Life lessons from shop class (1/26/05)

It’s amazing what you can learn about life in seventh grade shop class, particularly if you have a great teacher.

Mine was a guy named Don Oswalt.

He had his hands full trying to teach some basics of wood shop to a crew that could never seem to decide whether they were kids or grown-ups or maybe even creatures from another planet. In other words, we were seventh graders, deep in the throes of confusion created by adolescence.

But Don Oswalt let us know quickly and firmly that he was the boss. There was a get-down-to-business firmness about him, though he soon showed he had a sense of humor as well.

Our project that pivotal year was to be a bookcase, though giving it that name implies much more structure than was actually involved.

The “bookcase” was three pieces of wood. One was about six inches by fourteen inches. One was about six by six, and the third was six by two inches.

Our task, he explained that first week, was to construct a bookcase of basic design, cutting the wood ourselves, joining it, and sanding it to a finish that would pass his inspection.

Fortunately, no power tools were involved or some of us would have left seventh grade with fewer digits than we’d had as sixth graders.

The tools were rudimentary, and they were kept locked in a screened cage at the back corner of the shop. At the start of each class, we’d have to sign tools out. At the end of the class, we’d have to return them in good condition. Class members took turns with the record-keeping in the tool cage.

For most of us, it was our first time ever trying to build something.

For all of us, it was a chance to see the world in a different way.

It quickly turned out that some of us weren’t very good at this, while others took to it naturally. And there was absolutely no correlation between how well a student performed in shop and how well he did in any other class.

None of the good grades from English or history transferred over to the skills necessary to think three-dimensionally and to work with our hands.

Probably nobody learned that faster than I did. When it came to shop, I was the equivalent of an illiterate. And it took some real patience on Don Oswalt’s part to get me “reading” by the end of the year.

The bookcase came together with dado joints, one on the top of the largest piece of wood and one on the bottom. The dado slots were cut with a miter saw, then chiseled out by hand. The shortest piece of wood would then be glued into the dado on the bottom of the largest piece, acting as a sort of foot. The third piece would fit into the top dado and act as a bookend. The finished piece would sit at a slight angle.

It would make a perfect gift for your father, Don assured us.

Sure, if it ever got finished.

Few projects ever seemed as daunting as that first one.

We all fought with the chisel. Some of us mis-measured and had to buy more wood. And our finishes — no matter how hard we sanded or how much we steel-wooled — always seemed to need more work.

In the end, we all got them done, even those who were worse with wood than I was.

What did we learn?

We learned respect for wood. We learned respect for tools. We learned respect for those whose set of skills was different from our own.

And we learned to respect ourselves for seeing the project through to the end.

Don was right, by the way. It made a great gift to my father. To my great pride and seventh grade satisfaction, he kept it in his office the rest of his life. Today, it sits on the computer desk at home, holding software CDs.

Great life lessons from an outstanding teacher. You never know what you’re going to learn in seventh grade.[[In-content Ad]]