Agriculture and industrial arts teachers from across Montana spent two days this summer learning how to make knives at Cascade High School — a hands-on professional development course organized by the Montana Office of Public Instruction designed to sharpen both craft skills and classroom confidence.
The course brought together educators from different corners of the state for a program that asked them to be students again, working through the knife-making process from raw materials to finished blade. For teachers who lead shop and ag programs, the skills translate directly into classroom projects — knife making combines metallurgy, tool use, and finishing techniques that can anchor a semester-long curriculum.
The Montana OPI's decision to use a working high school shop as the classroom setting rather than a conference room or university facility is notable. It puts teachers in the same physical environment their students occupy, which proponents of this kind of professional development argue leads to more practical, immediately applicable learning than lecture-based training.
For Helena-area educators at schools like Capital High and Helena High, where agriculture and industrial arts programs serve students who may go on to trades, ranching, or manufacturing careers, the kind of hands-on instruction modeled at Cascade represents a pedagogical approach that is gaining ground in Montana's vocational education community.