing 2, you got to turn the electric motor on.) I learned why we have Upper Case and Lower Case letters, leads, slugs, mollies, and nancies. As a technical writer in the computer age, I am often amazed at the clumsy way people use word processing because they do not know printing.

Printing in junior high also tied forward to another elective: journalism. I had it for four years. We did not print our school newspapers at school, but sent them to a commercial printer. So, again, I got a fundamental working relationship that became important to my career. I just had a conversation with our purchasing department about 3,000 catalogs: "What do we tell the printer?"

Congratulations on your home.