Shop Teacher

[mcubberley]

Hello All. I have lurked around for years and finally got around to joining because I plan on getting more active in the community. I am a shop teacher in VA and since I have always loved the idea of vintage campers and building one (never had the space before), I am teaching my kids the skills they need to take away from my class using a teardrop camper build as an authentic experience rather than building lamps and turning ink pens. I will be running into hurdles and needed a place to come for advice. Seems like this is just that kind of place.

I am currently fundraising for this project (even though we are well into the project) and am over 58% funded on Donors Choose. This is the one time I will mention this or ask for help spreading the word. The link is below and if people use the code LIFTOFF at checkout donations up to $50 are doubled which is huge. Just $570 left to go before we have 98% or what we need to build a sweet trailer. We will be selling it to fund future trailers and build the program.

I look forward to sharing and learning a lot from you folks. I have already learned a ton from lurking

https://www.donorschoose.org/project/tiny-trailer-a-teardrop-full-of-experie/2493410/?utm_source=dc&utm_medium=project&utm_campaign=twitter&rf=twitter-siteshare-2017-03-project-teacher_4360024&challengeid=20918764

--Mr. Cubberley

[cubbyboy57]

Interesting idea - I hope you can reach your goal. When I was building my trailer one of the neighbor boys would come over and watch and "help" - he had no idea how to use a tape measure, a square or level. I enjoyed explaining how/why etc..
America needs tradesmen as much (or more?) as it needs lawyers and doctors.
I hope you start a journal and share progress (and pictures) with us. Good luck and happy building!

[Roly Nelson]

Welcome to the board. Good for you, training kids how to work with their hands (and tools). Woodworking is where I got my start, which lasted for over 50 years. There is a young lady, here on the board, who also built her own teardrop in a woodshop class a few years ago. Perhaps she will chime in and give some words of encouragement. Good luck on your efforts.
Roly, the li'l ol' woody teardrop builder in So Calif.

[Vedette]

Great Plan!
Good Roads
Brian & Sandi

[Woodbutcher]

Good idea. I don't know who said it, but his quote was "today's kids prefer to buy something rather then build something" . So many schools turned their shop classes into Technology labs years ago. Parents wanted their kid to get a College education and not "Have" to get their hands dirty. Well today those shop class professions are doing quite well. The problem is there are very few places for those kids to get exposed to the trades. I use to hire kids out of the local high School work program to work in my cabinet shop. But the school went the technology lab direction and that ended the school work program for us. Several of my former students went on to make a career of cabinet making, with one opening his own shop that is still going strong today. So keep up the good work and get the kids interested in building something with their own hands. There is a lot to say for blowing the dust off you at the end of the day and looking at what you just accomplished.

We had a high school student, somewhere in eastern Iowa that was building a teardrop at the school as a project. He had a build thread going, but I lost track of it. Maybe someone can find it. Your students might enjoy seeing what this kid built on his own.

[Roly Nelson]

Well, I just have to jump in here, one more time. For eight years, as a General Contactor, I hired many unskilled, fresh out of high school, guys that wanted to learn a trade. We specialized in room additions and second story add-ons, and did all of the required sub-contractor work ourselves. I grilled my new hires about the importance of showing up on time, about calling the shop if they were unable to show up for work, and telling them that only three excuses were acceptable: (1) Absolutely too sick to come to work, (2)A death in the family and attending a funeral, or (3) a car accident that put them in the hospital.

Now unacceptable were the following: (1) Gee, my Mom didn't wake me up on time. (2) My girl friend got mad at me and I had to sooth her feelings so she wouldn't break up with me. (3) We had a great party Sunday night and I was too hung over from booze and drugs to make it to work, as planned. I actually cut them a little slack, allowing them one, and only one time to violate these rules. When it did happen, I took them aside, telling them that i was spending a lot of time and effort to teach them ALL of the skills of the building trades: form building, pouring concrete, framing, lathing and plastering, roofing, sheetrock and drywal taping and finshing, electrical, plumbing, air conditioning, cabinetry, finish carpentry, painting and such and they should be aware of that.

Out of the whole bunch, I only had to fire one young man in eight years. He found out that he couldn't party Sunday night and get wasted. He didn't even call the next day to beg to stay home because he was too hung over, he just didn't show up. I lectured him the first time it happened, drew a spit line on the inner windshield of my truck and told him there would not be a second spit line, if it happened again. Guess what, he failed to come to work a second time a few months later, so I drew another spit line and when I handed him his last paycheck the next day, he burst out crying. None of the other young fellows ever violated the rules, since I told them that I had them scheduled them to work in various homes, and they knew if they let me down, their jobs were probably going to be terminated. The last time I checked, all of them went on to become professional tradesmen, in a number of trades. How wonderful it is to have a skilled trade that no one can ever take away from them.

Ok,I'm off of my soap box, and convinced that a college education is not the only way to hopefully make a living in this world.

Roly, the 50 year construction worker, general contractor and commercial construction superintendent, still convinced that hard work never hurt anyone, and may even sustain the life of your family. Roly

[mcubberley]

Thank you all for the well-wishes. I have been able to raise over $1100, so the project is going to happen even if I have to toss in the last couple hundred. I think the lot of you hit the nail on the head. There are a lot of kids that will never pick up back saw or understand the wedge/edge aspects of a simple chisel. These kids can watch all the youtube video they want, and they can "know" a lot of technical information, but until they get their hands on the tools and practice/give it a try in a safe learning environment, they will not have the skill to make good on their ideas. In the current climate of entrepreneurship and cottage industry attention is once again coming back to manufacturing, materials, and other technologies. I am lucky that I am in an older high school that hadn't succumb to the siren call of digital technology and kept its machine and wood shop in good working order. The problem is that as many have noted individuals in trades are doing quite well for themselves and very few are willing to take the pay cut or to work for someone else to become a teacher. Cruddy pay, but like woodworking the end results are very satisfying.

I have also been quite amazed at how bad some high performing students are at applying simple math concepts to measurement and layout. They may be able to ace that standardized test but telling me what half of 8-3/4" throws them for a look. Forget about figuring out what size drill bit they need to drill a 1/2" hole on the drill press.

When we get going on the tear its fun to watch the kids attention get pulled away from their screens. I don't have to tell them to put it away because they just seem to gravitate to the unique nature of the teardrop camper. The stuff on DonorsChoose is mostly just stuff to take the trailer to the next level and allow this year's students to see the camper complete instead of having to wait until next year's budget to get an additional chunk of materials to work with.

I have been documenting the starting phases, so I will be putting together that stuff once I get the tough part of fundraising done. It's all just sitting in a bin waiting to be organized.

Again, thank you all for the warm welcome, and I look forward to picking your brains and collective experiences. And thanks a ton to those of you who donated after reading my first post! --Michael

[KTM_Guy]

I was in a two year welding class in HS, The teacher was totally crazy, we all thought this guy should be locked up in a nut house. There were 16 kids in the class, grades on welding projects were done by 3 students called the grading committee. they would put the projects in order from best to worst. best would get a 99, next 90, then 89, then 85, so all the way down to the last 2 spots which were 59's. So it didn't matter how good the welds were two people would fail. You could challenge the place your weld was but you couldn't challenge the one just before you it had to be the one before that one. If you won the challenge you would go up three grades, if you lost you would go down grades (number grades not letter), if three kids won a challenge the committee would be thrown out and a new one would come in. Or the class could impeach the committee and get a new one. And this was just one of the things he did, everything in the class was like this.

If you were on the committee and gave yourself better grades you would get challenged or impeached. If you were fair you would stay on the committee. I should say if you were on the committee you didn't have to go shop clean up, it was good to be on the committee.

Now that I'm older he wasn't just teaching us to weld. He was teaching us life. Everything it seems like was preparing us for life. We didn't know it at the time. Second best teacher I ever had.

His Absent to Excellence award program was brilliant and hilarious.

I worked in the trades for 25 years, I am a very patient person and got a lot of the pre-apprentices to work with me. Their first day with me all I would have them do is watch me work and stay out of the way. Wouldn't even have their tools out of the car. By noon I would know if they were any good or not. I'm happy we didn't have cell phones back then, I wouldn't have patients for that.

Keep up the good work, this one for you. And one for Commander LeVander. (that is what we call the welding teacher)

[jgerqano]

And I thought I was the last shop teacher in America. There are some of us still hanging on hoping that the powers that be will come to their senses.

[daveesl77]

Wonderful idea!

I learned multiple trades and have used them all. I also taught at the university level, the capstone course in science education. One of my pet peeves is that you always hear "every child should go to college". Wrong! About half should focus on academics, the other half should focus on vocational. This isn't because the vocation focused are stupid, far from it, it is because that is what they would be good at. I loved my shop classes in junior high and high school. As a country we have forgotten and ignored this basic and absolutely essential part of our lives. Academics are fine, but we also need folks that can weld, build, bend, calculate and repair. My having an electrical license and NRC certification allowed me to do the fun stuff about 6 months each year, while making a crap load of money when I worked.

WE NEED MORE VOCATIONAL SCHOOLS!

dave

[swoody126]

dave is correct

more importantly we need to put forms of TECHNICAL/TRADE/MANUAL ARTS TRAINING(dated myself didn't i) back in our public schools where our youth can graduate w/ a RESUME not just a diploma

SADLY the high school diploma doesn't carry the weight it once did

if a person has a RESUME he/she has an opportunity to acquire employment that can either fund further education/training or earn a living

the above mentioned EVERY CHILD GOES TO COLLEGE thrust has done more damage than it's instigators ever imagined possible

my hat is off to those who are still stamping out ignorance and teaching kids how to think w/ ALL their faculties

sw

[mcubberley]

Shop is good for all students regardless of future path. Being able to tie learning from other subjects like math and science to practical skills is just plain valuable, no matter your perspective.

The current climate for shop programs is part of the reason I am trying to get this teardrop camper project funded. It results in a great experience for the students but is also a way to show the community what kind of great things come out of technology education classes. Big and impressive gives the students something to be proud of and something the community can be impressed with.

Just $256 more dollars isn't a lot thanks to DonorsChoose matching donations up to $50. http://goo.gl/crcyzU
But regardless I will pony up the rest because at the end of the day this whole process is pretty rewarding for me as well as the students.

It's been great reading all these stories, experiences, and points of view. What a great welcome. Thanks to those of you that have already donated. It means a lot.

Be on the look out for a photo story to document it all. The next couple classes will be about choosing a design for the doors and window placement.


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[mcubberley]

Done

The project was fully funded so 1300 worth of materials and addons are on the way! Students are stoked and now the tear is going to have electirc (12v battery, and a shore port) and will be skinned. Looking forward to watching it come together.

I am documenting everything as I go along so I am sure there will be lots to show in the coming weeks. Not to mention lots of questions as I run into some hiccups.

-Thanks again everyone for the warm welcome.

--Mr. Cubberley

[Woodbutcher]

I don't know if you saw here is a section here for "Build Journals" . It's a great way to let people follow along, and it's a big help if you sell the trailer later on. A prospective buyer can see everything you did along the way.

Glad you are fully funded and the kids are going to have a great time building this.

[mcubberley]

I didn't notice. That makes a lot of sense. Thank you


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