getting back to it...

I got in a full day in the shop yesterday, but am still struggling a bit to get into the full swing of things. Anyone who has been self-employed in such a small business as my own can tell of the many hats which must be worn. I am both labor and management, and that means that if something needs to be done, I'm the man for it. And if I don't do it, it won't be done, and the business will suffer for my lack of attention.

I'm trying to get some boxes finished to distribute to my few local galleries that handle my work, and to fill an order for Appalachian Spring in Washington, DC.

I was intrigued by Arthur Levine's quote in yesterday's Washington Post, that universities are confused as to whether to treat teaching as a profession or as a craft, with one requiring "lots of education" and the other training and practice. If anyone were to be willing to understand learning from the vantage point offered by the hands, he or she would know that to learn anything of real substance requires both.

And so as a lifelong craftsman, one who has invested heavily in the training of my own hands and mind in the production of beautiful and useful objects, I think I have an interesting perspective that might be of service to educators if they were to burrow their way past the egotism of their entrenched positions. The schism forged as a sharp knife dividing the hands from the mind in the education of our kids is stabbing away at every effort to raise education to its highest standard.

Without the hands to test the propositions of mind, it is an empty vessel of meaningless proportions. Without the mind to cultivate the actions of the hands, they flail away at fruitless and destructive acts. When the mind and hands learn and act as expressions of our full humanity, human culture is on the rise. Forget the hands, we flail and fall. Separate the education of the mind from the testing and training of the hands and we've become stupid. As Anaxagoras had said in the 5th century B.C. "Man is the wisest of all animals because he has hands." In the image above, Anaxagoras holds the world in one hand and points with the other.

Make, fix and create...

failure of universities to educate teachers...

From the Washington Post:

"The vast majority of the 1,430 education programs that prepare the nation’s K-12 teachers are mediocre, according to a first-ever ranking that immediately touched off a firestorm."

Firestorm or not, this is a discussion we must have, whether universities like it or not

"While debate swirls about the validity of the ratings of individual schools, there is broad agreement among educators and public officials — from U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan to governors to unions — that the country is failing to adequately train the 200,000 people who become teachers each year.

“We don’t know how to prepare teachers,” said Arthur Levine, former president of Teachers College at Columbia University and author of a scathing critique of teacher preparation. “We can’t decide whether it’s a craft or a profession. Do you need a lot of education as you would in a profession, or do you need a little bit and then learn on the job, like a craft? I don’t know of any other profession that’s so uncertain about how to educate their professionals.”

My point in all this comes from Educational Sloyd. "Move from the concrete to the abstract. " Teachers need to be educated like professionals, but they also need to be developed as one would craftsmen and artists. You are better equipped to understand theory when you can see it applied through your own hands. Unfortunately, folks are not talking about the role of the hands in learning. Many parents of home-schooled students are doing a much better job of teaching than many university trained teachers perhaps due to one reason alone. Children do best when someone really cares personally about their educational success.

By the time we've stripped teachers of their earlier roles as intelligent, trusted mentors, diagnosticians and planners of their children's educational success and put those things into the hands of specialized off-site curriculum planners and standardized test administrators, we've reduced their humanity. Both teaching and learning are best accomplished hands-on.

Today in the wood shop, I'm finishing some small details on my demonstration boxes. I textured a lid. I installed miter keys. I've done a bit of sanding, and now I'm ready to begin installing hinges.

Make, fix and create...

catching up...

 Just like my students, I have some boxes to finish now that I've arrived home. I have 4 demonstration boxes from one class and another 5 to finish from the other, and because I had flown home between classes, I was able to bring all home Sunday in the truck. Just as my students have become more prolific in class, I have, too.

I still have miter keys to add to one box and will add a top panel and plywood bottom to another. Four boxes will need hinges. When they are completed some will be kept as demonstration boxes. Some will be given as gifts, and some will be sold.

As is always the case, my students at MASW were interested in how to sell boxes. Some would like to supplement their incomes by selling their work. Some are just curious how a craftsman can assign a value to his or her work. There are no easy ways to sell, and it is extremely difficult to determine what a box is worth. It is certainly easier to make boxes than to figure out how to make a living from their sale, and one of my students reminded the class of what Shaker box maker Jon Wilson had said many years ago. When asked whether a person can make a living making boxes, he responded, "Yes, but you better figure out some other way to have fun."

In my case, I am very lucky. I have fun making boxes. I have fun teaching box making, and I have fun writing about making boxes.

Make, fix and create...

home...

I am home in Arkansas now after 6 days of teaching box making at Marc Adams School. It was a great 6 days spent with avid box making enthusiasts. We all learned. I invented a couple new sleds. (Not that there can be anything truly new about a sled.) One is specifically for making making mitered box joints, and the other is for making angled cross-cuts on the table saw. Both were extremely easy to make.

At the end of the 5 day class, my students had a number of boxes to illustrate what they'd learned, and I have been asked to return next year for another class. This year, my class filled during the first week of enrollment. Students from other classes kept telling me during the week that they plan to take the class next year or at least some time in the future. so, If you are interested in taking my box making class at Marc's school, please get on their mailing list and register as soon as you are allowed.

The photo above shows my happy class with some of the boxes we made during the week! Now that I'm home, I have orders to catch up on, chapters to work on, and so much to do, but it is absolutely lovely working in my own shop.

On my last morning in Indiana, I stopped to take photos of a 345 kV power line to get a better grasp of the scale of the one that SWEPCo has proposed to run 75 feet from my deck. You can gauge the scale by looking at the height of more normal power lines, buildings and cars.

In cities, folks like those in the suburbs of Indianapolis have become used to having power lines of massive scale running through neighborhoods, but here in Northwest Arkansas, where many artists and other folks have moved to share in our scenic beauty, to propose such things is wantonly destructive. I've been attempting to suggest to folks that scenic beauty and inspiration for the arts work hand in hand toward the betterment of human culture and economy. My most recent letters to the editor on this subject can be found here.

If SWEPCo and the Arkansas Public Service Commission were allowed to go through with their plans and if the route through my back yard was chosen by the Arkansas Public Service Commission, I would lose a 150 foot wide swath of forest and have one of these ugly poles located about 150 feet from my deck.

Make, fix and create...

box making, day 5...

We finished our 5th day of box making, and all the students seemed pleased with their progress and complimentary, for what they'd learned and what they'd been presented.

Tomorrow I have a one day  class on interior architecture for small boxes. It is a class I only teach every other year, so  I am actually a bit more nervous about this class than I was about the full week long class. I hope I have enough information about the insides of boxes to make it worthwhile for my students who've stayed for an extra day.

By tomorrow afternoon, I will be on the road home, celebrating the completion of this year's box making at Marc Adams School.

I want to touch upon how we learn. Is there a difference between how children learn and how adults learn? The only difference I see is that children are forced to comply with the learning of specific things, and adults really prefer, and insist upon learning the things that directly interest them. We have this absurd fear that children will not learn the things that we think are important to us, unless we force them to learn through the things that we are required to teach. Can anyone else see the stupidity of that?

Left to their own devices, children and adults learn best through play. I meant to write down the principles of Educational Sloyd on the blackboard for my parting thought to my students. Perhaps a few will be reading this... Though I was too busy to remind them.

• Start with the interests of the child.
• Move from the known to the unknown.
• Move from the easy to the more difficult.
• Move from the simple to the complex.
• Move from the concrete to the abstract, remembering always to test what you've learned under concrete circumstances.

Make, fix and  create...

Day four of box making

We've finished our 4th day of box making at Marc Adams School. The students are each working on more than one box and some have more than a dozen in the works. I've not had a class more prolific than this one.

I too, have been making boxes, and some of mine are turning out nice. I stopped for carry-out Chinese dinner, and my fortune read, "Express yourself, do something creative." No worries about that. My class and I have been creating boxes all day, from 7:30 AM. Both yesterday and today I made new sleds of new designs to cut mitered finger joints and for cutting stock at interesting angles. So the creativity is not just in box making but also in making new jigs and fixtures for box making.

Make, fix and  create...

3rd. day of box making...

Today we began installing hinges, cutting lids from bases of boxes, installing miter keys and more. I made wooden hinges, demonstrated using a hidden spline mitered joint, and I helped students with design questions. We are making great progress. Our strategy for this class is learning through play. Just as children learn best through play, adults do too. There are times when we get in over our heads. In our excitement for learning, we make minor mistakes.

I designed this class to minimize the amount of time students spend standing in line. I want it to be like the indoor playground at St. Mary's school. If there is a line on the slide, head for the monkey bars. If there is a line there, too, head for the merry-go-round.  If the table saw for cutting miter joints is busy, make box joints. If both are busy, cut up and prepare materials for your next box. This strategy is working and you can see it  in action. At any given time, nearly all the tools in the shop are in use, while other students are planning their next moves at their workbenches in the next room. At each work bench you'll find boxes in various stages of assembly.

Students from other classes are telling me, I want to take your class next year.

I am also learning about how to express and share information so it is most easily understood. And so, I keep becoming a better teacher as I share what I learn.

Make, fix and create...