The Shop Teacher’s Secret Sauce
From Big Giants to Better Math
By: Burt Savage
After thirty-seven years in the trenches of education, I’ve learned that the secret to a great classroom isn’t in the curriculum-it’s in the toolkit. In the shop, that toolkit had saws and squares; in the math, science and technology classroom, it had the calculator.
My journey began with seventeen years in the Industrial Arts Shop, surrounded by the smell of sawdust, the hum of machinery, and a pencil behind my ear. When I traded my shop for a fifth-grade classroom, I didn’t just bring a lesson plan; I brought a literal workbench. I spent the summer before my debut building my own classroom furniture because, frankly, if you want a job done right, you do it yourself.
That same summer, I made a discovery in the textbook graveyard (the stockroom) that would change everything: two dusty boxes of Roald Dahl’s The BFG. At the time, my principal was on a mission to stamp out bullying. After one look at the jacket, I realized that a “Big Friendly Giant” was exactly the ally I needed to talk about courage and intimidation.
Now, a ten-year-old can certainly read The BFG solo, but why let them have all the fun? The book is a theatrical goldmine, filled with a "gobblefunk" vocabulary so unique it has its own dictionary. It became our first read-aloud of the year. While the reading was a breeze, the math was… well, a bit of a "trogglehumper."
I started with the standard textbook, but the kids were tuned out. To a ten-year-old, concepts like prime factorization and "factor trees" feel about as relevant as tax law. Yet, these are the bridges to the big stuff-fractions, decimals, percent and the holy grail of middle school math: the Ratio.
I’ve always seen math as a way to build things. Back in my shop days, every eighth-grader wanted to weld a mini basketball hoop. I’d show them a sample hoop, 20cm in diameter, and ask: "How long a piece of steel do we need to cut to make this?"
They’d stare at the formula on the blackboard like it was written in ancient Greek. The lightbulbs only went on when we actually cut the steel. I realized my fifth graders were having that same "visualization gap." Ratios are tough; they require the brain to juggle division and estimation. To bridge that gap, I knew I needed to put a high-powered tool in their hands.
The breakthrough happened one September afternoon on page 40 of The BFG. I told the class to stop, reset the timer, and prepare for a twelve-minute "math-attack." I summoned three recruits to the blackboard.
"Chalk at the ready!" I commanded.
I had Student One draw a giant 'F' for Fractions. Student Two drew a decimal the size of an orange. Student Three drew a percentage sign. Then, I had every student reach into their desks and pull out their "power tool": the calculator if they had one.
For the next month, the orphan girl and the giant helped us build a bridge to math that actually made sense. We’d take numbers from the story-50, 72, 100, and the crucial 180-and put them through the "mill."
I taught them that the calculator wasn't a way to avoid thinking; it was a way to think deeper. We used them to factor numbers to their lowest common denominators and instantly see the relationship between a fraction, its decimal equivalent, and its percentage. By removing the "grunt work" of long division that usually kills a ten-year-old's interest, the calculator allowed them to see the patterns.
They stopped viewing math as a series of chores and started seeing it as a mechanical process. Through the lens of the calculator, they realized they weren't just pushing buttons; they were operating a precision instrument to solve problems. They learned that knowing how to use a tool to gain knowledge is a skill that serves you for life.
As a former shop teacher turned fifth/sixth-grade mentor, I can only make this recommendation: give them the tools. In my classroom, math wasn’t always easy, but with a good book in one hand and a calculator in the other, it was a lot of fun.
From Big Giants to Better Math
By: Burt Savage
After thirty-seven years in the trenches of education, I’ve learned that the secret to a great classroom isn’t in the curriculum-it’s in the toolkit. In the shop, that toolkit had saws and squares; in the math, science and technology classroom, it had the calculator.
My journey began with seventeen years in the Industrial Arts Shop, surrounded by the smell of sawdust, the hum of machinery, and a pencil behind my ear. When I traded my shop for a fifth-grade classroom, I didn’t just bring a lesson plan; I brought a literal workbench. I spent the summer before my debut building my own classroom furniture because, frankly, if you want a job done right, you do it yourself.
That same summer, I made a discovery in the textbook graveyard (the stockroom) that would change everything: two dusty boxes of Roald Dahl’s The BFG. At the time, my principal was on a mission to stamp out bullying. After one look at the jacket, I realized that a “Big Friendly Giant” was exactly the ally I needed to talk about courage and intimidation.
Now, a ten-year-old can certainly read The BFG solo, but why let them have all the fun? The book is a theatrical goldmine, filled with a "gobblefunk" vocabulary so unique it has its own dictionary. It became our first read-aloud of the year. While the reading was a breeze, the math was… well, a bit of a "trogglehumper."
I started with the standard textbook, but the kids were tuned out. To a ten-year-old, concepts like prime factorization and "factor trees" feel about as relevant as tax law. Yet, these are the bridges to the big stuff-fractions, decimals, percent and the holy grail of middle school math: the Ratio.
I’ve always seen math as a way to build things. Back in my shop days, every eighth-grader wanted to weld a mini basketball hoop. I’d show them a sample hoop, 20cm in diameter, and ask: "How long a piece of steel do we need to cut to make this?"
They’d stare at the formula on the blackboard like it was written in ancient Greek. The lightbulbs only went on when we actually cut the steel. I realized my fifth graders were having that same "visualization gap." Ratios are tough; they require the brain to juggle division and estimation. To bridge that gap, I knew I needed to put a high-powered tool in their hands.
The breakthrough happened one September afternoon on page 40 of The BFG. I told the class to stop, reset the timer, and prepare for a twelve-minute "math-attack." I summoned three recruits to the blackboard.
"Chalk at the ready!" I commanded.
I had Student One draw a giant 'F' for Fractions. Student Two drew a decimal the size of an orange. Student Three drew a percentage sign. Then, I had every student reach into their desks and pull out their "power tool": the calculator if they had one.
For the next month, the orphan girl and the giant helped us build a bridge to math that actually made sense. We’d take numbers from the story-50, 72, 100, and the crucial 180-and put them through the "mill."
I taught them that the calculator wasn't a way to avoid thinking; it was a way to think deeper. We used them to factor numbers to their lowest common denominators and instantly see the relationship between a fraction, its decimal equivalent, and its percentage. By removing the "grunt work" of long division that usually kills a ten-year-old's interest, the calculator allowed them to see the patterns.
They stopped viewing math as a series of chores and started seeing it as a mechanical process. Through the lens of the calculator, they realized they weren't just pushing buttons; they were operating a precision instrument to solve problems. They learned that knowing how to use a tool to gain knowledge is a skill that serves you for life.
As a former shop teacher turned fifth/sixth-grade mentor, I can only make this recommendation: give them the tools. In my classroom, math wasn’t always easy, but with a good book in one hand and a calculator in the other, it was a lot of fun.