Preparing students for real world

Students get hands-on experience while sometimes helping the community.
WARREN -- At Harding High School, one new area of concentration is to teach students about the real world.
In the area of industrial education, or shop class, schools have always taught about using real world tools such as hammers and saws. But rarely was there an attempt to integrate academic classes such as math and science with shop classes until recent years, said Bill Mullane, Harding principal.
Today, shop classes are "geared much more toward academic core classes and not so much toward vocational classes," Mullane said. And they help students apply the information they learned in their core classes in practical areas.
For instance, students 10 years ago might have taken a course in Microsoft Word, a word processing program. Today, the student would learn the software but also be given an assignment to carry out, as if the student was an employee and the teacher was his client.
This approach gives students the kind of skills they can use in the business world, Mullane said. It also produces an interaction between the students and the community that is positive, he said.
In some cases, the students actually do work for people outside of the school and make products used in the community, such as architectural drawings or television programs aired on the school's television station.
Ninth grade
Harding offers technology classes starting in the ninth grade with the Industrial Tech Lab and Shop, a class that introduces students to the technology class offerings at Harding High and Trumbull Career and Technical Center, which students can attend during their junior and senior years.
The Industrial Tech Lab and Shop introduces students to digital photography, video production, computer aided design, aerodynamics, robotics and automation, basic electricity, construction technology and materials and processes. For the second part of the year, students use a wood and metal shop to work with tools.
Those who want to study technology at the high school can do so with elective courses in engineering, architectural drawing or computer graphics.
"Students are building skills that are required in the business and industrial fields," Mullane said.