To confirm the success achieved by the Advanced Woodworking class at the Schuylkill Valley High School, Superintendent Dr. Warren F. Mata included a recognition video about the students and their projects at the June Board of Directors meeting.
As Mata stated at the meeting in regard to the high quality of the crafts created by the high school woodworkers, “this is really applied academics.”
Technology Education teacher of almost seven years, Gary Auker of Denver, Lancaster County, teaches with Department Chairperson Ben Bucks, an educator at Schuylkill Valley for almost 40 years. Auker stated about Bucks that “he taught me everything I know.”
Auker expanded upon Mata’s premise that the incredible results produced from the Woodworking class are part of a much bigger picture of the lessons learned in the Schuylkill Valley Technology Education classes.
The first class available to students through Technology Education is the Materials Class where the focus is on safety and learning the materials and processes used in building a project. To be successful, students must follow directions, work with deadlines, and enhance their problem-solving skills.
With safety as a prerequisite, the next class offered in the sequence is Manufacturing. Each Manufacturing class has the goal of choosing a marketable project for which orders are taken and assembly line production is required. As in any business, participants have to learn to work as a team, do professional presentations to the class, and become more knowledgeable about sales, marketing, and money management, in addition to increasing their skill level in the shop.
Both juniors and seniors who have satisfied the prerequisites are offered the Advanced Woodworking class. Not only are advanced woodworking skills necessary, but also the ability to come up with ideas and plans to create a complex woodworking project. Auker confirmed that the seniors of the Class of 2015 included some of the best woodworkers so far, accomplishing unprecedented levels of expertise as displayed in building a pool table which Auker described as “one of the most difficult projects”, a walnut ping pong table, and a desk with a floating top.
Not only do the experiences with which Technology Education students are provided help them to learn how to work effectively in a wood shop and possibly have a better idea how to run a small business, but these high school lessons have helped to direct young people toward their career and life aspirations.
As Gauker described about his own life, engineering was the goal he had worked toward through high school, but eventually “realized I couldn’t sit at a desk for the rest of my life.” Those insights steered him toward his Technology Education major at Millersville University.
Similar to Gauker, some of his students have identified their futures due to Technology Education. Out of his graduating senior Advanced Woodworking class, one student plans to major in Occupational Safety and Health, which Gauker pointed out is one of the many ways to use technology in a hands-on manner. Other technical choices by the seniors were mechanical engineering, working on a nuclear submarine, and air traffic control.
Gauker summarized that there are many industries with career options that would not require an engineering degree, yet use the skills developed through Technology Education programs like the one at Schuylkill Valley High School.
He confirmed that Schuylkill Valley’s is a “very good department” and that everyone is “really fortunate to have the facilities” available in the district. Gauker and his department continue to provide students with life lessons that allow them to succeed in both woodworking and beyond.
