Industrial arts/technology: what are we doing?

The push to prepare all students for college has resulted in the near disappearance of high school industrial arts courses. Mr. Howlett and Mr. Huff warn that this unfortunate trend endangers the future of both non-college-bound students and the U.S. as a whole.

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HE WAS late! It was the first day of school, a class he didn't know anything about and had not asked to take, and it was taught by a "hard-nosed" teacher who he knew made an issue of students being late.

Not a good start! But he needed to stay in school only until his 16th birthday. Then he planned to drop out and work in the vineyards with his father. Who needed English, history, and math to pick grapes and prune vines?

He entered the classroom, found an empty seat, and followed along as the other students were asked to get out materials, drawing boards, T-squares, triangles, and scales. Over the next few days he began to learn new things, and he used his hands. He got immediate feedback on his learning, positive comments when what he did was correct, and suggestions on what to do when it was not quite right. He found that he wasn't really conscious of what he was learning; he just did the work. Gradually he realized this class was interesting. It was hard, but he learned to do the drawings. Soon he began to do them really well. Roberto, for the first time, was learning a skill.

Roberto was lucky. He was lucky for two reasons. First, he was attending one of the few remaining high schools in California that has an industrial arts program; and second, he would be able to make a connection between his skill training and the academic classes he needed to graduate.

California lost 75% of its high school industrial arts programs and nearly 90% of its junior high exploratory industrial arts programs between 1950 and 2004. Today the state needs 1,500 industrial arts teachers, but only three California State University campuses offer a teaching credential in industrial arts.

We use the term industrial arts in this article because that is really what the subject comprises. Although many educators now call it industrial technology, the art is still there, and we need to keep it there. You can have self-taught "shade tree welders" in any garage, but it takes a welding artist to do the job correctly.

The University of California and California State University systems prescribe courses students must take successfully to qualify for admission. These are called the "A to G" requirements. No "skill training" class meets the A to G college entrance requirements. However, among the students in California's 2004 high school …