Schools Should Bring Back Home Ec, Woodshop And The Class Where You Sit Alone In the Gym With the Lights Out

Dear Milton County Schoolboard,

I went to middle school in the 90s. Since then, things have changed for the better -- we've added diversity and removed offensive materials. And yet some things that we removed were actually good. That's why I'm asking the school board to reinstate Home Ec, Woodshop and that class where you'd sit by yourself in the gym for a couple hours in the dark. 

These classes weren't perfect. I know some people called Home Ec "sexist". And I remember personally wondering at first if the time I spent alone in the darkened gym could be not a class at all, but some kind of misunderstanding of how the schedule worked. But my schedule said "SOCIOLOGY(MS)" -- obviously a misprint of "Solo Gyms" -- and the gym was unlocked and empty, so I knew I was in the right place. 

And over the years I realized something: these classes helped make me who I am today. 

Looking back now, I see that sitting by myself in an unlit gym – especially the old, closed down gym that had been replaced -- did something interesting: it gave me time to THINK. And that time allowed big ideas to come into my head. Thoughts like “War is bad”, and "Is it possible I made a mistake here?", and "Nah, I'm definitely supposed to be in this old gym that's had the bleachers and decorations taken out.” 

See, Solo Gyms was meditation. It was where I got time to process all the craziness of youth. Gossip, crushes, a cruel "sociology (middle school)" teacher who gave me an "incomplete" for a class I never even attended -- you know, teenager stuff. 

Did everyone like Solo Gyms? Hard to say; there was a code of silence around it. I remember the first time I asked my classmate Jason, "What time of day do they have you sit alone in the old gym?" 

"What the hell are you talking about?" Jason responded, in a tone that said "We don't discuss it but we all do the exact same thing." 

“Never mind,” I said, with a wry smile. 

“No seriously, what were you talking about?” this other guy Peter said. 

“Just a joke,” I responded, smiling at the wisdom of not talking about how we all sit in an unused gym for longer and longer parts of the day and it's starting to make us miss math and other classes. 

But now in 2023, Solo Gyms is gone from the class schedule. In fact, all mention of Solo Gyms has been erased from school records! Almost as if this school board wants to pretend it never existed. 

I guess it's gone out of fashion. Today's helicopter parents don't let their kids go unsupervised for five minutes, let alone four hours in an old gymnasium with roof problems and signs about radon.

But there's more to high school than mastering triggernometry. And Solo Gyms taught me lessons you don't get in a traditional classroom. The value of listening. The value of silence. The value of scurrying into the equipment closet when the worker guys come in to talk about their big construction project and whether they should delay it 'cause Ralph thinks we got a stowaway in this old gym.

And ladies and gentlemen of the school board, those are lessons I still use today in my successful career as a part-time cat sitter. 

That’s the real point here: my generation had Solo Gyms and we all made it out of high school okay. And whether you graduated sumo cum loudly or graduated as part of an agreement to "waive the district's liability for injuries suffered during a gym demolition", we all got a diploma. 

And I'll remind this school board what my diploma says: "Graduare In Absentia," which is Latin-misprint for "You don't need to be invited to go to college, just come to campus, find the old vacated dorm, and start trying door knobs." 

Thank you.

PS Also I think you should bring back Home Ec because my clothes have lots of holes in them.