Maybe because it's not taught at the early levels of education. But one school is trying to change that.

Some students who don't mind playing with toys are trying to learn a thing or two in a pre-engineering class where they learn different fields of pre-engineering.

It's not a college class, it's at Thomas Jefferson Middle School, and the young Einsteins are in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades.

"At middle school age we're trying to trigger long term and that's the whole philosophy with Gateway to Technology, get them more familiar with the engineering field," Gateway to Technology teacher Jolene Paden said.

Eighth-grade student Shelby Christan's dad is an electrician. She wanted to take the class to learn more of what he does.

Shelby is a pro at the ROBO Pro.

"It's a program that gets the machine hooked up to the computer to do this," she said.

Shelby isn't the only one making machines work, eighth-grade student Deon Turner is ready to pick up his date.

"It's real descriptive on turning off the headlights and the motors," Deon said.

Ok, so it's not his date, Deon can't drive yet. But he can build a car and a road.

"The arrows show each step for it to move and stuff like that," Deon said.

Deon likes the class because he gets to move around.

"I'm one of those kids who gets bored quickly," he said.

The best part, while the students are having fun, they are learning actual tools.

"It really supports the math and science objectives that we have in our district," said Paden.

You could say this class is a gateway to a different kind of learning.

"We're just exposing them to different fields and hopefully we'll trigger some interest in them," said Paden.

Since this is the first year, Paden hopes to expand the class more in the following years.