BROWNSTOWN
As the six Brownstown Central High School students entered the industrial arts classroom, they were ready to work.
After grabbing C-clamps and saws, they went to their own tables to cut shelf brackets. Some were able to do it on their own, while others had assistance from industrial arts teacher Dan Schwartz, their teacher, Deb Schwartz, or one of her assistants, Jamie Durham, Sara Perry or Susan Poulton.
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Then they got pieces of wood they had previously cut and sanded the surfaces and edges. Dan told them to use all three types of sandpaper — coarse, medium and fine in that order.
“You want to make sure when you’re sanding, you want to sand with the grain,” he told the students.
The 30-minute session went by quickly, but the students worked the whole time. Two of them even helped sweep the floor before returning to their classroom.
Last week was the second week of visiting Dan’s classroom, and they will have a finished product in hand later this week. Then they can hang the shelf on a wall to display trophies, medals, books, CDs or other items.
“They just love the hands-on,” Deb said of the students in her applied skills class. “They get excited about it. They look forward to coming every day. They know they are going to have an end product. Look at them — they are just loving this.”
Dan said he can tell the students enjoy it, and Deb said it’s genuine excitement and pure joy.
“Watching them, you see the excitement on their face,” Dan said.
One reason the students are excited about the project at the start of the school year is they hadn’t been in school since mid-March because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Deb wanted to do the project now while school is back in session.
“(Dan) is taking his prep time, it’s an extra class for me, but the kids need this,” Deb said. “They went without for so long. I’m thinking of new ways and I’m teaching double what I normally do just because I don’t know is the end going to be tomorrow. My kids, they need the hands-on.”
Deb said in a previous school year, she took students to her husband’s classroom to show them tools and they got to use a hammer and a saw, but they never made a project.
This year, she felt it was the right time to do a project.
“We were afraid about the loud noises and the machines running, but since I have so much help … I have one-on-one help, I thought, ‘OK, this is something we can do,’” she said.
The idea to make a shelf came from one of her students, Dylan Bridges. Deb and Dan became his guardians in February 2019.
“He wanted a shelf for CDs and books. He wants a much bigger shelf, but I said, ‘Well, this will be a start. We can make a bigger one later,’” Deb said. “I asked Mr. Schwartz, ‘Can you come up with a project that everyone would enjoy making and something that they could use?’”
The first week, Dan showed the students around the classroom to get them acclimated with the equipment and tools. Then they were ready to learn how to nail and saw and use equipment to cut out pieces and put them together.
By the second week, they were cutting shelf brackets and sanding all of their wooden pieces.
This week, they will pick their own color of stain and add hooks.
By doing the project, the students not only will have a new shelf, but they also will have gained valuable skills and can make their own products at home or as a job.
“They learned how to use everyday tools, a hammer, nails, screws,” Deb said. “There are a lot of kids that if they didn’t take shop class, they don’t know how to sand, especially with the grain.”
Deb said in her classroom, she teaches applied math, applied reading, social skills and life skills, and the students enjoy hands-on work.
The shelf project allowed them to get out of their classroom and into another one to do something fun.
Junior Luke Byarlay said he liked learning how to use a saw and picking up a variety of other skills.
“It’s good to teach about life skills,” he said. “It can give you a job someday, too.”
He plans to use his shelf to display trophies and medals.
Every time he looks at it, he will remember the fun he had in Dan’s classroom with his classmates and teachers.
“It’s just spending time with people,” he said of what made the project fun.