North Pines/Bowdish Blended Class Really Knows How To Talk Shop
The shop at North Pines Junior High is a cavernous area.
Large enough for roughly 45 students learning how to use 30-odd power tools of various sizes and complexity.
The extra-large class is actually a smorgasbord of students. There are seventh-, eighth- and ninth-graders from North Pines and its guest school, Bowdish Junior High. Adding to the mix, the kids are first-, second- and third-year shop students.
Sound confusing?
Not to shop teachers Larry Sturman of Bowdish and John Erickson of North Pines. They’ve worked together all year, while Bowdish has undergone major renovation.
“Hey! Listen up, North Pines!” Sturman gets his kids’ attention for a few minutes worth of announcements at the start of class.
Then Erickson talks to his students. Then, they each go to work. Projects range from metal castings of initials, to twirly-gigs, to simple metal tool boxes. The point, says Sturman, is not the project itself, but the student’s ability to use the tools safely.
“We don’t have enough equipment for all the kids to work on, so some of the time they have to wait around when they want to be tested. But overall, it’s worked fine,” Sturman says. There are wood-working tools, metal working tools and other equipment, sometimes as simple as a kitchen stove.
Given the circumstances, students have to work independently.
North Pines eighth-grader Becca Dahlke is hustling her way through the final stages of building a hose hanger.
North Pines ninth-grader Ryan Branting shows off his delicate memory cube - a plexiglass cube with a dyed internal carving of flowers.
Bowdish eighth-grader Rachael Dixson tells Sturman she can’t start on a new project, because she won’t have time to finish it by the end of this week, when the machines will be shut down.
Sturman and Erickson agree: some are self-starters, some are anything but. The class even includes special ed kids who, Sturman says, wouldn’t all get through the class without the help of the more experienced students.
Students must learn how to safely operate different pieces of equipment, what the parts are called and then create a project that demonstrates they can use the tools.
Erickson is working with a boy who says he’s ready to be tested on the parts of one piece of equipment.
“What’s this?” Erickson asks.
“The lid?” the student replies.
“Do you have a study guide for this?” Erickson asks, smiling.
One more time, he asks for the correct name of a part. No luck.
“C’mon. I’ll get you a sheet” with the names, he tells the student.
Students in these shop classes are required to keep notebooks, showing they’ve kept track of their projects, which tools they’ve mastered. In short, showing how they’ve spent their time.
If they haven’t passed tests of their knowledge on five pieces of equipment in one quarter, they don’t pass the class.
The students clearly have no problem with the unusual class set up. As North Pines ninth-grader Joe Eldridge said, “I’m friends with half the kids at Bowdish, anyway.”
Erickson may have put his finger on the only weak spot in the whole arrangement, and that’s next year: “It’s going to be real lonely in here, actually, with (Sturman) gone.”
EV junior exploring medicine
East Valley High School junior Ryan Schmitt is planning to spend 11 days at the National Youth Leadership Forum on Medicine in Washington, D.C., later this month.
Schmitt was selected through his his academic record and interest in medicine.
Students in the forum will visit Georgetown University School of Medicine, the National Library of Medicine and the National Rehabilitation Hospital, among other establishments.
The National Youth Leadership Forum is a non-profit organization that sponsors highly specialized, career-oriented programs for selected students.
Winning letter writer
Matt Denison, a North Pines Junior High seventh-grader, has been named a district winner in a teen letter-writing contest sponsored by the Lutheran Brotherhood.
Denison wrote a letter to U.S. Rep. George Nethercutt on issues of railroad safety.