In many of the television cooking competition reality shows, prospective chefs are tested on basic skills or made to perform repetitive tasks demonstrating that they are proficient at certain tasks. This could be something as simple as dicing an onion or something like shucking an oyster. Shucking oysters, in particular, has even been used as a team punishment for a team that lost the service on Hell's Kitchen.
If you're not familiar with oysters, this can be a difficult task. Oysters have evolved for millions of years to prevent predators from getting their shells open. That protection is often quite effective against a novice chef. Fortunately, even novices are smarter than oysters and can learn to quickly shuck an oyster (remove it from the shell).
First, oysters should be securely shut without broken shells. That's because they are still alive when you get them and should be holding the shell tightly closed with their abductor muscle. If the shell is open, the oyster is either on the verge of death or more likely, already dead and may have begun to spoil. Any oyster whose shell is not firmly closed should be discarded.
Thoroughly scrub and rinse the oysters under running water using a kitchen scrub pad or a stiff brush.
The only piece of equipment you really need is an oyster knife. You can spend a lot of money if you want to, but you should be able to get a good oyster knifeIf you're not familiar with oysters, this can be a difficult task. Oysters have evolved for millions of years to prevent predators from getting their shells open. That protection is often quite effective against a novice chef. Fortunately, even novices are smarter than oysters and can learn to quickly shuck an oyster (remove it from the shell).
First, oysters should be securely shut without broken shells. That's because they are still alive when you get them and should be holding the shell tightly closed with their abductor muscle. If the shell is open, the oyster is either on the verge of death or more likely, already dead and may have begun to spoil. Any oyster whose shell is not firmly closed should be discarded.
Thoroughly scrub and rinse the oysters under running water using a kitchen scrub pad or a stiff brush.
for less than $15 with protective gloves. If you're not experienced at this, get the gloves and use caution. 
They oyster shell has a thin and a thick end. Place the oyster shell flat on a table or solid work surface with the thin end toward you. Place one hand flat over the oyster to hold it down firmly. Insert the tip of the oyster knife between the two halves of the shell at the thin end. Sometimes this can be difficult and you may need to just break away a little bit of the oyster shell to give you some purchase for the knife tip. Be extremely careful with this step. If the knife slips and runs along the top of the shell, it'll go right into you hand getting blood everywhere and potentially ruining some good oysters.
Slide the knife blade along the inside of the shell and move it back and forth, left and right to cut the oyster away from the shell. With a twisting motion, separate the two shell halves, removing the half that you just cut away.
Insert the knife between the body of the oyster and the remaining shell half to cut it away from the shell with the same left, right cutting motion.
Make sure there are no bits of shell on the oyster.
Depending upon how you are preparing the oysters, you may want to reserve the shells for use in serving dishes like oysters on the half shell. If you raise chickens, you can sterilize and then pulverize the oyster shells and put them out for the chickens which will benefit from the calcium in the shells.
That's all there is to it. It takes practice to get quick at it, but fortunately, oysters are usually prepared in relatively large numbers giving you a dozen or more chances to practice every time you make them.
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