Sawdust mists the air, machines buzz , and students assemble wood joints; it’s another day in the workshop.  It is apparent that teenagers at Hall love manufacturing and woodworking. Some say it’s one of their favorite classes.

Manufacturing and woodworking is a class that focuses on the development of life skills at Hall High school. The class is taught three times a day by the one and only Scott Sampietro, or Mr. S for short, in room F103. Woodshop is available to all grade levels and students. The class allows students to build and design projects that they make with their own hands. When you finish the class after one full year, you’re given the option to take it again with more focus on more advanced skills.

Shop class is a great opportunity at school; it gives the students the ability to display their independence and creativity. The projects focuses on the craftsmanship and allow the students to emphasize the quality of work on their projects.  When you’re making something in shop class, whether its a cutting board or even a small table, you can take it home to give to your family.

When interviewed about the class, Junior Gabe Salomons said, “Woodshop is one of the most underrated classes in the school.  It gave me a newfound understanding of power tools that I was previously unaware of.”

Mr. S said what he enjoyed most was accepting teens into his workshop.  “I think it’s a great chance for people to step away from their cell phones and really try to reconnect with their hands, it teaches them how to get attention to detail in life.”

When asked about what students can learn from taking the class, he said, “It teaches skills beyond working with your hands; there’s problem solving involved and there is an amount of grit that you need to keep sticking with something, even if you get something wrong.  Even if you get it wrong twice, it’s fun and neat to be able to take something that, by itself, not particularly usable and it’s great to be able to reshape it into something that’s useful.”

A New York Times article said, “Learning how to swing a hammer and use a drill should be vital life skills.”   Woodshop is one of the few electives that allows students to directly tie their math skills to a class and solve a real life problem, and this scares some kids away.  Junior Danny Hertz said, “I was apprehensive going into the class due to my lack of understanding of how to use tools but by the end of the school year I was able to gain a sort of independence using the machines in the room. Mr. S showed a lot of patience during his demonstrations that he does before using new equipment.”

With all it can accomplish, it’s no wonder the class is growing in popularity.  Junior Christopher Cho hoped he “can enroll into Woodshop next year and take it in my senior year. I hear so much great things about it and want to have some of these experiences of my own.”   

Cho might be in luck because Woodshop is growing from only having two periods to now there are now three periods a day with both Woodshop I and II students in each class. However, Mr.S is still hoping for new students to take the class:  “I wish more students would give it more of a try and get more into it .I think the room is a little more intimidating than it sounds, and I think people would enjoy the sort of change of place from their other classes.”