In the summers after 4th, 5th, and 6th grade my brother and I attended a “summer school for smart kids.” We would board the bus every day with the “remedial” summer school kids and head off to school. It was a half day program in which we took two 90 minute classes. For one (or both?) of these classes we took an architectural drafting class.

The high school drafting teacher would bring his supplies to the elementary school and teach us drafting. His name was Mr. Knox. This was the first time I remember being treated like an adult by a teacher. We had absolute freedom. Granted most of us wanted to sit at our table and draw all day, so I’m sure the teacher had a pretty easy time of it.

We started off drawing blocks to learn about perspective and about good drafting technique. We then moved on to floor plan and elevation drawings. We were given some “template” floor plans to work from and could add our additions. He would walk us through the steps and then come and critique our work, pointing out mistakes and areas for improvement. Eventually we were drawing all on our own, designing our own houses.

Needless to say, I was pretty bored when in high school I took a similar course (sadly not with Mr. Knox) and had an apathetic teacher and apathetic classmates. Drafting in high school was a “filler” class more akin to shop or “keyboarding”. Anyways, by age 12 I had my fill of being an architect and was ready to try other things.