They told me the woodshop was an antique. A fossil. Then I watched a kid with a massive digital footprint and zero real-world connections break down over a slab of unfinished walnut.
That was the same week the Board of Education decided to scrap my program.
"Mr. Henderson," the Superintendent said, tapping his tablet. "We’re transitioning. The future belongs to the cloud, not the workshop. We need the square footage for a new VR Coding Suite."
I didn’t fight him. You can’t argue with "progress." I just looked at my table saws and lathes, thick with thirty years of memories, and felt like a relic before I’d even turned in my keys.
My name is Thomas. I’ve spent my life teaching Industrial Arts in a town where the blue-collar heartbeat stopped decades ago. For my final semester, my class was treated like a holding pen—a place for the "difficult" kids, the ones who didn't fit the data points of a standardized test.
Then there was Mason.
He was 17. Hoodie up, chin tucked into his chest. He didn't cause trouble; ...