WILTON – It used to be called “Shop Class.” Now it is Industrial Arts or Technical Education.

It used to be for those boys who were not college-bound and were in some ways looked down on. Now it is required of all middle school students and high school girls are encouraged to develop their creativity through woodworking and other crafts. Wilton-Lyndeborough Cooperative School’s shop classes weren’t co-ed until the mid-1970s.

And all the teachers were men. Until Danyele Morrissey.

“This is my first year of teaching,” she said during a tour of what is still called the shop. “I spent 15 years in high tech manufacturing. I was in final testing, went through the whole system.”

Then COVID happened and the world changed. “After I was severed, I took some time going back to nature, then an opportunity presented itself and I decided to give it a try.

I could see the kids in my neighborhood were suffering. I can see where the kids are now, lacking confidence after what happened.”

There are still those “shop kids” who struggle with school, she said. “I look for projects in the community and the school to help them gain confidence.”

Her classes are “fundamental wood shop,” she said. “The kids get their hands on something and can be creative, build a level of confidence – they did it. I do a lot of group work, show them how working together is something you’ll do through life. Step out of the box a little, don’t be afraid to fail – it can lead to the most beautiful places.” Call a failed project just the first try. It’s how you learn.

Morrisey grew up in Hollis, graduated from Nashua High School, and moved to New York City as a teenager. “I worked for a record label, and ran a snow board and ski shop in Lower Manhattan. “I’m from New Hampshire and know that stuff. I moved back home when I was 30.” She currently lives in Merrimack.

She credits having a single mother for her outlook. “She was the first woman in New York City to climb a utility pole.”

Her other interests include classical astrology and photography. During COVID she worked with a wedding photographer, “and I like capturing candid moments with kids. I’m thinking of starting a photography class here. I heard there used to be a dark room.”

WLC has a sense of community, she said. “It feels like a family, all working together to make the kids feel safer. If they feel safe, the smiles some out.”

She likes the “organics of the shop,” she said. “You have your hands involved with something. The world has taken much of that away.”

She mentioned the World War II honor plaque some students are repairing. “You get your hands on history. It’s jobs like that, like building corn hole boards for the Senior Prom, it makes them feel they are a part of the environment.”

In middle school classes she “lays the groundwork, building a level of confidence,” she said. “Both boys and girls have to take it. I know how to take a project from a drawing to the finished work. There is a process.”

Students need to learn that. And she has learned a lot from her students.

She said, “This has been the hardest year of my life, but it’s been the most rewarding. It’s brought my heart joy.”