Students rock their guitars, which they built in a woodworking class.
Maplewood resident Mike Schloff has a passion for helping young people realize their full potential.
To that end, nine years ago he founded Maplewoodshop, which empowers educators and students through hands-on woodworking programs, fostering life skills, creativity, and confidence.
It all began when he started volunteering at Maker Madness, an event to promote access to experience-based STEAM learning and career readiness for all
students at all grade levels.
At the time Schloff had a “nice, cushy corporate job” but he wasn’t satisfied. But he found his purpose in life teaching shop to students.
He made a deal with Work and Play—a facility in South Orange offering parents a chance to exchange ideas with each other while their children played with experienced caregivers—to use their space after 3 p.m.
“I invented a workbench and realized our mission could go further if we could teach teachers,” he said.
“Students can get college credits along the way and get into the carpenter’s union,” Schloff said. “I’ve given kids purpose and pathways. I’ve taught at almost every school in the district. I did a lot of afterschool programs at different locations. Some kids became engineers. Some are in the Carpenters Union. We helped 20,000 kids around the country. In our area there may be a thousand.”
Sometimes Schloff works remotely to train workshop teachers, but oftentimes he goes around the country. He said, “Nevada, Florida, Ohio, Maine, Connecticut, New York City. This year I’m going to Montana and California.”
Growing up, Schloff fixed bicycles. But it wasn’t until he was in his 30s and bought his house that he needed to do repairs and woodworking spoke to him. “I needed an outlet to work with my hands,” he said. “It turned into a real passion.”
Schloff believes that you can be both handy and smart.
“That’s what our program’s all about,” he said. “How the physical world works. Learn math, learn collaboration, lead leadership, and humility all at the same time.”
He also feels that kids need variety.
“We need to be good thinkers, and we need to be handy at the same time,” he said.
Schloff recalls a middle schooler who was very disengaged.
“Really struggling,” he said. “Then she took woodworking. She realized she was smart. She had talent. By eighth grade she applied to an engineering high school. She found a passion.”
There was another case where a third grader in Brooklyn was a troublemaker.
“He didn’t like sitting still,” said Schloff. “The teacher figured out if she put this kid in charge, he suddenly started being a leader. It was the idea of pure mentoring. Whoever’s moving fastest on the project, it tends to correlate with kids who don’t like to sit still.”
In Schloff’s programs, students could earn college credits while working with their hands. He said, “It’s the best of both worlds. A lot of parents believe there’s one path, to go to college. We’re saying, ‘It’s good to have options.’ It’s good to have multiple pathways.”
During the workshops students make great projects—foot stools, bookcases, napkin holders, to name a few.
Schloff said, “Keeping them engaged with each other and appreciating that everyone has a gift, even if it’s a different gift than you do, we’re trying to build community.”
Visit Maplewoodshop at: https://www.maplewoodshop.com/
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