When the Settlement was founded, woodshop was part of our core curriculum because it provided an opportunity to teach important life skills. Being able to take care of a home was especially important in rural areas like Hindman, and our classes taught tool safety, self-confidence and problem solving skills. 

Today’s public schools are much more focused on academics than in the past, and instruction in metal and wood working was one of the first areas to be cut when addressing funding shortages. As part of our commitment to address unmet needs, we believe woodshop classes allow a student to apply their classroom learning in an engaging, hands-on setting. When a student in the woodshop creates a design, measures a piece of wood, or lays out a project using addition, division, and  fractions, it reinforces what they already learned in the classroom. Woodshop can also serve to expose students to potential career paths in fields like engineering, carpentry, manufacturing or construction.