High School Auto Shop

[TonyHuntimer]

Hey guys,

Do high schools still have auto shop classes? I know music and physical education classes have been cut back. Oh, and when I went to school the "drivers education" class was a required part of school and it was free. Do we have any auto shop teachers here? If so, you are awesome.


Tony Huntimer
RaceHome.com

[CRead01]

My son goes to a tech center for auto mechanics in High school. it's off campus half day sorta thing. and forget about the free drivers education around here. it costs hundreds now.

[shep]

The high school here still has an auto shop class, and I think the instructor still heads up the Marshall drag racing team.

[Larry Callahan]

I know the high school I went to dropped auto shop, wood shop, metal shop and an electrical class a couple of years after I left. I though it was a horrible idea.

[Boyd]

At one point, I actually looked into becoming a shop teacher - but almost all of the school systems in Texas (where we were living at the time) have dropped vo-ed programs like auto shop. They cite the cost and liability, but it's a shame imo.

[Paul_J]

Where I live in Northwest Houston the School system has only one gaol in mind for every student, College. That's a great goal but there is a whole segment of the student population that will waist their (and our) money going to college. They would be better served having the Vo-ed programs back. To all the shop teachers out there, thanks.

BTW, my youngest wants auto shop back in school so bad. My oldest graduates this semester with a Family and Consumer Science degree and will teach Home-Ec.

[TPI Monte SS]

I teach music in a NJ high school, and our school has one of the last Auto Shop classes left in our area. The high school I graduated from 17 years ago dropped Auto Shop and Metals before I even got out, damn them. I wished I could have taken it in HS!

[TonyHuntimer]

When I was in middle school I had 2 really cool classes. One was an engine class, where we spent the class tearing down, cleaning, and rebuilding a lawnmower engine. I never understood how important that class was while I was in it. The same teacher taught a class called Design, Speed & Power. Basically you spent the class designing a small car (about 2"x2"x10"), built it out of clay, then built it out of wood, then drilled a big hole in the back, painted the car, then we shoved a CO2 cartridge in the back, then on the last day of class we took them down to the tennis courts and used a special launcher to puncture the CO2 cartridge and raced our cars against each other.

That class was a blast!

I'm sad to think we don't have stuff like this anymore.

Tony Huntimer
RaceHome.com

[newbaa]

the highschool i graduated from still has a woodworking class, welding, and small engines class. unfortunately i wasn't into cars much back then and i only took the woodworking class, but we built the CO2 cars like tony was talking about.
i regret not taking those classes. those probably would have helped out quite a bit with all the stuff i'm doing now. at least in the basics.

[smhigh]

I'm still teaching SHOP at San Marin High School in Novato, California.
The auto shop was rebuilt after a fire in '99. The auto shop is very well equipped and has a nice collection of shop cars for students to work on.

A '68 Nova has been completely rebuilt with the help of local businesses and the local police department. It's called Project X http://www.ci.novato.ca.us/Index.aspx?page=684

The Nova is raced at Infienon Raceway and has a best time of 10.7 so far.

Other cars include a Vega, LeMans, AMX, and a Willys Jeepster.

My students read Pro-Touring.com and enjoy seeing what the members do with their cars.

[David Pozzi]

There's quite a few high schools in Northern CA that still have the industrial arts and auto technology classes. I've been a line and final judge for the Plymouth and now Ford/AAA Troubleshooting Skills Contest. This Skills Contest is open only to high school/ROP students.

Mary stealing Dave's computer ...

[Z06killinSBF]

I believe the school I graduated from still has all it's tech classes. I know I took metal fabrication (3yrs) and auto collision repair (2yrs). Those were the best classes I ever took.

Just went to the web site and sure enough, Career Prep and Vocational.

[shmoov69]

our "vo-tech is at a bigger community college here. They just bought a new Mustang dyno for their auto shop class. Wish they had that when I was there!!!

[class67]

[quote=TonyHuntimerRaceHome]When I was in middle school I had 2 really cool classes. One was an engine class, where we spent the class tearing down, cleaning, and rebuilding a lawnmower engine. I never understood how important that class was while I was in it. The same teacher taught a class called Design, Speed & Power. Basically you spent the class designing a small car (about 2"x2"x10"), built it out of clay, then built it out of wood, then drilled a big hole in the back, painted the car, then we shoved a CO2 cartridge in the back, then on the last day of class we took them down to the tennis courts and used a special launcher to puncture the CO2 cartridge and raced our cars against each other.

That class was a blast!

I'm sad to think we don't have stuff like this anymore.


That's funny Tony, in my junior high drafting class I did the same thing, but we had to draft the car in four views and use our drwg's as the template. We carved the cars out of wood, painted them and raced them the same way. Aahhh the good old days.