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While many high school engineering students build grass karts or mini bikes the Year 10, Level 1 Engineering students at Sancta Maria Collegein Howick, Auckland spent the year designing and building crucifixes.
Under the expert tutelage of technology teacher John Luzac the students follow the Tools4Work unit standards and assessments in Level 1 Engineering.
The choice of material used to construct the crucifix is left up to each student with some using wood, steel, metal, tin and bronze. By the time they complete their projects the students have covered all occupational safety and health units and are competent in using lathes, engineering workshop tools and fixed machine tools.
Of the students in this year's Y10 class four were girls who says John, ‘seem to produce the best work.'
As a former fitter and turner with the New Zealand Army, John was instrumental in developing the Howick Campus when it opened six years ago. He introduced crucifixes to the curriculum two years ago and says each new year's technology students look forward to the course.
Outside of his teaching hours at Sancta Maria College he keeps his hand in the engineering sector by working part time for CYPS teaching youth in prisons two nights a week; he teaches outdoor sculpture and welding at night classes at two local high schools, and on weekends he does maintenance work at the Tegel factory in Takanini.
He says he still has the same passion towards engineering now, as he did when he first started work, and this comes through in his teaching style and commitment to his students, despite teaching in cramped classroom conditions, a small workshop and limited equipment.
To celebrate the successful completion of each student's work, the crucifixes and their creator are blessed in the school's chapel.
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Technology students' work receives blessing
