The floorboards in my car are rusting and rotting out and I haven’t the faintest clue how to fix them. Yet I can design a society from the ground up and discuss G.W.F. Hegel, economic coercion, and New Jersey education policy. The only time I’ve ever built a birdhouse I fit the pieces together so poorly I had to use caulking to make it water-proof-ish. My latest endeavor, a shelf for my desk, consisted of my sawing and then screwing three pieces of wood together. Please hold your applause until the end: I still cracked two of the pieces. I’ve replaced the headlights on my car a few times but that’s about it. This is the sad extent of my woodworking and mechanical skills. Yet I will soon be venturing out into a world dominated by cars, sinks, and doors that are all liable to break.
College isn’t practical enough. We need a shop class.
What I mean by shop class is a hands-on explanation of the various tools and methods required to maintain the physical objects that we rely upon yet don’t notice until they stop working. Who thinks about a sink until it leaks? These classes would provide a basic grounding in car mechanics, plumbing, and carpentry. We don’t need to learn how to replace an engine or renovate an entire kitchen, but some basic knowledge about different tools would come in handy. Which jobs require a hacksaw and which a back saw?
When is the next time Peter Thiel (co-founder of PayPal) or some other rich libertarian is going to draft me to help create the latest free city? Probably never. When is the next time something is going to go wrong with my car? Probably tomorrow.
There are two reasons to have shop class: usefulness to life in general and satisfaction. Even the most liberal-artsy among us will still acknowledge that we’re going to college for at least one other reason than simply to go to college. It might be to obtain a key to the ivory tower or a ticket to a high-paying financial job. But we also take classes for pure pleasure that don’t help us to achieve our goals directly, like a beer seminar, social dance, or basic shotgun.
Shop class fulfills both of these qualifications. It should fulfill the core’s physical education requirement so as to not further burden students with an even larger core curriculum.
Career Services recently held the “Life After Hillsdale Explained” seminar for seniors and juniors on the more basic things of life. One of these workshops was on basic car maintenance. I’m thankful to the staff of Career Services for hosting this event. They’ve realized something about graduating seniors: We’re not ready for the real world. But this weekend seminar didn’t go far enough.
Maybe I’m just a tired old senior who’s ready to move on. But I’m not, really. I still enjoy my classes — even the one on Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche. I’m simply weary of consumption. College is geared for the student to consume as much as possible. Even the things we do produce, such as papers and tests, are usually only read by one person before they disappear into the annals of forgotten undergraduate effort. Sure, you can hold an essay in your hand with the satisfaction of accomplishment. You can even pass it around to your friends or get it published in the Collegian. This is all well and good. But it pales in comparison to the delight of physical creation. A shop class would give us an outlet for this sort of endeavor.
Now turn off your computer and go build something.