The Girls’ Middle School Empowers Girls Through Industrial Arts

9/25/20—The Girls’ Middle School (GMS), located in the heart of Silicon Valley in Palo Alto, California, educates girls at a crucial time in life, from grade six through eight. Since 1998, GMS has been committed to nurturing curiosity and academic growth by providing progressive, engaging hands-on educational opportunities so girls “learn to be safe, handy, and hardy.” GMS’s innovative Industrial Arts curriculum empowers students well beyond the studio.

The art program at GMS creates a safe space for students to take physical and emotional risks by challenging students to be vulnerable and to express their ideas to classmates and their community. The curriculum emphasizes the importance of valuing the process, so the teaching team focuses most of their feedback on the student experience, not the end product. Assessment comes in the form of a conversation, not a grade, therefore students learn to value critique and grow from outside input.

The program includes woodworking, metalworking, and video production. The iterative process of wood and metalworking requires patience, recalculating, and exploring new ways to problem solve. Using the flames and power tools of metal and woodworking builds courage and resilience for students to overcome physical fear and the unknown. Video production requires a different kind of courage and vulnerability to put one’s ideas and passions out into the world to be viewed by all.

All the elements within the Industrial Arts curriculum work in tandem to give girls a safe space to take risks, explore, fail, learn, and try again.