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!

Your so right, those that can balance physical skills with inter-lectual ones grow the most connections in the brain, not to mention, integration's in the mind.

Glad I took typing, (req) helped me in college and had to do some in the Army too. Just wish I took short hand...would be helping me now with my writing from notes.

Balance my friend, balanced education is important. I learned a lot of useful skills sets...even though I am terrible at art it still enhanced my ability to make my structural drawings come to life...I was pretty good at drawing cars though...just an ole gear head, me.

To the dismay of my high school guidance counselors, I took one year of shop which covered metal working, woodworking, printing, auto mechanics, electricity, and drafting. Also took shorthand as a lark.I eventually utilized all of those skills later in life, such as machining a non-standard valve for my 1950 MGTD.

I also took accounting and law in high school, plus all the other courses needed for the university. . . and had almost a straight A average.

Well, I eventually, became a CPA, then a management consultant, a writer for several business publications, became one of the first VPs of information technology back in the 160s, co-wrote a few college textbooks on computer programming, founded a company which became one of the largest dealers in the US for one of the computer manufacturers, retired (?), then in my free time became an airplane pilot currently flying patients for medical treatment, conduct wildlife research, and serve on several boards of directors.

If I had to do it over, I would not have changed anything . . . because I learned I could do almost anything I wanted to if I put my interests and effort into it.

Computer geeks think a font is a typeface. Anyone who's even watched a Linotype operator (etaoin shrdlu) or someone doing handset knows the difference.

Shop is also for the college bound. I took shop for 6 years in Jr and sr high school. And drafting.

I still have, and use, my "pig board," a kitchen cutting board, made from pine, in the shape of a pig, made in "wood shop" in 1957. I also got an "A" in autoshop (which was the highlight of my ability and knowledge of internal combustion engines and why I really appreciate competent mechanics)

Home Ec and Shop (and Sewing and Cooking and typing and P.E. and (gasp) even Gregg Shorthand., etc.) were all electives when I was in high school... I had somehow got into an "Exploratory Industrial Arts" class in Junior high school... and fell in love with being able to take raw materials and turn them into something useful and aesthetically pleasing... I became a shop junky, taking Metals, Auto shop, Ag shop (THAT was a hoot!), Woodworking, and electronics. Got into an ROP (Regional Occupational Program) class in my senior year working on "small gas engines" - led to a number of amazing jobs, and I ended up getting my current (30 year) career because of what I learned in shop class. Worse yet (yes, it does get worse), it prompted me to buy an abandoned blacksmithy and bring it back to life in my spare time!

Foods would have been fun, but I knew how to cook already... Sewing (to me) was a waste, as I could earn money and buy nice clothes... I would have liked to take Shorthand and Typing (my stepmom was extremely fluent in Gregg, and could make the ubiquitous IBM Selectric II literally purr - IIRC she was well over 100 WPM) but the problem was there were only so many periods in a school day, and which class would I have given up for it? Yeah... right!

Shop also taught responsibility, organization, critical thinking, basic trig, and job planning (eg time organization). And, damnit, it was FUN! Problem was - the nanny-state lawyercentric school board and teachers were worried "someone would sue"... the "shop" teachers they hired my last year were all bookworm and don't touch the dangerous machines and equipment types (which is why I went to ROP)... and we wonder WHY we lost our manufacturing edge? We were too busy truing to keep our 3 year old high school babys all safe and cuddly and warm, instead of letting them explore and LEARN and have fun.

If they got rid of those BS art classes.....they would have plenty of time for shop!

I spent 20 years, on and off in the printing trade...did everything all the way up from the bottom, most of that time in stripping but that gave me an overview of everything else. I was General Manager of a 5 color shop when the trade collapsed when Macs came around. I consulted after that. Always said that we should of taught the craftsmen the computer part not expect computer geeks to understand the printing process...the industry flailed terribly for a while.

No shop in my education when young.
Priority is software, not hardware, in my case.
Probably was a good choice, although I have learned some of the shop activities through home repairs and minor construction projects.
I know I would have benefited from more exposure to reality in my education though, if I had known what direction I was going;^)

As I explained to OldUglyCarl, in our school system, it was junior high that came with 4 semesters of shop classes. We also had mandatory chorale (2 semesters) to and 2 semesters of art studio. For our four shop classes, girls had home economics, alternating between sewing and cooking.

We also had gym every semester, 2 days a week in junior high, 3 in high school, and 5 days a week in the 12th grade.

I grew up in Cleveland, which always was a center of progress since its founding in 1796. John D. Rockefeller attended Central High School for a year before going to a business college. They were early adopters of the "High School movement" in the 19th century. They also launched "Major Work" as an instantiation of Lewis Terman's eugenics program. They don't mention that now, but they still have Major Work. (http://clevelandmetroschools.org/Page...) Back in the day, the kids were called "Super Normals." In addition to being smart, they had to be physically fit and socially integrated.

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.

In my school we had shop for boys and home ec for girls -- at least the ones who were non college bound. There were exceptions, of course.

Lately, when I see how inept very intelligent people are with simple physical things and that people can't prepare meals I'm thinking that shop and home ec should be a required course for everyone.

At my High school every guy took shop, didn't matter your grades...it was to balance your education...which is something kids don't get these days.
Did not matter what you were going be when you grew up...still needed to understand basic electricity and use a screwdriver, hammer and wrench.
Even though I had many different trades and jobs that weren't physical, it was enjoyable to use these skills at home.
The home I live in now is one I designed and built myself in 97 and it was a process I enjoyed cause it wasn't a job. It was just to see if I could do it, start to finish.

It is nothing new, this claim that math and English testing relegated shop class to lower status. Pretty much all of "academic" education has been at the expense of "crafts" going back to the Greeks.

In my day, bright kids were put into Honors and Advanced Placement tracks. Shop was for dumb kids who would work with their hands. I graduated high school in 1967. No one then foresaw that 1991-1993, I would need two years to learn how to tear down and re-assemble a six-axis robot. While teaching operations and programming, I learned mechanical maintenance.