SOME WEEKEND IN LATE OCTOBER WOOD SHOP, CCA SAN FRANCISCO CAMPUS

After having been a shop monitor for two solid months, I must say that the way the shops work isn’t very efficient. The floor plan of the school forces anybody with large objects to use the elevator, which is on the other side of the building. Weekly dumpster rounds are forced to go by several classrooms both up and downstairs, disrupting lectures with an incessant booming noise.

I learned that large objects (like large machinery) are actually hoisted up through a removable panel on the front facade of the school located in the Graphic Design section of the second floor. I also learned that there is an architectural dead zone right in front of Timken hall; this is where a freight elevator used to be back when the school was a Greyhound bus shed. The managers of the studio lamented that putting the elevator back into service would have cost a large amount of money, so it sits where is lays, behind sheetrock and paint. Oh how I wish that we can get that elevator running.

How might we get our enormous dumpsters out without having to traverse the entire floor plan of the school? could it be possible to even make the act quieter?

The students are not properly trained to work in the shops here. I understand that orienting hundreds of students is hard, but the amount of dangerous activity I see is inexcusable.

How might we train the students better on proper shop etiquette? I see that most dangerous behavior comes from rushing work.

I remember one weekend where I stayed overnight. There were several architecture students in the wood shop. When I confronted them about how they had to clean up and leave before the boat building class arrived, I was a bit shocked and insulted to hear one of the students call me a hateful person for supervising their procrastination.

How might we teach students to have better control over their schedules? How can us monitors “teach” students that their behavior is dangerous and damaging tools without babysitting them?