It used to be that high school shop classes were an unspoken guys-only zone but a new class at Riverside secondary is giving girls a more welcoming chance to look under the hood.
Shop teacher Jordan Wycherley has been at the Port Coquitlam school for two years and quickly noticed his auto mechanic classes were stacked with male students plus, at best, a couple of female students.
He suggested a different strategy and posted the Women's Auto class at the start of the year - and it quickly filled up.
"I had talked to a lot of girls who said they wanted to do it but they felt intimidated," Wycherley told The Tri-City News. "They wanted to learn basic car maintenance, be able to take their car into a shop and know what they're talking about and feel safe driving on their own - and if something happens, how to fix their own car."
Two months into the new class, Wycherley said many of the Women's Auto students are asking for a senior automotive option in future years.
"They seem to be really enjoying it," he said.
Student Sam Hemphill wanted to know enough about cars "to not get screwed over when I go into a shop," she said while cleaning the grease off a differential.
And after being the only girl in her industrial design class three years ago, she jumped at the chance to get her hands dirty in mechanics without having the spotlight on her as a member of a female minority.
"For girls, it's intimidating to go into a shop class full of guys," said student Destiny Ryan, also scrubbing away on the differential. "You don't want to be judged if you don't know an answer or if you get something wrong."
A girl who joins a regular shop class of all, or nearly all, male students, is under tremendous pressure, Ryan added. "You're expected to be really smart at it or really stupid."
Wycherley said the students in Women's Auto have shown a keen interest in learning the material right from the start.
"They're eager to absorb the knowledge, they ask more questions," he said. "They want to know the why, not just the how."
One student has already put her newfound car repair know-how to work, fixing her mom's van and discovering a potentially dangerous problem in the process.
"We were driving and it started making a lot of noise, so I asked her if something was wrong with the oil and she said it was empty," said student Yara Amara. She then brought the van into the class and changed the oil, and during a routine check on the tires found one that was dangerously loose.
"Any time we were driving, the thing could have fallen off," Amara said, grinning proudly, and adding, "I like this class because it's one of the few classes at school where you get to use it in real life."
GOOD FOR WOOD
Riverside secondary's wood shop is set for materials for another three or four years thanks to a significant donation from Port Moody's Mill and Timber.
The sawmill donated six lifts of rough-cut cedar and Douglas fir to the school, with PoCo Building Supplies, another decades-old local business, stepping in to deliver the wood.
Teacher Jordan Wycherley said the wood will be used by the school's junior classes learning joinery and construction while senior classes will use it for furniture building and other projects.
"The budget doesn't really allow us to buy a lot of materials," Wycherley said, "so this donation means a huge amount."
