Girls-only construction class big hit at Woodbridge's Emily Carr Secondary School
Yorkregion.com
May 11, 2016
By Adam Martin-Robbins
Bianca Forgione is open to the idea of following in her father’s footsteps and working in the construction industry some day.
“It’s definitely an option,” the 15-year-old Emily Carr Secondary School student said. “We’re still young, so we’re still thinking about what we want to do and how it coincides with our courses, but I think it’s definitely an option.”
Even if she doesn’t wind up doing what her dad does for a living, Forgione’s a lot more comfortable bashing nails into two-by-fours with a claw hammer or slicing cross cuts into them with a mitre saw than she was just a few months ago.
The same goes for many of the 21 other students she works alongside in the girls-only construction technology class offered at the Woodbridge high school.
Teacher Danny Paolino started the course in response to a scenario he’s seen play out year after year during his two decades teaching shop classes at high schools in Toronto and York Region.
“We always had one or two girls come into the class to take the course, but they always felt intimidated because they were just one or two girls and it’s all boys,” Paolino explained.
“Typically, when the course would start, the first thing I’d get from them is, ‘Sir, I think I want to drop the course. I don’t want to be here; it’s all boys.’”
So, a couple of years ago, he floated the idea of launching a girls-only construction technology class to his department head and principal.
After hammering out the details, the course - which teaches students the basics of woodworking, electrical and plumbing - got rolling in February.
The response has been incredible, Paolino said.
“My principal says, ‘You know what? Even if we only get five girls, we’ll get the class going.’ Not only did we get a full class of girls; there’s a waiting list,” he said. “We thought we’d get a good number of girls. I didn’t think it would be as popular as it is.
“Especially now, thinking that there might possibly be two classes next year is amazing.”
For their first project, students built a relatively simple wooden birdhouse.
“It was a hand-tools-based project. I kind of wanted them to get their hands wet working with hammers, nails, doing cutting with a handsaw,” Paolino said.
Next, they created custom-designed and decorated cutting boards as a way to introduce them to using power tools such as table and mitre saws, thickness planers and jointers.
Following that, the girls are slated to gain experience with electrical wiring - making connections to switches, plugs and lights - and the basics of plumbing.
Then, for their final project, the students will be tasked with making a piece of furniture.
“It’s been amazing; they absolutely love it,” Paolino said. “For the most part, I find that the girls pay much more attention to detail. Some of the work they do is just outstanding. They really take pride in what they do, whereas sometimes, I find, the boys just want to get it done as quickly as possible; it’s more about just trying to finish it. We do have boys that are into detail and do a good job, but overall I find the girls do that a whole lot better.”
The course at Emily Carr is currently the only one of its kind in York Region, according to officials at both the public and Catholic school boards, but a similar program is slated to get underway in the fall at St. Joan of Arc Catholic High School in Maple.
A handful of other school boards offer girls-only programs to entice female students to consider careers in the skilled trades.
For instance, St. Thomas Aquinas Secondary School in Brampton, part of the Dufferin-Peel District Catholic School Board, has offered an all-girls auto mechanics class for the past three years.
Lakeshore Collegiate Institute, in the Toronto public board, started a group called the “Woodchicks” three years ago.
The group, which fluctuates in size between six and 14 girls, meets weekly at lunch to work on a variety of projects.
Francesca Del Duca is certainly pleased that such a program exists at Emily Carr.
In Grade 9, she took an exploring technology course, which included a session in the shop class - making nameplates and CO2 cars - and really enjoyed it.
When she entered Grade 10 this year, Del Duca signed up for the traditional co-ed construction class, but she was a bit nervous at the prospect of being one of just a few girls in a workshop full of boys.
After hearing Paolino was starting a girls-only option this semester, she quickly dropped the co-ed class and enrolled in his course.
She’s happy about the decision and says her parents are pleased too.
“(We're learning) basic skills you can do at home,” said the 16-year-old Grade 10 student.
Del Duca’s classmate Emily Faria found herself in the same situation, even though her mother has her own toolbox and does much of the handiwork around the house herself.
“I was going to take the normal construction class, then I realized there was a girls’ one ... It’s a lot better,” Faria said, admitting it would have been intimidating to be in a male-dominated class.
Faria is thinking about using what she’s learned to try to earn a bit of money.
“I have thought about doing a part-time kind of thing where I work at homes,” she said. “I could do something with it, but even just basic life skills, it’s good to have.”
If she or her classmates decide to pursue a career in the skilled trades, they’d still be among the minority.
Though women make up 47 per cent of the overall labour force, less than 12 per cent of construction workers are female and just 5 per cent of all skilled trades jobs are held by women, according to figures from Status of Women Canada.
Paolino hopes his class will help alter that by inspiring his students and shop teachers at other schools.
“The biggest part of this whole thing is opening the doors to careers possibly in the trades for some of these girls because, unless they’re exposed to it, they really don’t know what’s out there,” said Paolino, who has a daughter of his own. “There’s always this push to get girls into the trades, but nobody really ever does anything about it.”
John Meinen, president of the Ontario Homebuilders’ Association (OHBA), applauds programs like Paolino’s, but he, too, feels more needs to be done to address the shortage of skilled tradespeople in Canada.
“Obviously, we're running short on people who want to do this type of work,” he said. “We can't afford to restrict our search for skilled people for the skilled trades to half the population. That's why I think it's so great that women are getting into it ... and I love seeing it.”
Meinen says there are a couple of things that can be done to help boost the number of Canadians working in the skilled trades.
“We understand, at the OHBA, that the leaders of tomorrow have to be mentored today and, I think, we have to get in even earlier. We have to get into the grade sixes and sevens,” he said.
There also needs to be a shift in the attitude many parents hold toward the trades, he said.
