Antioch High wood shop students put theory into practice with guard shack

Press Release
January 29, 2015
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ANTIOCH — Driving a nail in straight isn’t necessarily a no-brainer.

“Oooh!” a student in Kevin Jones’ wood shop class said teasingly as he watched a classmate bend the nail he was hammering into a two-by-four.

And so it goes as some five dozen Antioch High School seniors plug away at a couple of guard shacks they’re building.

They’re currently framing the walls of the 6-by-8-foot structures that will shelter some of the six employees who have been keeping watch at campus entrances while sitting in their vehicles or on a stool.

The idea for the practicum came up late last year when Jones noticed that guards had nowhere to go when it rained.

“I thought, ‘Hey this is a project that the kids can do,’ ” Jones said.

Although a handful of students have at least a nodding acquaintance with tools because their parents work in construction, “I have a whole preponderance of kids from families where tools aren’t something used every day by every person in the house,” he said, noting that the result is a lack of hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills that can make doing something like nailing tough.

As students embarked on the undertaking, Jones had them think about where the studs should go while sketching a layout of the wall framing and calculate the minimum amount of materials needed in the interest of saving money and trees.

After conferring with the security guards about what they’d like to see in a shack, students considered styles of roofs that are best able to direct rain away from the entrance and passersby as well as furnishing the interiors with desks and shelves.

They also had to decide where to place windows for the most expansive view and what type of floor covering would be the most practical.

Translating visions from paper to three dimensions has been another matter, however.

Some teens have used electric drills, and previous classes have been fascinated by the curly shavings that hand planes produce and enjoyed holding scrap wood against spinning cylindrical drums covered with sandpaper to fashion Star Wars-like lightsabers.

But despite Jones’ attempts to introduce this year’s kids to the miter saw, most have been happy to let him wield the blade.

“They said, ‘No, that looks too dangerous,’ ” he laughed, adding that one of his female students insists on pulling her sleeves over her hands when handling planks for fear of getting splinters.

The project came as a pleasant surprise for Paul Jett, one of the site safety assistants who monitors the vehicles and foot traffic coming onto campus from 17th Street.

He currently works from his car, which necessitates rolling up the windows and keeping the engine running to stay warm.

Jett says he’ll have to run an extension cord from a classroom to use a space heater in his new digs, but notes that they’ll offer a personal benefit.

“I’ll be saving on gas because that comes out of my pocket,” Jett said.

Reach Rowena Coetsee at 925-779-7141. Follow her at Twitter.com/RowenaCoetsee

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