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The US does not have anything like this in its mandatory public school curriculum that I know of. My experience in a good public system was that if you had time

The US does not have anything like this in its mandatory public school curriculum that I know of. My experience in a good public system was that if you had time in your schedule to take a shop class (wood and metal working) it was because you weren't taking a foreign language or music class. Same problem with art -- there was no room built in to accommodate those classes in a typical student's schedule.

ci5er 9y ago
Hmmm. Odd. I took all the above. Maybe our classes were shorter (~50min each)? Or we had longer days (7.30am to 3.30pm and then the extracurriculars started)?
- Rumudiez 9y ago
  I and the other students from the AP classes at my school effectively had no electives -- we all took math, science, English, history, a foreign language, and at least one music class every semester of every year throughout middle and high school. With 6 classes a day and extra curricular sports, robotics and music there was no way to take a shop or home-ec class, and that's after getting arts and gym waived.
  - abeyer 9y ago
    > and at least one music class every semester of every year throughout middle and high school Seriously? I'm all for music in schools, did a fair bit myself, and went to a public school with a strong program... but 14+ semesters of required music seems like overkill for most people.
mcphage 9y ago
I went to my city's "public school you need to test into" (so it was very big on academics) and it still had a shop class.
- Rumudiez 9y ago
  We had a shop class. What we didn't have was time to take it without skipping out on another core class. This should be required curriculum -- that was the point I took home from the article.
  - mcbits 9y ago
    States and school districts still have a fair amount of control over curricula, so "the US" does mandate hands-on classes in some places. My high school had a mandatory shop class (student's choice of woods or metals). Middle school had mandatory home ec for all genders.
  - mcphage 9y ago
    We didn't skip out on another class, it was just part of the curriculum. This was 8th grade, and I transferred out after that year, so I don't know what they did in High School.
mbell 9y ago
I went to a regular public school and we had a mandatory program called 'Life Skills' that served roughly this purpose in 8th grade. It wasn't a full class though. As I recall it was 2 hours each Friday afternoon for a semester and everyone rotated through a few sub-classes: cooking, wood shop, sewing, and mechanical drawing.

ci5er 9y ago

Hmmm. Odd. I took all the above. Maybe our classes were shorter (~50min each)? Or we had longer days (7.30am to 3.30pm and then the extracurriculars started)?

Rumudiez 9y ago
I and the other students from the AP classes at my school effectively had no electives -- we all took math, science, English, history, a foreign language, and at least one music class every semester of every year throughout middle and high school. With 6 classes a day and extra curricular sports, robotics and music there was no way to take a shop or home-ec class, and that's after getting arts and gym waived.
- abeyer 9y ago
  > and at least one music class every semester of every year throughout middle and high school Seriously? I'm all for music in schools, did a fair bit myself, and went to a public school with a strong program... but 14+ semesters of required music seems like overkill for most people.

mcphage 9y ago

I went to my city's "public school you need to test into" (so it was very big on academics) and it still had a shop class.

Rumudiez 9y ago
We had a shop class. What we didn't have was time to take it without skipping out on another core class. This should be required curriculum -- that was the point I took home from the article.
- mcbits 9y ago
  States and school districts still have a fair amount of control over curricula, so "the US" does mandate hands-on classes in some places. My high school had a mandatory shop class (student's choice of woods or metals). Middle school had mandatory home ec for all genders.
- mcphage 9y ago
  We didn't skip out on another class, it was just part of the curriculum. This was 8th grade, and I transferred out after that year, so I don't know what they did in High School.

mbell 9y ago

I went to a regular public school and we had a mandatory program called 'Life Skills' that served roughly this purpose in 8th grade. It wasn't a full class though. As I recall it was 2 hours each Friday afternoon for a semester and everyone rotated through a few sub-classes: cooking, wood shop, sewing, and mechanical drawing.