I was in a Soviet school system (it was towards the end). And somehow we had a really fun shop class. We did stuff with electricity. Had a lathe, wood and metal

I was in a Soviet school system (it was towards the end). And somehow we had a really fun shop class. We did stuff with electricity. Had a lathe, wood and metal. Remember making our own hammers. Learned to use a coping saw, a wood plane. School was remodeling so they let do demo work. Totally unsafe but loads of fun. Didn't learn about cars much though. We had so many things there that would be considered unsafe and dangerous these days for US kids here I'd imagine. Same thing with chemistry experiments. Though interestingly there more encouragement here to play contact sports like football which leads to concussions and injuries.