What is the purpose of a college-prep school teaching someone how to join and finish a piece of wood, sew a zipper, code a processor, or weld a metal joint? What relevance does hands-on work play in a world that seeks efficiency through data, machine learning, and automation? Do experiential projects help support emotional balance and mental wellbeing? Shouldn't a shop space and its instructors work daily to break damaging stereotypes around who is comfortable and who is thriving while learning tools and processes? Shouldn't technical skills be co-equal, at least, with being a good collaborator and self-aware person? These are a few questions that guide our work in the Technical Arts department.

Lick-Wilmerding Technical Arts is more than the "hands" part of the school. Our courses in Jewelry, Code, Wood, Sewing, Metal, Digital Fabrication, and Electronics are a place to skill up and connect with your and your peers' humanity. It's a place to learn about designing, prototyping, and building things together that bring joy, confidence, and meaning. Regardless of future study or career, Technical Arts classes teach students about project management, working in teams across differences, persistence in the face of challenge, being resourceful, object and experience design, and craftspersonship. Our classes emphasize hard and soft skills and help form whole and flexible young adults, of all identifiers, for a changing world.

Graduation from Lick-Wilmerding requires all students to take a minimum of four semesters in Technical Arts. In addition to Design & Technology in ninth grade, students must choose two other semester-long courses that meet in the various shops—Computing, Wearables (Jewelry and Sewing), Wood, Metal, Digital Fabrication, and Electronics. One of the two additional required Technical Arts classes must be from the "Design & Craft" category, while the other must be from the "Design & Engineering" category.