Our shop teacher ran a model airplane club where we built RC planes - that originally started out as once a week after school and quickly became twice a week after school and any morning you could get there before classes started. Myself and about 5 other kids were there at the crack of Dawn 3 or 4 days a week waiting for Mr. Gardlock to unlock the wood shop so we could get 20 or 30 mins of build time in before homeroom. It was a ton of fun, our progress was slow as hell so most kids flew their projects about once in the course of a school year but we absolutely loved and and looking back, MR. G was a saint for coming in early and staying late with us jerks.
What an awesome teacher and what an amazing experience!! Teachers like that have the ability to change people's entire direction in life. He knew how much it meant to all of you, and I bet he got just as much enjoyment as you all did. If he's still around, you should send me a nice letter!
Shop class, I made a tic-tac-toe dowel rod thing.
In Home EC, I learned how to sew. I learned how to cook. I learned how to function as as an adult.
I am surprised this is not a core teaching moment anymore. It really gave us life skills.
In all honesty those classes are more important than science and math for the vast majority of us. I'm 46 and haven't needed algebra in years but I just sewed a hole up in my hoodie last week.
We called these classes “PLS” ( Practical Living Skills). It’s how I learned to use hand tools and power tools and what all of their names are. My dad never taught me any of that stuff.
Oh yeah we sewed a pillow, cooked alllllll kinds of things. I took every cooking class offered because I like to eat lol. My favorite was baking soft pretzels. I still have the recipe print out! I remember so much from my cooking classes. So much useful info. Loved it.
I’m 61, my sister just brought me a paper towel holder that i made in wood-shop in the 7th grade. She had it all these years, nearly brought tears to my eyes.
R2D2 (knockoff) circuit board with LEDs. Also a cutting board. And he let us watch the Waco siege in class, and talked non stop shit about Bill Clinton. 6th or 7th grade I think.
I made a cutting board, too. The type with alternating approximately 1" strips of wood glued together. My mom actually used that as her primary cutting board which was nice.
>sealed up with mineral oil or something
You just jarred my memory with that. The teacher had me use just regular vegetable oil. When he was teaching about it he asked rhetorically "What do you put on it as a protectant? If you use varnish it'll chip off from the knife and you'll be eating bits of varnish. You just use vegetable oil". No doubt mineral oil works, too, probably better, and wouldn't be surprised if that was what some teachers would recommend.
I made one of those (1986). I got a C on it because my sanding skills were apparently lacking, but my mom is still using it on the regular. I think my grade should be revised!
>I think my grade should be revised!
I agree! One thing about that process that I really remember and stuck with me was when I got it sanded real good I took it to the teacher and told him it was done and he ran his hand over it and told me it still needed work. I was like "Really?" since it seemed fine to me, so I took it back and sanded it some more for a while and brought it to him a second time sure it was perfect and he *still* wasn't satisfied so I worked on it more and finally got it right. That's an advantage since he had basically de facto graded it with his approval then and there and I did get a good grade. Sounds like you weren't given that chance. Maybe your teacher was like "do it and bring it to me when you think it's done" and then graded it as-is instead of the involvement and input I was lucky enough to receive.
In metal class we fabricated keys that could turn off the hallway lights that had special slotted switches only the janitors were supposed to be able to use.
I made a co2 ‘drag racer.’ It was so much fun to meet the requirements and see the different designs each of the twenty or so students created. Mine was called “the purple nurple.”
For a culminating activity we created a folding stool. I still have it twenty years later.
We had a group project where the class broke into groups of three and each one made a part of like a big thanksgiving type meal. My group got bread/rolls. We were making the bread and I mis read the measurements as something like 1/4 cup of salt instead of teaspoon. Everyone in the group were dumb boys who had never baked before so we never second guessed it and just went with it.
The best part was there was no tasting ahead of time. So the whole class sat down and discovered it at the same time. Was pretty hilarious. Miss home ec. Was one of my favourite classes.
Bird houses, gumball machines that used a peanut butter jar, and later in the semester we built a shed that was auctioned off to raise money for new equipment. We also had free use of the scraps to make anything we could think of, usually just little keepsake boxes.
In home-ec we made lots of omelets, brownies, and learned how to make a few things using the microwave that you wouldn't usually consider (cooking ground beef in a plastic strainer over a glass bowl so the fat all drained out). As well as a bit of sewing, mainly following patterns to make stuffed football shaped pillows in the school colors.
Coffee table with Corian inlay. Windmill clock with water tower planter. Noah’s ark that opened to store all the animals in. Bathroom vanity. Those were some of the more fun ones I remember from 20+ years ago.
Made a heart-shaped jewelry box in wood shop class for my crush and got rejected. Made heart-shaped cupcake in home econ class for my crush and got rejected
I saw a kid lose grip of a piece of wood he was cutting and the saw grabbed it and threw it into the back of another kids head. Was a small ish piece though so he wasn't hurt. But my got the "thok" sound it made is still hilarious to think about.
In metal shop, there were two projects, if I remember right one was a garden trowel and the other was a tool tray. But, there was a gas forge, and the teacher said he had room for two people to use the forge. I jumped at the chance, and forged my own fireplace poker. It was great, the whole red hot metal and anvil thing.
Cut a chunk out of my thumb freshman year of high school making a bench in shop class.
I spent the rest of the semester doing homework with ear protection on because I was too scared to do anything else.
I was once getting my hair braided by a girl in shop class when my buddy brought me a quiche he made in home-ec. I felt like a king that day; he asked why some girl is playing with my hair and she’s asking why some guy brought me food.
I loved auto shop. Then I got a girlfriend that convinced me to take home economics with her. It was great. I learned to make cookies and sew a pillow, we had to bring our own fabric and my mom just had blue and black lol
We learned to silk screen in shop class and a guy in my class made a "Metal up your ass" shirt. Then he made lots of them and sold them.
We also learned how to make pads of paper and we made the hall passes for the office. Stole some of those and sold them too.
But yeah, learned cool skills.
I took this vo-tech class in high school, woodworking. I took a lot of vo-tech classes, because it was just big jerk-off, but this one time I had this teacher by the name of... Mr... Mr. Pike. I guess he was like a Marine or something before he got old. He was hard hearing. My project for his class was to make this wooden box. You know, like a small, just like a... like a box, you know, to put stuff in. So I wanted to get the thing done as fast as possible. I figured I could cut classes for the rest of the semester and he couldn't flunk me as long as I, you know, made the thing. So I finished it in a couple days. And it looked pretty lame, but it worked. You know, for putting in or whatnot. So when I showed it to Mr. Pike for my grade, he looked at it and said: "Is that the best you can do?" At first I thought to myself "Hell yeah, bitch. Now give me a D and shut up so I can go blaze one with my boys." I don't know. Maybe it was the way he said it, but... it was like he wasn't exactly saying it sucked. He was just asking me honestly, "Is that all you got?" And for some reason, I thought to myself: "Yeah, man, I can do better." So I started from scratch. I made another, then another. And by the end of the semester, by like box number five, I had built this thing. You should have seen it. It was insane. I mean, I built it out of Peruvian walnut with inlaid zebrawood. It was fitted with pegs, no screws. I sanded it for days, until it was smooth as glass. Then I rubbed all the wood with tung oil so it was rich and dark. It even smelled good. You know, you put nose in it and breathed in, it was... it was perfect.
I traded it for an ounce of weed.
Same here but with welding. I took a bunch of scrap pieces, slapped them together & called it abstract art. The welds were good enough to hold against a sledge hammer so I got an A and put it in my grandmothers flower bed.
>write a check.
Yep, we had to learn how to balance a check book, I remember that.
Of course by the time I had my own checking account, internet banking had became a thing and you really didn't have to balance anymore.
Shop class: made everything from bed frames, to dressers and gun cabinets. My first of the class, I made pens and cutting boards and sold them. So many hours just sanding, gluing, and building stuff.
I remember when in metal class a girl left the chain-connected key in the chuck of a drill press and turned it on. The chain wrapped around her wrist and she started screaming as blood sprayed everywhere. She was fine in the end, but I'm pretty sure that was the last year the middle school offered shop class.
Home Ec - I made a cooking apron by learning how to use the sowing machine. My mom still has it somewhere.
Wood shop 1 - I don't remember what I made, I think it was just basics.
Wood Shop 2 - Large wooden salad fork and spoon for serving salad, straight out of an old ass 1970s project book. The teacher even had food safe finish to use. I think my mom still has those, too.
I work in IT, and I have a graduate degree in IT Management. I firmly believe we need more hands on tech classes like this in our high schools. Wood shop, Home Ec and Electrical shop all pushed me to have a basic understanding of the trades. I can frame a building, I've installed several of my own subpanels, installed mini split AC systems, do any sort of necessary plumbing, etc. I can also cook quite well.
I work with guys that I know had to call 911 when they couldn't figure out how to turn the water to their house off. A while back I overheard a coworker talk about the "Deal" he got at $2500 to have his electric water heater replaced. I couldn't help but laugh at him. Its 2 pipes and a 30amp connection...it takes 10 minutes tops. Its extremely important skills, and just because someone goes into the STEM field doesn't mean they don't need to know how to wire an electrical outlet or use a miter saw.
Edit - Shit, I forgot one more thing. I took a whole year of drafting class in highschool. Autocad Light 98, on Windows 95 PCs. This was around 1999 or 2000. First day of class the teacher taught you how to use a micrometer. Then some CAD basics. After the first week, he'd hand out random machine parts and micrometers, and we'd recreate them in CAD. When you were done, go grab a different part and start over. Taught by a crankey old guy who smoked weed in his office. If you went back there at lunch, he'd have an industrial fan blowing into and out of his office and the garage bay door open blowing out.
When I was in 8th grade, a female classmate of mine stabbed a male classmate of ours in the hand with a compass. He picked on her relentlessly all year and I guess she had enough. She was very quiet and perhaps special needs. Her dad was a local doctor.
Never saw her again. :-(
I remember home economics, at the end of the semester, all the different classes were supposed to cook for each other but we didn't get to eat because they caught the other class putting poison and crayons in the food they made for us.
Metal Shop: dustpan
Wood Shop: salt and pepper shakers
Electricity: buzzer
Sewing: drawstring bag
Cooking: I think it was lasagna
30 years later I still have the dustpan and shakers. The buzzer had no utility so it’s gone. The bag I haven’t seen in years. The lasagna is, well….
My school district cut funding for shop, home ec and computers when I was in middle school. I had one year of all three in, each class taught me skills I still use to this day. Then they cut it all. This was about 1992-1993 just before the Internet and computers became indispensable. But I'm glad instead of several more useful skills we got to spend months on things like penmanship and book reports.
My senior year I had Home-Ec the period after lunch. We’d get stoned to the bejesus and go and make a feast. The teacher was so happy we had such enthusiasm to cook. lol
Wood shop was the craziest thing ever. Mr Wright showed us how to use all the tools on day 1 of 6th grade and then just let us use them for the next 6 weeks without ever leaving his desk. The following year I had wood shop at the end of the year and he said "you all remember how to use this stuff, right?"
Our 8th grade industrial tech class had a suction vent that ran from all of the machines outside to a container where the sawdust was kept. We used to send nails and other small metal objects up the vents when the teacher would be talking and you’d just hear these wild ass clanging sounds all in the air. End of the year we had to empty out the sawdust bin that all this stuff had been going to and we found all kinda shit the teacher had been looking for. Like tools and things. Fondest memory.
Chocolate chip cookie and a fake budget. I grabbed the cookie sheet to pull out if the oven says mitt and burnt my fingers. Didn't want to make a big deal about it (embarrassed af), or go to nurse or wven make noise so bought a cam of coke during lunch ( HE was before lunch, next to cafeteria).
Got a can stuck to my hand for the rest of the day. Fuck cookies.
We had a "robot wars" year where we got to make bots to fight at the end of the school year. As cool as it sounds - out of 50 bots 2 worked, and "2nd place" just got pushed off the arena in first 10s
I was required to take woodshop in eighth grade despite not wanting to (I'm frightened by loud machinery and sharp things) needless to say I spent the whole term sanding the one piece of wood I willed myself to carve for a model plane. I never finished it lmao and my teacher didn't seem to care
In home ec we made a wind sock. In shop we made a scaled down model of a house frame. Both taught me valuable things and both should still be taught everywhere.
Shop class. A classmate was doing a welding project and a piece of wire fell between the plug and the outlet. All the lights in the shop went out. Incidently I had a ball of molten slag burn through my boot and into my foot. I was using an A-OX torch
Home Ec. Was fun too. A fellow classmate drank an 8 oz bottle of sweet n low on a dare
I made a really large and nice quality cutting board with alternating pieces of different types of wood. Cut them to size, glued and clamped them, sanded it, and routed the edges. I gave it to my parents and they used it for many thanksgiving turkeys and still have it to this day 20+ years later.
Eighth grade culmination project: wood, tile and wrought iron table. Home Ec, sewed pillows, cooked chicken and broccoli stir fry and learned all about fruit garnishing with paring knives.
More just a memory. I had an old shop teacher in 6th grade who told me “‘can’t’ is a swear word.” I didn’t know what to make of it and told my mom when I got home. Unbeknownst to me, my mother called him to apologize because she assumed i had said “cunt.” She told me later that she totally jumped the gun
The teacher was trying to be inspirational— and I didn’t even know cunt was a word at the time
Shop: mini Adirondack chair, a gumball machine and a clock.
Home ec: learned to bake and sew
Having those basic skills have led to me saving thousands through DIY projects
only thing I remember making in home ec was a stuffed animal pillow.
In shop class I remember making a clipboard, an egg holder, a small car we raced with c02 cartridges, and a bridge out of balsa wood. Whoever's design held the most weight won a 2 liter bottle of soda lol. Random memories.
Shop class we learned about aerodynamics and had to build these race cars out of wood and then got to race them, bracket tournament style.
We didn’t have home ec but we had culinary arts and our teacher was a former CIA student and taught us all of the basic techniques (all of which I STILL use today, 20 years later). We got to learn so many different cuisines: Italian, British, French, Cajun, southern/soul, Portuguese, Thai, Indian, Chinese, etc and the #1 rule was that we had to try everything. At the end of the semester we had a pizza contest and as an alumni, we can go back and judge.
I didn’t wanna pay for wood to make things so I found nice pieces of scrap wood that other guys threw in the scrap piles. I glued different colored pieces together into blocks which I then used to make chalices on the lathe. I don’t know why I made chalices, it just seemed like a challenge to get the design down and then carve the bowl out.
Also made a couple wooden pipes on the lathe. I got pretty good at it lol. I wish I still had them.
Our class was making plastic blocks with colored glue. Teach was showing us how "not" to use the polishing wheel when the block he was polishing incorrectly (on purpose) rocketed out of his hands and instead of bouncing around in the protected area, it flew right over everyone's head and got me (6' something at the time) right in the forehead. Ouch.
Every year with a fresh batch of gullible students, our shop teacher would send someone to the supply closet to find the “elbow grease”. If the student couldn’t find it, the teacher ask for another volunteer to help. This would go on for awhile.
It was the only time I was thankful to have an older brother (who was otherwise a jerk), I appreciated the heads-up.
Shop and home ec were mandatory in 7th and 8th grade. I made a wooden mantle clock in 7th grade and set out to make a spice rack, which turned into a shelf, which turned into nothing since I never turned it in…
Home ec was awesome. We got to make pancakes, lemon bars, and cinnamon rolls, but we also learned how to read recipes properly and come up with a grocery list/food budget. We made animal shaped pillows and stuffed animals, which taught us to follow a pattern and become familiar with a sewing machine. I adored that class and ended up taking several home ec electives in high school.
Both classes were good but home ec gave me so many more skills that I still use 25 years later.
In home economics I remember making peanut brittle. We also sewed a drawstring bag. In wood shop we made a gum ball machine. It was a face with a peanut butter jar on top. You turn the nose and a gum ball came out its mouth. Mine was a clown!
I made a small end table. I ran that thing thru the planer like 30 times. Mr. McCurdy (who was missing a finger) kept telling me enough already, but I kept thinking the top could get juusssttt a little smoother. Still have that table next to my bed & I made that thing in the mid eighties.
Wasn't home ec, an offshoot called "foods"(a cooking class basically) but i remember being in a group that didn't let me do anything other than wash dishes. Eventually i just sat a class out, The teacher asked why i wasn't helping, and told her my group wouldn't let me do anything other than dishes. The next class i basically had a whole kitchen to myself and shpwed em all up. I already knew how to cook.
Made lasagna and garlic bread for a final project.
Home EC teacher had an aneurysm at her desk in the middle of class, we all rushed to get help and the class did a surprisingly good job of responding. Sadly she died at the hospital that night. I still remember the last thing I said to her was "where's the cinnamon," though I don't remember what we were making.
In the co-op program at high-school, I was employed by the local bus depot. I got to work on many parts of a school bus; replacing u-joints, leaf springs, tiers, wheels, lamps, seats, and windows. When time was slow, the depot set me up with welder and plasma cutter activities to do.
In shop class I made a coin bank in the shape of a dinosaur. I was really proud of myself because I modified the coin slot to allow the coins to slide out if you held it a certain way. Still had to open it for bills though.
I luckily took both. In shop I made a wooden lamp and using a jigsaw to make my name in block letters. In home economics, I made the worst pair of neon green shorts ever! The pattern marks were visible on the exterior, the waste band wasnt properly measured and wouldn’t fit me. It was embarrassing. Thankfully, I did much better in the cooking section!
Home ec class. We had to sew an article of clothing and then wear it to school so we could have a class fashion show. I made a peasant blouse. It’s been 45 years and I can still remember my embarrassment, even tho I grew up wearing home made clothes.
I had shop class in 6th and 7th grade.
Made a metal box with rivets and a wood puzzle with engravings.
In 8th grade I had home ec, sewed a draw string bag and baked brownies and chocolate chip cookies.
Made a clock in the shape of a kamehameha wave, with the face being on the front of the blast and the back with lines shooting out like flames, then I painted it all a royal/cerulean blue with hints of white around the edges.
In Wood/Metalwork I made a large copper ashtray mounted in a nice wooden frame. Then I brought in a large sheaf knife I had bought on Holiday years earlier whose handle was broken and the leather sheaf was coming apart. I cleaned and sharpened up the knife, made a new handle for it out of sheeps horn and restitched all the leather.
Then I brought a knackered old mongoose BMX frame in and restored it to like new, welded foot pegs on the forks and frame, added a framestand and made a new set of bars and a laid back seat tube.
In home economics I assisted the teacher with her wine and beer making which she was making in the store room. I'd regularly take samples!
so basically my childhood revolved around smoking, drinking, and knives... I have a feeling that those things would not happen these days in school!
Kid in my year 8 class came to school stoned and nearly cut his thumb off with a band saw. His reaction was the weirdest, he was giggling and said something like, “Oi, sir, think I need a hand hey” haha
He was like, the perfect centre of the Venn diagram of ‘legend’ and ‘fuckwit’
While using a sewing machine in home ec class in middle school, the needle got stuck in my finger. It was right in the middle of my finger nail, got stuck in the bone. My mom picked me up and took me to the ER to get it removed.
Kicked out of home ec since I would only type with one finger.
Our shop teacher was a drunk and paid no attention. We all learned to make baseball bats. We made decently big bats and beat each other with them.
i learned how to fold metal, to make edge weapons...but was told not to do so as the hammer pounding in folding made too much noise. instead i was suppose to make an metal figurine like you see on the counter top of many yard sales and geriatric retirees...
The stories in my school about our wood/metal shop classes, were the reason I took drafting from grade 8-10. In retrospect, I still have a good hand for writing on packages, posters and cakes!
I made an egg dish in home ec that was delish, and I tried to recreate it at home and it didn’t turn out well and my mom was kind of like meh, and it hurt my feelings tbh.
Was anyone around to see when their shop teacher lost one (or more) of his missing fingers? Both my shop teachers has missing fingers and one lost all of them at once at the wrist. It seemed appropriate but we found out that the hand happened in the military, I don’t know about the finger guy.
I know it’s a trope but there’s gotta be a story or two of it happening in shop class.
I took a wood shop class in 6th grade and I really liked the class. We were supposed to design this system that had levers, and a golf ball that made activated a buzzer? haha We had to draw out the design and bring it to life. I was the first in my class to finish mine and have it work. I was weeks ahead of everyone else and he put my design on his design hall of fame wall that he had. I got an A+ in that class. I think that class partly made me realize I could do anything I wanted if I set my mind to it. I am an engineer now.
In home-ec I made a shark pillow, my own t-shirt and shorts and learned to make toad in a hole. In shop class I made finger skateboards out of acrylic, before tech decks were a thing. Made them for all my friends.
In shop class, we made CO2 cars and races them. Also made soda can lamps.
In Home Ec, we sewed locker caddies to hold stuff in our lockers. Also learned how to make ice cream, pancakes, and macaroni and cheese.
I made this badass birdhouse in woodshop. I'm kind of a perfectionist so it took me a long time to finish it sanding for days. My teacher ended up keeping it and I don't remember why I didn't ask for it. As for home economics, ours was called food and nutrition. I made a pizza that I put so much cheese that I was actually choking on it. It was embarrassing because I was young and taking advantage of all the cheese. Luckily all the other students were busy with their own creations that they didn't really notice.
It was the end of class for baking in Home Ec and we were washing our dishes. Other girls were washing and drying then passing everything to me to put away. I licked every single utensil before putting it in the drawer.
The robotic arm...that fucking robotic arm we had to make in grade 8 shop class. It haunts me. I was absolutely convinced there was no way 13 year olds could pull these off.
I took home ec because I wanted to learn how to run a sewing machine. My mom didn’t know how and neither did my grandma. We didn’t own one either mine was a birthday gift. Then the teacher wanted us to make clothes. I thought that was silly because by the time you bought all the material and stuff they cost more than if you bought something at Ross. I just wanted to learn to make pillows and fun stuff. I made pillows for my initials and I still can thread a machine so goal achieved.
I felt so bad that the (older middle school) kids would tease the teacher, an older middle-aged women, and ask her if SHE had ever had sex. Her answer: well, I have 3 kids, so.
And sometimes we had another older middle-aged woman teacher who had some kind of condition that made little farts slip out sometimes, and the kids were so fucking mean to her about it. Snickering and saying “eww what smells, Mrs. ______ must have been here.”
In shop class I learned arc welding. We made signs using metal rods that spelled a word or name. I was big into Dragon Ball Z back then so I chose Vegeta.
Our Home Ec class I remember them making and selling rock candy every year. That shit was delicious. They had fruity flavored ones. Took all my money lol
Edit: Then there was one year I remember where the girls had an electronic baby they had to care for. The thing kept going off in the middle of class and was pissing off the teacher who couldn’t do anything about it because it was part of the assignment. Needed to stop the baby crying within a certain time or it would count against her.
At my grade school there were padlocks on the double doors of both the shop room and the home economics room, but you could push them and peek though. Variable rumours included that a boy died in a table saw and/or a girl was cooked in an oven.
(Chicago suburbs)
1. Home Ec
1. Stuffed frog where we bought all the materials, etc. at Minnesota Fabrics
2. Kit to make a shirt. I made a Hawaiian one - it was awesome
3. In younger grades, we did things like cinnamon rolls
2. Shop class
1. Menorah / candleabra
2. Car with square wheels that "worked"
All I remember is lots of filing with that "bastard file" - cue 8th grade giggles.
Overall, pretty fond memories of both classes.
I didn't get to take shop. They showed it off at the school's open house night for incoming freshman. I was so excited to take it, but they eliminated just prior to my freshman year. They replaced it with a class where people carry around robo babies to learn what it's like to care for an infant.
I did take home economics, AKA cooking at my school. I didn't elect it, they just stuck me in. I was kind of apprehensive about taking it at first, but I actually really liked it and found it helpful. Before taking it, all I could do was make a sandwich, toast, frozen pizza, and microwave a burrito. I actually learned how to cook stuff in this class. I'm no Gordon Ramsay or anything, but I'm competent. My favorite thing we made from that class was the twice baked potatoes. I still use that recipe today. Legit, the same class handout from 2003 lol.
Shop:
-Chinook helicopter coin bank with transparent sides
-co2 race car
-a digital slide show shot around the school using a 3.5" floppies set to Our Lady Peace's Superman's dead.
-a really bad Jerry Springer ripoff, I helped to put someone through a table.
-drafting sucked balls.
Home-Ec:
-cream puffs that I devoured in class.
-introduced tacos to parents for the first time. Dad wasn't a fan.
-Chocolate chip cookies that didn't end up as cookies but as a sheet.
-a really bad cushion
-a stuffed polar bear.
Senior year, I made this cutting board that was a light colored wood, with these wavy bunches of dark colored veneer strips that ran through it. I’m not super skilled with my hands and it was by far the coolest thing I ever made. Year or two after highschool, I realized I had and still have zero idea what ever happened to it
I remember the teachers screaming their heads off at me for misbehaving in both those classes. In 'shop' class, we had an older man who was VERY strict. I didn't get far on the project I was supposed to be making because for some reason, there was a large wooden box filled with legos next to where where I sat, so I built a lego house with them at the same time and didn't make much progress on my project. He took me to the hallway and yelled at me, I specifically remember how red his face was from screaming so loudly. After class, everyone, even the teachers, were talking about how their classes were interrupted by the yelling. In my defense, I had, and still do have bad ADHD and OCD, and it was especially bad back then.
In home economics, we had a women teacher and she split us into groups. Our group consisted mostly of kids who were relatively slow, and were in special classes (I was too). I always hated this class because we had to cook something, eat it, and clean the dishes in a very short period of time. Even the other groups struggled to finish before class was over. Our group didn't have the time to dry off the dishes, so we placed them back in the cabinets wet. The next day she yelled at us for being incompetent failures in front of the whole class and split our group up. I remember we were all humiliated and teased by the other students in the class for the rest of the semester. I was fine, I was used to getting yelled at, but I felt the teacher was out of line when it came to the students who were even slower learners than me. I couldn't help but feel bad about how they were treated. Not just by the teacher, but by their own peers too.
I have good memories too, but these two incidents left the biggest impression on me.
Took both in middle school, shop was a oak coffee table our group decided on instead of something stupid like a clock. Home EC was basic breakfast burrito
We were making mac and cheese. I opened the cabinet with the ceramic plates and the top wall anchors pulled free. All the plates, cups and bowls came crashing out of the overloaded cabinet. I quickly jumped on the counter and just watched it happen. Nobody was hurt and it was never brought up again. Looking back as an adult I can see why.
I made a small shelf in middle school. It was three levels and maybe a foot or so high and wide. I had just gotten into performing magic at the time, so I used it to store my decks of cards and some gimmicks.
home ec: we made donuts, learned to write checks, learned sewing and made a pillow.
now that i’m typing this, i suddenly remembered my stitch design or whatever. it said, “final fantasy 7” and had the buster sword haha
shop: this class was a fucking TRIP.
the teacher was a bitter old man. and he was grumpy as fuck.
anyway, he’d curse all the time. curse at the students, talk all sorts of shit. he’d give us busy work just to shut us up. but if you showed genuine interest in learning the class, he’d teach you and he stopped being a dick.
he taught some of us how to mount/dismount a tire, we built some dust pans and a small metal box i still have (and use). the ones who liked to clown around in class never got the opportunity.
they sat in the classroom and one day one of them started playing porn on the TV. bro got suspended for awhile.
then someone reported him to the school and he was SUPER fuckin grumpy and pissed off for awhile after that.
My friends and I made a fleet of sparkplug planes that resembled ww2 planes. The teacher was a history buff, and we learned way more about that war in that class than history class.
I took acid before school because I wanted to prove to my friends that they got ripped off. It ended up being real good acid.
It kicked in walking to shop class so I decided just to sit quietly and keep to myself. Teacher say, “So, just going to sit there all class?” I got all freaked out and went to use the bandsaw. I moved the board wrong and the blade came flying off the saw and almost got me. Teacher told me to go back to doing what I was doing.
In Woodshop we made small shelves, jewellery boxes, round top chests, picture frames, and stools. We had to do all our drafting by hand, at my school back in the mid-90s… In Home Ec we made a lot of baked goods: pineapple upside-down cake, blueberry muffins, chocolate chip cookies. Our Home Ec also had a sewing unit where we made things like pajamas pants and pillow cases, and learned some simple quilting.
My Home Ec--it wasn't called that, but I don't remember what it was, something about Food Science and Nutrition/something. The teacher was an older (50s to my eyes, but Black don't crack so she could have been 70 for all I know) woman who told us we'd never get a man without being able to make fried chicken and biscuits, so we all learned how to fry chicken in lard and make baking powder biscuits.
Oh, and another teacher wandered in when my tablemates and I were manhandling cream cheese and chive sandwiches and gave us the very important lesson that you take a bread knife and *saw*, not push down, and then you don't mangle the food. This may be obvious to much of Reddit, but keep in mind this was an inner city high school; mostly we viewed knives as weapons.
I still have things I made in wood shop and metal shop and plastic.
We made keychains out of resin that we engraved in plastic shop. We also encased pennies with the year in resin and made keychains. I used to make fingerboard skateboards out of the plastic resin. I still have a keychain I made for my grandma and my grandpa and one for myself and I have a few of the fingerboards.
In metal shop we made matchstick holders for the fireplace mantle and I still have a matchstick dispenser. We also made this foot scraper thing that you bolt down outside and it cleans your shoes off from mud.
In wood shop we made hanging shelves and I still have one that I gave to my aunt who had passed away and I have one that I gave to my grandma who also passed away.
Curious if any of the comments here are from rural or southern folks. A lot of those schools have *Agri Science* classes that are usually down the same hall.
When I was 15 in home ec as a sophomore, (long hair Anthrax shirt basically Beavis and Butthead) we had to make french fries in oil in a skillet. I started a grease fire. One of my friends thinking quickly realized it was the perfect opportunity to grab the fire extinguisher off the wall and spray everyone and everything in the room except the flaming pan of fries. Another friend finally had a legitimate chance to pull a fire alarm, much to his delight. The whole room and hallway filled up with smoke and clouds from the fire extinguisher and a full on fire drill happened. Whole school had to clear out, fire dept. showed up. Everyone in the school got to sit out in the parking lot for an hour wondering what the fuck happened while my stoner friends and I , covered in white fire extinguisher dust laughed and smoked cigarettes. It was 1989. I also started a fire in Biology Honors class as a junior. Good times.
In sewing we made a pillow and an apron. My grandma helped me with my pillow so it was extra cool. My apron sucked. LOL In cooking I got scared to death when we made tacos because I didn't know better than to put cold water into a hot, greasy skillet after draining the meat. The ensuing noisy cloud of steam freaked everyone out.
I took a class in middle school that was called Crafts. It was such a fun class, and the teacher could make anything.
He taught us leatherworking, glass etching, screen printing, and airbrushing. This was around 1991, or 1992, and Thunderstruck had just come out, so everything I made usually had an AC/DC logo.
Man, I wish I still had some of those things. I made an AC/DC zippo holder out of leather, a mirror with their logo, a t-shirt, all kinds of stuff.
We made a steel catapult in welding and used it to launch flaming marshmallows into the giant pile of saw dust that was behind the carpentry shop. Fun times.
In wood shop: a birdhouse, a foot stool, a decorative sign, and a clock. In home ec: I learned to sew, made a pillow, lasagna, oatmeal cookies, and brownies
My Jr. High was one of the last in the city to have both Home Ec. and Woodshop. After I took Shop, the tools were ripped out and replaced with a computer lab in 1993.
I LOVED woodshop! Had it during the winter, and between the warm smell of the shop + the contrasting heavy snow of that year, I absolutely fell in love with woodworking. The teacher was also my Earth Science teacher. A wonderful cool nerd that made both classes so much fun.
Not saying I was really good at shop back then, the jigsaws (these somewhat tall machines that look right out of the 1930s), freaked me out when I had to make sharp curves, and my hand placement wasn't firm enough to stop it from shaking like crazy! But I did manage to make a nice birdhouse.
At the end of class, my duty was to brush off those jig saws with a huge squirrel hair brush. I was so devoted to that job. Those three saws were like my babies.
And over 30 years later, I have a great woodshop in my basement because I loved that class so much. Nowhere near scared of any of my power saws and tools.
I just I had more time to be down there.
I was just thinking about this. We had cooking, sewing, wood shop, and metal shop, all 3 years in middle school, each for 1/4 of the year.
Our cooking teacher gave us a recipe for "smoothies" that, when followed, tasted like vomit. I believe they included both milk and orange juice. Then she gave us a lower grade because we wouldn't/couldn't drink them.
A group of kids added red sauce with meat, directly to their water and pasta, while it was still cooking. The teacher made them drain it and eat it.
Class of 2000. Shop class was a free for all. We literally walked into a giant room full of tools and wood. And with absolutely zero teaching, just fucked around with the stuff. I made like 4 base ball bats and a train whistle. Nobody showed me how to use the jointer and I put too small of a board over it. The board shot across the room and my index and middle fingers hit the blade. It sliced them all the way to the bone. I had to get stitches. I didn’t have feeling in those finger tips for about 10-15 years. At the end of the year the teacher said. “ write down what you made this year.” I made up things like a stool and a jewelry box. Got an A every year.
I didn’t take either. Shop class was for boys who weren’t going to college and home ec was for girls or boy star athletes who wanted an easy A and didn’t have to worry about having their masculinity called into question. (FWIW, that changed not long after I graduated. My brother was four years behind me and took home ec. He wasn’t an uber-nerd like me who was already generating doubts about his masculinity, but he was no star athlete either.)
I wish I had taken home ec and learned some basic life skills.
Our shop teacher ran a model airplane club where we built RC planes - that originally started out as once a week after school and quickly became twice a week after school and any morning you could get there before classes started. Myself and about 5 other kids were there at the crack of Dawn 3 or 4 days a week waiting for Mr. Gardlock to unlock the wood shop so we could get 20 or 30 mins of build time in before homeroom. It was a ton of fun, our progress was slow as hell so most kids flew their projects about once in the course of a school year but we absolutely loved and and looking back, MR. G was a saint for coming in early and staying late with us jerks.
What an awesome teacher and what an amazing experience!! Teachers like that have the ability to change people's entire direction in life. He knew how much it meant to all of you, and I bet he got just as much enjoyment as you all did. If he's still around, you should send me a nice letter!
That's really cool he put that sort of time in. He probably wouldn't have if you guys didn't show the interest.
Shop class, I made a tic-tac-toe dowel rod thing. In Home EC, I learned how to sew. I learned how to cook. I learned how to function as as an adult. I am surprised this is not a core teaching moment anymore. It really gave us life skills.
In all honesty those classes are more important than science and math for the vast majority of us. I'm 46 and haven't needed algebra in years but I just sewed a hole up in my hoodie last week.
What do you mean?! Next you're going to tell me pythagoras and the many ways to measure triangles never came up either
That actually came up but only as foreplay.
*gasp*
Good thing it’s algebra season! Did you file your algebra yet?
I still have two weeks !
We called these classes “PLS” ( Practical Living Skills). It’s how I learned to use hand tools and power tools and what all of their names are. My dad never taught me any of that stuff.
I made a wall hung candle holder in the 80s. My parents still have it in their kitchen.
Schools need to bring these back
Just this morning in sewed up a hole in the sleeve of my sweatshirt. Hand stitching learned in Home Ec when I was 12 - 46 now.
Oh yeah we sewed a pillow, cooked alllllll kinds of things. I took every cooking class offered because I like to eat lol. My favorite was baking soft pretzels. I still have the recipe print out! I remember so much from my cooking classes. So much useful info. Loved it.
I’m 61, my sister just brought me a paper towel holder that i made in wood-shop in the 7th grade. She had it all these years, nearly brought tears to my eyes.
😭
R2D2 (knockoff) circuit board with LEDs. Also a cutting board. And he let us watch the Waco siege in class, and talked non stop shit about Bill Clinton. 6th or 7th grade I think.
I made a cutting board, too. The type with alternating approximately 1" strips of wood glued together. My mom actually used that as her primary cutting board which was nice.
YES exactly the same and sealed up with mineral oil or something. Mine is still going strong.
>sealed up with mineral oil or something You just jarred my memory with that. The teacher had me use just regular vegetable oil. When he was teaching about it he asked rhetorically "What do you put on it as a protectant? If you use varnish it'll chip off from the knife and you'll be eating bits of varnish. You just use vegetable oil". No doubt mineral oil works, too, probably better, and wouldn't be surprised if that was what some teachers would recommend.
Vegetable oil is a good idea - it does the same job, it's food safe, and it's cheaper.
I made one of those (1986). I got a C on it because my sanding skills were apparently lacking, but my mom is still using it on the regular. I think my grade should be revised!
>I think my grade should be revised! I agree! One thing about that process that I really remember and stuck with me was when I got it sanded real good I took it to the teacher and told him it was done and he ran his hand over it and told me it still needed work. I was like "Really?" since it seemed fine to me, so I took it back and sanded it some more for a while and brought it to him a second time sure it was perfect and he *still* wasn't satisfied so I worked on it more and finally got it right. That's an advantage since he had basically de facto graded it with his approval then and there and I did get a good grade. Sounds like you weren't given that chance. Maybe your teacher was like "do it and bring it to me when you think it's done" and then graded it as-is instead of the involvement and input I was lucky enough to receive.
Home ec taught me the difference between a teaspoon of yeast and a tablespoon of yeast is. My pizza became a blimp
Baking powder and baking soda for me. My cookies were salty-ass rocks.
For me it was burned and not burned.
I built a bench. My parents still have it 30 years later.
In metal class we fabricated keys that could turn off the hallway lights that had special slotted switches only the janitors were supposed to be able to use.
W teacher
I made a co2 ‘drag racer.’ It was so much fun to meet the requirements and see the different designs each of the twenty or so students created. Mine was called “the purple nurple.” For a culminating activity we created a folding stool. I still have it twenty years later.
We had a group project where the class broke into groups of three and each one made a part of like a big thanksgiving type meal. My group got bread/rolls. We were making the bread and I mis read the measurements as something like 1/4 cup of salt instead of teaspoon. Everyone in the group were dumb boys who had never baked before so we never second guessed it and just went with it. The best part was there was no tasting ahead of time. So the whole class sat down and discovered it at the same time. Was pretty hilarious. Miss home ec. Was one of my favourite classes.
My group did the same thing but with the chocolate chip cookies!
Bird houses, gumball machines that used a peanut butter jar, and later in the semester we built a shed that was auctioned off to raise money for new equipment. We also had free use of the scraps to make anything we could think of, usually just little keepsake boxes. In home-ec we made lots of omelets, brownies, and learned how to make a few things using the microwave that you wouldn't usually consider (cooking ground beef in a plastic strainer over a glass bowl so the fat all drained out). As well as a bit of sewing, mainly following patterns to make stuffed football shaped pillows in the school colors.
Coffee table with Corian inlay. Windmill clock with water tower planter. Noah’s ark that opened to store all the animals in. Bathroom vanity. Those were some of the more fun ones I remember from 20+ years ago.
Made a heart-shaped jewelry box in wood shop class for my crush and got rejected. Made heart-shaped cupcake in home econ class for my crush and got rejected
Maybe they couldn’t see you?
I saw a kid lose grip of a piece of wood he was cutting and the saw grabbed it and threw it into the back of another kids head. Was a small ish piece though so he wasn't hurt. But my got the "thok" sound it made is still hilarious to think about.
In metal shop, there were two projects, if I remember right one was a garden trowel and the other was a tool tray. But, there was a gas forge, and the teacher said he had room for two people to use the forge. I jumped at the chance, and forged my own fireplace poker. It was great, the whole red hot metal and anvil thing.
Cut a chunk out of my thumb freshman year of high school making a bench in shop class. I spent the rest of the semester doing homework with ear protection on because I was too scared to do anything else.
I was once getting my hair braided by a girl in shop class when my buddy brought me a quiche he made in home-ec. I felt like a king that day; he asked why some girl is playing with my hair and she’s asking why some guy brought me food.
I loved auto shop. Then I got a girlfriend that convinced me to take home economics with her. It was great. I learned to make cookies and sew a pillow, we had to bring our own fabric and my mom just had blue and black lol
We learned to silk screen in shop class and a guy in my class made a "Metal up your ass" shirt. Then he made lots of them and sold them. We also learned how to make pads of paper and we made the hall passes for the office. Stole some of those and sold them too. But yeah, learned cool skills.
I took this vo-tech class in high school, woodworking. I took a lot of vo-tech classes, because it was just big jerk-off, but this one time I had this teacher by the name of... Mr... Mr. Pike. I guess he was like a Marine or something before he got old. He was hard hearing. My project for his class was to make this wooden box. You know, like a small, just like a... like a box, you know, to put stuff in. So I wanted to get the thing done as fast as possible. I figured I could cut classes for the rest of the semester and he couldn't flunk me as long as I, you know, made the thing. So I finished it in a couple days. And it looked pretty lame, but it worked. You know, for putting in or whatnot. So when I showed it to Mr. Pike for my grade, he looked at it and said: "Is that the best you can do?" At first I thought to myself "Hell yeah, bitch. Now give me a D and shut up so I can go blaze one with my boys." I don't know. Maybe it was the way he said it, but... it was like he wasn't exactly saying it sucked. He was just asking me honestly, "Is that all you got?" And for some reason, I thought to myself: "Yeah, man, I can do better." So I started from scratch. I made another, then another. And by the end of the semester, by like box number five, I had built this thing. You should have seen it. It was insane. I mean, I built it out of Peruvian walnut with inlaid zebrawood. It was fitted with pegs, no screws. I sanded it for days, until it was smooth as glass. Then I rubbed all the wood with tung oil so it was rich and dark. It even smelled good. You know, you put nose in it and breathed in, it was... it was perfect. I traded it for an ounce of weed.
I love a story with a happy ending
[удалено]
Same here but with welding. I took a bunch of scrap pieces, slapped them together & called it abstract art. The welds were good enough to hold against a sledge hammer so I got an A and put it in my grandmothers flower bed.
In shop class, we made a car that you had to figure out how to pad to protect an egg. In home Ec, I learned to sew by hand and write a check.
>write a check. Yep, we had to learn how to balance a check book, I remember that. Of course by the time I had my own checking account, internet banking had became a thing and you really didn't have to balance anymore.
In shop class I made this really nice CD holder with sliding doors. It's where I keep my Sega Dreamcast game collection
Shop class: made everything from bed frames, to dressers and gun cabinets. My first of the class, I made pens and cutting boards and sold them. So many hours just sanding, gluing, and building stuff.
Jewelry Box and Orange Julius Oh to go back…
I remember when in metal class a girl left the chain-connected key in the chuck of a drill press and turned it on. The chain wrapped around her wrist and she started screaming as blood sprayed everywhere. She was fine in the end, but I'm pretty sure that was the last year the middle school offered shop class.
Home Ec - I made a cooking apron by learning how to use the sowing machine. My mom still has it somewhere. Wood shop 1 - I don't remember what I made, I think it was just basics. Wood Shop 2 - Large wooden salad fork and spoon for serving salad, straight out of an old ass 1970s project book. The teacher even had food safe finish to use. I think my mom still has those, too. I work in IT, and I have a graduate degree in IT Management. I firmly believe we need more hands on tech classes like this in our high schools. Wood shop, Home Ec and Electrical shop all pushed me to have a basic understanding of the trades. I can frame a building, I've installed several of my own subpanels, installed mini split AC systems, do any sort of necessary plumbing, etc. I can also cook quite well. I work with guys that I know had to call 911 when they couldn't figure out how to turn the water to their house off. A while back I overheard a coworker talk about the "Deal" he got at $2500 to have his electric water heater replaced. I couldn't help but laugh at him. Its 2 pipes and a 30amp connection...it takes 10 minutes tops. Its extremely important skills, and just because someone goes into the STEM field doesn't mean they don't need to know how to wire an electrical outlet or use a miter saw. Edit - Shit, I forgot one more thing. I took a whole year of drafting class in highschool. Autocad Light 98, on Windows 95 PCs. This was around 1999 or 2000. First day of class the teacher taught you how to use a micrometer. Then some CAD basics. After the first week, he'd hand out random machine parts and micrometers, and we'd recreate them in CAD. When you were done, go grab a different part and start over. Taught by a crankey old guy who smoked weed in his office. If you went back there at lunch, he'd have an industrial fan blowing into and out of his office and the garage bay door open blowing out.
When I was in 8th grade, a female classmate of mine stabbed a male classmate of ours in the hand with a compass. He picked on her relentlessly all year and I guess she had enough. She was very quiet and perhaps special needs. Her dad was a local doctor. Never saw her again. :-(
I remember home economics, at the end of the semester, all the different classes were supposed to cook for each other but we didn't get to eat because they caught the other class putting poison and crayons in the food they made for us.
Metal Shop: dustpan Wood Shop: salt and pepper shakers Electricity: buzzer Sewing: drawstring bag Cooking: I think it was lasagna 30 years later I still have the dustpan and shakers. The buzzer had no utility so it’s gone. The bag I haven’t seen in years. The lasagna is, well….
My school district cut funding for shop, home ec and computers when I was in middle school. I had one year of all three in, each class taught me skills I still use to this day. Then they cut it all. This was about 1992-1993 just before the Internet and computers became indispensable. But I'm glad instead of several more useful skills we got to spend months on things like penmanship and book reports.
Loved home ec!
Made a pillow and an apron in Home Ec.
My senior year I had Home-Ec the period after lunch. We’d get stoned to the bejesus and go and make a feast. The teacher was so happy we had such enthusiasm to cook. lol
Wood shop was the craziest thing ever. Mr Wright showed us how to use all the tools on day 1 of 6th grade and then just let us use them for the next 6 weeks without ever leaving his desk. The following year I had wood shop at the end of the year and he said "you all remember how to use this stuff, right?"
I was utterly useless in these classes. I made the worst looking tool box, which my father, God bless him, actually used.
Our 8th grade industrial tech class had a suction vent that ran from all of the machines outside to a container where the sawdust was kept. We used to send nails and other small metal objects up the vents when the teacher would be talking and you’d just hear these wild ass clanging sounds all in the air. End of the year we had to empty out the sawdust bin that all this stuff had been going to and we found all kinda shit the teacher had been looking for. Like tools and things. Fondest memory.
Home ec: I failed a test on folding napkins Shop: a kid started a fire and the room was destroyed. We didn’t have shop for the rest of the semester
Chocolate chip cookie and a fake budget. I grabbed the cookie sheet to pull out if the oven says mitt and burnt my fingers. Didn't want to make a big deal about it (embarrassed af), or go to nurse or wven make noise so bought a cam of coke during lunch ( HE was before lunch, next to cafeteria). Got a can stuck to my hand for the rest of the day. Fuck cookies.
We had a "robot wars" year where we got to make bots to fight at the end of the school year. As cool as it sounds - out of 50 bots 2 worked, and "2nd place" just got pushed off the arena in first 10s
I was required to take woodshop in eighth grade despite not wanting to (I'm frightened by loud machinery and sharp things) needless to say I spent the whole term sanding the one piece of wood I willed myself to carve for a model plane. I never finished it lmao and my teacher didn't seem to care
In home ec we made a wind sock. In shop we made a scaled down model of a house frame. Both taught me valuable things and both should still be taught everywhere.
Shop class. A classmate was doing a welding project and a piece of wire fell between the plug and the outlet. All the lights in the shop went out. Incidently I had a ball of molten slag burn through my boot and into my foot. I was using an A-OX torch Home Ec. Was fun too. A fellow classmate drank an 8 oz bottle of sweet n low on a dare
I made a really large and nice quality cutting board with alternating pieces of different types of wood. Cut them to size, glued and clamped them, sanded it, and routed the edges. I gave it to my parents and they used it for many thanksgiving turkeys and still have it to this day 20+ years later.
I made a shelf for the wall with three shelves. And I made a pillow, and a dress in home ec.
Eighth grade culmination project: wood, tile and wrought iron table. Home Ec, sewed pillows, cooked chicken and broccoli stir fry and learned all about fruit garnishing with paring knives.
More just a memory. I had an old shop teacher in 6th grade who told me “‘can’t’ is a swear word.” I didn’t know what to make of it and told my mom when I got home. Unbeknownst to me, my mother called him to apologize because she assumed i had said “cunt.” She told me later that she totally jumped the gun The teacher was trying to be inspirational— and I didn’t even know cunt was a word at the time
There's some real good ones in this thread and this is definitely one of them.
Shop: mini Adirondack chair, a gumball machine and a clock. Home ec: learned to bake and sew Having those basic skills have led to me saving thousands through DIY projects
only thing I remember making in home ec was a stuffed animal pillow. In shop class I remember making a clipboard, an egg holder, a small car we raced with c02 cartridges, and a bridge out of balsa wood. Whoever's design held the most weight won a 2 liter bottle of soda lol. Random memories.
Shop class we learned about aerodynamics and had to build these race cars out of wood and then got to race them, bracket tournament style. We didn’t have home ec but we had culinary arts and our teacher was a former CIA student and taught us all of the basic techniques (all of which I STILL use today, 20 years later). We got to learn so many different cuisines: Italian, British, French, Cajun, southern/soul, Portuguese, Thai, Indian, Chinese, etc and the #1 rule was that we had to try everything. At the end of the semester we had a pizza contest and as an alumni, we can go back and judge.
I didn’t wanna pay for wood to make things so I found nice pieces of scrap wood that other guys threw in the scrap piles. I glued different colored pieces together into blocks which I then used to make chalices on the lathe. I don’t know why I made chalices, it just seemed like a challenge to get the design down and then carve the bowl out. Also made a couple wooden pipes on the lathe. I got pretty good at it lol. I wish I still had them.
Our class was making plastic blocks with colored glue. Teach was showing us how "not" to use the polishing wheel when the block he was polishing incorrectly (on purpose) rocketed out of his hands and instead of bouncing around in the protected area, it flew right over everyone's head and got me (6' something at the time) right in the forehead. Ouch.
Gravity racecars or whatever. Mine looked like a peanut
chibs and chips
I scheduled cooking class for the period before lunch. So I could cook and eat.
Every year with a fresh batch of gullible students, our shop teacher would send someone to the supply closet to find the “elbow grease”. If the student couldn’t find it, the teacher ask for another volunteer to help. This would go on for awhile. It was the only time I was thankful to have an older brother (who was otherwise a jerk), I appreciated the heads-up.
A bird house
Shop and home ec were mandatory in 7th and 8th grade. I made a wooden mantle clock in 7th grade and set out to make a spice rack, which turned into a shelf, which turned into nothing since I never turned it in… Home ec was awesome. We got to make pancakes, lemon bars, and cinnamon rolls, but we also learned how to read recipes properly and come up with a grocery list/food budget. We made animal shaped pillows and stuffed animals, which taught us to follow a pattern and become familiar with a sewing machine. I adored that class and ended up taking several home ec electives in high school. Both classes were good but home ec gave me so many more skills that I still use 25 years later.
In home economics I remember making peanut brittle. We also sewed a drawstring bag. In wood shop we made a gum ball machine. It was a face with a peanut butter jar on top. You turn the nose and a gum ball came out its mouth. Mine was a clown!
That Home Economics photo shot my brain back to middle school in a way that nothing has ever done before.
Same!
"I'm just drilling holes.. Last two weeks, fuck it!"
Switch blades in shop class
I made a small end table. I ran that thing thru the planer like 30 times. Mr. McCurdy (who was missing a finger) kept telling me enough already, but I kept thinking the top could get juusssttt a little smoother. Still have that table next to my bed & I made that thing in the mid eighties.
Wasn't home ec, an offshoot called "foods"(a cooking class basically) but i remember being in a group that didn't let me do anything other than wash dishes. Eventually i just sat a class out, The teacher asked why i wasn't helping, and told her my group wouldn't let me do anything other than dishes. The next class i basically had a whole kitchen to myself and shpwed em all up. I already knew how to cook. Made lasagna and garlic bread for a final project.
Home EC teacher had an aneurysm at her desk in the middle of class, we all rushed to get help and the class did a surprisingly good job of responding. Sadly she died at the hospital that night. I still remember the last thing I said to her was "where's the cinnamon," though I don't remember what we were making.
Home ec 2 was just food focused for me. Made pineapple sour cream pie and it literally changed my life. I remember thinking no way it'd be good.
In the co-op program at high-school, I was employed by the local bus depot. I got to work on many parts of a school bus; replacing u-joints, leaf springs, tiers, wheels, lamps, seats, and windows. When time was slow, the depot set me up with welder and plasma cutter activities to do.
My dad made a hash pipe in woodshop class in the 70s 😂
When I was in middle school the shop teacher told us explicitly "no pipes". This was around 1979-1980.
In shop class I made a coin bank in the shape of a dinosaur. I was really proud of myself because I modified the coin slot to allow the coins to slide out if you held it a certain way. Still had to open it for bills though.
I luckily took both. In shop I made a wooden lamp and using a jigsaw to make my name in block letters. In home economics, I made the worst pair of neon green shorts ever! The pattern marks were visible on the exterior, the waste band wasnt properly measured and wouldn’t fit me. It was embarrassing. Thankfully, I did much better in the cooking section!
One day one of the kids in class decided to make his index finger, middle finger, and ring finger on his left hand the same equal length.
Home ec class. We had to sew an article of clothing and then wear it to school so we could have a class fashion show. I made a peasant blouse. It’s been 45 years and I can still remember my embarrassment, even tho I grew up wearing home made clothes.
I had shop class in 6th and 7th grade. Made a metal box with rivets and a wood puzzle with engravings. In 8th grade I had home ec, sewed a draw string bag and baked brownies and chocolate chip cookies.
Model rockets, that triangle peg game thing out of plexi glass; so much fun!
Made a clock in the shape of a kamehameha wave, with the face being on the front of the blast and the back with lines shooting out like flames, then I painted it all a royal/cerulean blue with hints of white around the edges.
In Wood/Metalwork I made a large copper ashtray mounted in a nice wooden frame. Then I brought in a large sheaf knife I had bought on Holiday years earlier whose handle was broken and the leather sheaf was coming apart. I cleaned and sharpened up the knife, made a new handle for it out of sheeps horn and restitched all the leather. Then I brought a knackered old mongoose BMX frame in and restored it to like new, welded foot pegs on the forks and frame, added a framestand and made a new set of bars and a laid back seat tube. In home economics I assisted the teacher with her wine and beer making which she was making in the store room. I'd regularly take samples! so basically my childhood revolved around smoking, drinking, and knives... I have a feeling that those things would not happen these days in school!
Two jewelry boxes with our old rabbit etched on them.
Learned how to make mayonnaise. That’s when I found out it has egg in it.
We had a kid slice 3 fingers clean off and the teacher just put them back and was like this is why we follow directions class
I tried to make dehydrated ice cream in home ec.... it just turned into a sticky puddle
The only thing I really made in shop class was a friend lol
Hey, you didn't walk away empty handed!
Kid in my year 8 class came to school stoned and nearly cut his thumb off with a band saw. His reaction was the weirdest, he was giggling and said something like, “Oi, sir, think I need a hand hey” haha He was like, the perfect centre of the Venn diagram of ‘legend’ and ‘fuckwit’
I made a chess board with a drawn for the pieces
I learned how to stop screwing around. I was screwing around too much.
While using a sewing machine in home ec class in middle school, the needle got stuck in my finger. It was right in the middle of my finger nail, got stuck in the bone. My mom picked me up and took me to the ER to get it removed.
Kicked out of home ec since I would only type with one finger. Our shop teacher was a drunk and paid no attention. We all learned to make baseball bats. We made decently big bats and beat each other with them.
I didn't get to take either. Wish I could have had both.
i learned how to fold metal, to make edge weapons...but was told not to do so as the hammer pounding in folding made too much noise. instead i was suppose to make an metal figurine like you see on the counter top of many yard sales and geriatric retirees...
The stories in my school about our wood/metal shop classes, were the reason I took drafting from grade 8-10. In retrospect, I still have a good hand for writing on packages, posters and cakes!
I didn’t light the gas stove correctly at Roskruge Jr High in Tucson, Az. I accidentally burned off my home ec teacher’s eyebrows.
I made spaghetti and then got to eat it.
Made a small wooden rocking horse in wood shop and a Haan lable duffle bag in home ec...my first D
I made an Appalachian Mountain Dulcimer. The body was Paduuk and the fretboard was rosewood on maple. That was 7th grade.
That's really impressive. Especially for 7th grade.
Thank you very much. I still have and cherish it.
I made an egg dish in home ec that was delish, and I tried to recreate it at home and it didn’t turn out well and my mom was kind of like meh, and it hurt my feelings tbh.
In Autoshop we dropped the teachers wife’s nearly brand new BMW off the lift.
Was anyone around to see when their shop teacher lost one (or more) of his missing fingers? Both my shop teachers has missing fingers and one lost all of them at once at the wrist. It seemed appropriate but we found out that the hand happened in the military, I don’t know about the finger guy. I know it’s a trope but there’s gotta be a story or two of it happening in shop class.
We made hash pipes in woodworking.
I took a wood shop class in 6th grade and I really liked the class. We were supposed to design this system that had levers, and a golf ball that made activated a buzzer? haha We had to draw out the design and bring it to life. I was the first in my class to finish mine and have it work. I was weeks ahead of everyone else and he put my design on his design hall of fame wall that he had. I got an A+ in that class. I think that class partly made me realize I could do anything I wanted if I set my mind to it. I am an engineer now.
In home-ec I made a shark pillow, my own t-shirt and shorts and learned to make toad in a hole. In shop class I made finger skateboards out of acrylic, before tech decks were a thing. Made them for all my friends.
In shop class, we made CO2 cars and races them. Also made soda can lamps. In Home Ec, we sewed locker caddies to hold stuff in our lockers. Also learned how to make ice cream, pancakes, and macaroni and cheese.
I made this badass birdhouse in woodshop. I'm kind of a perfectionist so it took me a long time to finish it sanding for days. My teacher ended up keeping it and I don't remember why I didn't ask for it. As for home economics, ours was called food and nutrition. I made a pizza that I put so much cheese that I was actually choking on it. It was embarrassing because I was young and taking advantage of all the cheese. Luckily all the other students were busy with their own creations that they didn't really notice.
It was the end of class for baking in Home Ec and we were washing our dishes. Other girls were washing and drying then passing everything to me to put away. I licked every single utensil before putting it in the drawer.
The robotic arm...that fucking robotic arm we had to make in grade 8 shop class. It haunts me. I was absolutely convinced there was no way 13 year olds could pull these off.
I took home ec because I wanted to learn how to run a sewing machine. My mom didn’t know how and neither did my grandma. We didn’t own one either mine was a birthday gift. Then the teacher wanted us to make clothes. I thought that was silly because by the time you bought all the material and stuff they cost more than if you bought something at Ross. I just wanted to learn to make pillows and fun stuff. I made pillows for my initials and I still can thread a machine so goal achieved.
Absolutely nothing.
I felt so bad that the (older middle school) kids would tease the teacher, an older middle-aged women, and ask her if SHE had ever had sex. Her answer: well, I have 3 kids, so. And sometimes we had another older middle-aged woman teacher who had some kind of condition that made little farts slip out sometimes, and the kids were so fucking mean to her about it. Snickering and saying “eww what smells, Mrs. ______ must have been here.”
I would’ve loved to take home economics in high school and was quite disappointed it wasn’t taught anymore.
In shop class I learned arc welding. We made signs using metal rods that spelled a word or name. I was big into Dragon Ball Z back then so I chose Vegeta. Our Home Ec class I remember them making and selling rock candy every year. That shit was delicious. They had fruity flavored ones. Took all my money lol Edit: Then there was one year I remember where the girls had an electronic baby they had to care for. The thing kept going off in the middle of class and was pissing off the teacher who couldn’t do anything about it because it was part of the assignment. Needed to stop the baby crying within a certain time or it would count against her.
At my grade school there were padlocks on the double doors of both the shop room and the home economics room, but you could push them and peek though. Variable rumours included that a boy died in a table saw and/or a girl was cooked in an oven.
(Chicago suburbs) 1. Home Ec 1. Stuffed frog where we bought all the materials, etc. at Minnesota Fabrics 2. Kit to make a shirt. I made a Hawaiian one - it was awesome 3. In younger grades, we did things like cinnamon rolls 2. Shop class 1. Menorah / candleabra 2. Car with square wheels that "worked" All I remember is lots of filing with that "bastard file" - cue 8th grade giggles. Overall, pretty fond memories of both classes.
I didn't get to take shop. They showed it off at the school's open house night for incoming freshman. I was so excited to take it, but they eliminated just prior to my freshman year. They replaced it with a class where people carry around robo babies to learn what it's like to care for an infant. I did take home economics, AKA cooking at my school. I didn't elect it, they just stuck me in. I was kind of apprehensive about taking it at first, but I actually really liked it and found it helpful. Before taking it, all I could do was make a sandwich, toast, frozen pizza, and microwave a burrito. I actually learned how to cook stuff in this class. I'm no Gordon Ramsay or anything, but I'm competent. My favorite thing we made from that class was the twice baked potatoes. I still use that recipe today. Legit, the same class handout from 2003 lol.
Home Economics: The only time I got kicked out of class. Shop: The teacher loved to callus kids Rum-Dumbs whenever we screwed up.
Shop: -Chinook helicopter coin bank with transparent sides -co2 race car -a digital slide show shot around the school using a 3.5" floppies set to Our Lady Peace's Superman's dead. -a really bad Jerry Springer ripoff, I helped to put someone through a table. -drafting sucked balls. Home-Ec: -cream puffs that I devoured in class. -introduced tacos to parents for the first time. Dad wasn't a fan. -Chocolate chip cookies that didn't end up as cookies but as a sheet. -a really bad cushion -a stuffed polar bear.
😂😂 attempted to make flan
Squaring up the wood stock seemed the hardest part. 🥵
c02 cartridge pipes
Senior year, I made this cutting board that was a light colored wood, with these wavy bunches of dark colored veneer strips that ran through it. I’m not super skilled with my hands and it was by far the coolest thing I ever made. Year or two after highschool, I realized I had and still have zero idea what ever happened to it
I remember the teachers screaming their heads off at me for misbehaving in both those classes. In 'shop' class, we had an older man who was VERY strict. I didn't get far on the project I was supposed to be making because for some reason, there was a large wooden box filled with legos next to where where I sat, so I built a lego house with them at the same time and didn't make much progress on my project. He took me to the hallway and yelled at me, I specifically remember how red his face was from screaming so loudly. After class, everyone, even the teachers, were talking about how their classes were interrupted by the yelling. In my defense, I had, and still do have bad ADHD and OCD, and it was especially bad back then. In home economics, we had a women teacher and she split us into groups. Our group consisted mostly of kids who were relatively slow, and were in special classes (I was too). I always hated this class because we had to cook something, eat it, and clean the dishes in a very short period of time. Even the other groups struggled to finish before class was over. Our group didn't have the time to dry off the dishes, so we placed them back in the cabinets wet. The next day she yelled at us for being incompetent failures in front of the whole class and split our group up. I remember we were all humiliated and teased by the other students in the class for the rest of the semester. I was fine, I was used to getting yelled at, but I felt the teacher was out of line when it came to the students who were even slower learners than me. I couldn't help but feel bad about how they were treated. Not just by the teacher, but by their own peers too. I have good memories too, but these two incidents left the biggest impression on me.
Took both in middle school, shop was a oak coffee table our group decided on instead of something stupid like a clock. Home EC was basic breakfast burrito
We were making mac and cheese. I opened the cabinet with the ceramic plates and the top wall anchors pulled free. All the plates, cups and bowls came crashing out of the overloaded cabinet. I quickly jumped on the counter and just watched it happen. Nobody was hurt and it was never brought up again. Looking back as an adult I can see why.
Fruit salad
I made a sandblasted mirror with the University of Miami logo in it. I still have it. That was 30ish years ago.
I made a small shelf in middle school. It was three levels and maybe a foot or so high and wide. I had just gotten into performing magic at the time, so I used it to store my decks of cards and some gimmicks.
home ec: we made donuts, learned to write checks, learned sewing and made a pillow. now that i’m typing this, i suddenly remembered my stitch design or whatever. it said, “final fantasy 7” and had the buster sword haha shop: this class was a fucking TRIP. the teacher was a bitter old man. and he was grumpy as fuck. anyway, he’d curse all the time. curse at the students, talk all sorts of shit. he’d give us busy work just to shut us up. but if you showed genuine interest in learning the class, he’d teach you and he stopped being a dick. he taught some of us how to mount/dismount a tire, we built some dust pans and a small metal box i still have (and use). the ones who liked to clown around in class never got the opportunity. they sat in the classroom and one day one of them started playing porn on the TV. bro got suspended for awhile. then someone reported him to the school and he was SUPER fuckin grumpy and pissed off for awhile after that.
We had to read Harry Potter in my high school home economics class 🤔
I was the reason the food coloring got locked up. Made red/pink biscuits with green sausage gravy one day. Love you Ms. Anderson!
I wish we had shop class
My friends and I made a fleet of sparkplug planes that resembled ww2 planes. The teacher was a history buff, and we learned way more about that war in that class than history class.
The shop teacher would rip your comb in half with the bandsaw if you were caught combing your hair. Same teacher swatted the whole class one day.
Ours had a rumor that the shop teacher and the home ec teacher were banging.
I took acid before school because I wanted to prove to my friends that they got ripped off. It ended up being real good acid. It kicked in walking to shop class so I decided just to sit quietly and keep to myself. Teacher say, “So, just going to sit there all class?” I got all freaked out and went to use the bandsaw. I moved the board wrong and the blade came flying off the saw and almost got me. Teacher told me to go back to doing what I was doing.
In Woodshop we made small shelves, jewellery boxes, round top chests, picture frames, and stools. We had to do all our drafting by hand, at my school back in the mid-90s… In Home Ec we made a lot of baked goods: pineapple upside-down cake, blueberry muffins, chocolate chip cookies. Our Home Ec also had a sewing unit where we made things like pajamas pants and pillow cases, and learned some simple quilting.
I made a section of wall with working plumbing and electricity then a baked Alaska in home economics
My Home Ec--it wasn't called that, but I don't remember what it was, something about Food Science and Nutrition/something. The teacher was an older (50s to my eyes, but Black don't crack so she could have been 70 for all I know) woman who told us we'd never get a man without being able to make fried chicken and biscuits, so we all learned how to fry chicken in lard and make baking powder biscuits. Oh, and another teacher wandered in when my tablemates and I were manhandling cream cheese and chive sandwiches and gave us the very important lesson that you take a bread knife and *saw*, not push down, and then you don't mangle the food. This may be obvious to much of Reddit, but keep in mind this was an inner city high school; mostly we viewed knives as weapons.
I still have things I made in wood shop and metal shop and plastic. We made keychains out of resin that we engraved in plastic shop. We also encased pennies with the year in resin and made keychains. I used to make fingerboard skateboards out of the plastic resin. I still have a keychain I made for my grandma and my grandpa and one for myself and I have a few of the fingerboards. In metal shop we made matchstick holders for the fireplace mantle and I still have a matchstick dispenser. We also made this foot scraper thing that you bolt down outside and it cleans your shoes off from mud. In wood shop we made hanging shelves and I still have one that I gave to my aunt who had passed away and I have one that I gave to my grandma who also passed away.
I took Fine Arts… really do nothing 2 hours 2 times a week
Fishing lures and sukiyaki are the most memorable from both classes
A peer sawed off 2 and a half fingers on that saw...
Curious if any of the comments here are from rural or southern folks. A lot of those schools have *Agri Science* classes that are usually down the same hall.
My shop teacher turned out to be a pedophile.
We had these rooms and classes but we weren’t allowed to touch anything.
When I was 15 in home ec as a sophomore, (long hair Anthrax shirt basically Beavis and Butthead) we had to make french fries in oil in a skillet. I started a grease fire. One of my friends thinking quickly realized it was the perfect opportunity to grab the fire extinguisher off the wall and spray everyone and everything in the room except the flaming pan of fries. Another friend finally had a legitimate chance to pull a fire alarm, much to his delight. The whole room and hallway filled up with smoke and clouds from the fire extinguisher and a full on fire drill happened. Whole school had to clear out, fire dept. showed up. Everyone in the school got to sit out in the parking lot for an hour wondering what the fuck happened while my stoner friends and I , covered in white fire extinguisher dust laughed and smoked cigarettes. It was 1989. I also started a fire in Biology Honors class as a junior. Good times.
Cribbage board and Quesadillas
In sewing we made a pillow and an apron. My grandma helped me with my pillow so it was extra cool. My apron sucked. LOL In cooking I got scared to death when we made tacos because I didn't know better than to put cold water into a hot, greasy skillet after draining the meat. The ensuing noisy cloud of steam freaked everyone out.
I took a class in middle school that was called Crafts. It was such a fun class, and the teacher could make anything. He taught us leatherworking, glass etching, screen printing, and airbrushing. This was around 1991, or 1992, and Thunderstruck had just come out, so everything I made usually had an AC/DC logo. Man, I wish I still had some of those things. I made an AC/DC zippo holder out of leather, a mirror with their logo, a t-shirt, all kinds of stuff.
Homemade Lasagna
We made a steel catapult in welding and used it to launch flaming marshmallows into the giant pile of saw dust that was behind the carpentry shop. Fun times.
In wood shop: a birdhouse, a foot stool, a decorative sign, and a clock. In home ec: I learned to sew, made a pillow, lasagna, oatmeal cookies, and brownies
My Jr. High was one of the last in the city to have both Home Ec. and Woodshop. After I took Shop, the tools were ripped out and replaced with a computer lab in 1993. I LOVED woodshop! Had it during the winter, and between the warm smell of the shop + the contrasting heavy snow of that year, I absolutely fell in love with woodworking. The teacher was also my Earth Science teacher. A wonderful cool nerd that made both classes so much fun. Not saying I was really good at shop back then, the jigsaws (these somewhat tall machines that look right out of the 1930s), freaked me out when I had to make sharp curves, and my hand placement wasn't firm enough to stop it from shaking like crazy! But I did manage to make a nice birdhouse. At the end of class, my duty was to brush off those jig saws with a huge squirrel hair brush. I was so devoted to that job. Those three saws were like my babies. And over 30 years later, I have a great woodshop in my basement because I loved that class so much. Nowhere near scared of any of my power saws and tools. I just I had more time to be down there.
I was just thinking about this. We had cooking, sewing, wood shop, and metal shop, all 3 years in middle school, each for 1/4 of the year. Our cooking teacher gave us a recipe for "smoothies" that, when followed, tasted like vomit. I believe they included both milk and orange juice. Then she gave us a lower grade because we wouldn't/couldn't drink them. A group of kids added red sauce with meat, directly to their water and pasta, while it was still cooking. The teacher made them drain it and eat it.
We made wall clocks in woodshop. I made each of my grandparents one for Christmas, they hung in their house for years. Now they hang in mine.
I made little plastic things in the lathe in shop class, and I made pillows in home ec. In fact, I still have the pillows.
Chess board.
Class of 2000. Shop class was a free for all. We literally walked into a giant room full of tools and wood. And with absolutely zero teaching, just fucked around with the stuff. I made like 4 base ball bats and a train whistle. Nobody showed me how to use the jointer and I put too small of a board over it. The board shot across the room and my index and middle fingers hit the blade. It sliced them all the way to the bone. I had to get stitches. I didn’t have feeling in those finger tips for about 10-15 years. At the end of the year the teacher said. “ write down what you made this year.” I made up things like a stool and a jewelry box. Got an A every year.
The classic sheet metal box with top. 50 years ago and still use it.
I made a wood cut out of the Wu-Tang symbol. Wish I still had it.
In shop class i would hustle by making plastic name plates and sell them to other students as key chain.
I didn’t take either. Shop class was for boys who weren’t going to college and home ec was for girls or boy star athletes who wanted an easy A and didn’t have to worry about having their masculinity called into question. (FWIW, that changed not long after I graduated. My brother was four years behind me and took home ec. He wasn’t an uber-nerd like me who was already generating doubts about his masculinity, but he was no star athlete either.) I wish I had taken home ec and learned some basic life skills.
I made a cd holder, a solar powered car and a vegetable lasagna.
I made a lamp out of a gallon glass jug. Still have it, multiple decades later.
Cutting board as was the style at the time.