A Shop Teacher’s Tools for Success
It is Wednesday morning in Don Runyan’s drafting class at Cleveland High School in Reseda. Leaning against a drawing table, he scans the faces of his students as they set to work with triangles, rulers and freshly sharpened pencils.
He is searching for knitted brows, frowns and other signs of vexation.
A tall, thin man with a goatee and flecks of gray in his hair, Runyan exudes poise, intelligence and quiet strength as he starts making the rounds, providing each of his 30 students with private academic guidance, encouragement and philosophy.
In a firm but friendly whisper, one student is advised not to rely only on marker pens in his car designs. Another is led through the process of adding 1/2 and 3/8. A third is coached through a complex isometric drawing. All of them receive gentle reminders of the importance of gracious deportment and productive conduct.
Through it all, no one is scolded or graded by the soft-spoken teacher, who places greater value on a completed, tangible project than on straight A’s.
“With a project, you plan and complete, polish and then step back and admire,” he said. “You’re on a natural high that can’t be achieved in any other way in this world. Then it’s off to the next project, and the next. Projects keep you young, active and energized.”
At a time when more and more schools are eliminating their auto shop, metalworking, woodworking, printing and drafting classes to make room for college-prep courses, some might find Runyan’s blend of shop skills and ethics to be old-fashioned.
But Runyan believes the skills he teaches are the perfect complement to push-button society.
“I don’t believe we should be teaching simply for the establishment of life-long careers--no way,” he said. “I think we ought to teach to help create more well-rounded, educated human beings who understand tolerance in terms of accuracy, process in terms of planning and ecology in terms of materials, and quality in life and work.”
The fact that Runyan routinely strays from curriculum, is often assisted by wife RaJeanna--an interior decorator--and rarely addresses his entire class are only a few of the features that set his course apart from others.
Runyan, an award-winning 28-year instructor and motivational speaker who travels across the state trying to persuade teachers to stay in the industrial arts field, couches his lessons in philosophical discourses on the value of self-discipline, hard work, moral responsibility, honesty and, above all, quality in efforts large and small.
The instructor, renowned for shepherding dazzling class projects ranging from hot rod shows to home designs, bristles when anyone refers to his profession as “industrial technology” or “vocational education.”
“I prefer the term ‘shop,’ ” he said. “The word ‘technology’ gets confused with computers. But if you look it up in Webster’s dictionary, the word ‘technology’ is not linked to computers at all. Gee, back in the Stone Age, technology meant knocking two stones together.”
Runyan, who with his brother, Oxnard teacher Dave Runyan, designs do-it-yourself projects for a syndicated column, is anything but anti-computer.But he is firm in his conviction that students should first learn to use their brains, senses, hands and tools on a drafting board before applying their lessons on a computer.
“Once students learn to measure and visualize on a drafting board, I take them over to a computer with the most sophisticated programs available--but not before,” he said. “Without a background in the hands-on meaning of craftsmanship, little satisfaction can be gained by merely pushing a button. Students understand that when they push a button, someone else has done all the work for them.”
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In Runyan’s class, for instance, the first day begins with a lesson on the importance and effectiveness of introducing oneself to strangers by looking them in the eye and giving them a firm handshake. Then the talk turns to an explanation of why “work is good” and why old, handcrafted pieces of furniture--and the elderly--should be treasured and not tossed into trash cans or rest homes.
What’s all that got to do with drafting?
Everything, according to his students, who are enthralled by Runyan’s emphasis on how many of the same principles that can bring math to life in a drafting project--observation, concentration and attention to detail--also can be used to improve daily life.
“Mr. Runyan expects more from us than simply to learn a specific subject; he wants personal growth through quality,” said Olivia Odom, 16. “So we learn how to draw, write and speak clearly, honestly and comfortably. I like that.”
Inspecting the inch-square plastic windows of his scale-model home complete with a shingled roof, electrical outlets in its cardboard walls and a mosaic swimming pool--filled with water--special education student Darryl Hicks, 18, said, “Mr. Runyan taught me that we are all designers, and how to be comfortable with myself; to look someone else in the eye and shake their hand.”
“We used to joke that someone could leave hundred-dollar bills around in this class and nobody would notice because they’d be too involved in their work,” he added. “Well, we recently tested that theory by leaving a $20 bill on the floor. Guess what? Students just walked by, picked it up, tossed it on a desktop and went about their business.”
Bill Gray, who runs the Center for Technology Education at Cal State L.A., is another fan of the teacher he regards as “a traditional type out there promoting the idea that if a person learns to create a piece of furniture, or an architectural drawing, the spirit of craftsmanship is the same and will carry over to every other field one can enter in life.”
Applying finishing strokes of blue shading to a drawing of a futuristic automobile design he hoped to enter into a competition sponsored by Chrysler, high school senior Solomon Augusteyn said, “Mr. Runyan is preparing us for the future by teaching us to improve our craft and our life a little bit every day.”
“Sometimes,” he added with a sheepish grin, “I ditch other classes to attend Mr. Runyan’s.”
