Joe Barry, my "brother in sloyd" and I each kind of rediscovered sloyd on our own. I published my article in Woodwork magazine and beat Joe by a couple months on his article published in the Journal of the American Society of Period Furniture Makers. Joe is a former wood shop teacher and sent me the following comments worth a good read:

I just finished reading a book entitled; "AWOL: The Unexcused Absence of America's Upper Classes from Military Service - and how it hurts our country". It made a point relevant to our discussion in that children -especially children of privilege- are raised in a risk adversive cocoon by their parents. Their parents try to provide a world in which they will never face failure or disapointment. Conversely, they never face significant challenges either.

My sister-in-law is a good case in point. Both she and her husband had degrees and careers in advertising and engineering respectively and decided to go to medical school. They both work as family practice doctors here in Randolph. Their 3 teenagers have lived a life of some privilege here. We don't have a country club or society as such, but they have never been denied anything they wanted. A trip to Japan, a year in France as an exchange student, individual laptops and cell phones? Not a problem. Now my sister-in-law is bemoaning the fact that none of her children seem to have any fire in their belly. They have all said they don't want to go into medicine because their parents work too hard. They all have no direction and seem to believe that the good life can continue without any effort on their part. As for Aunt Deedy and Uncle Joe, well, lets just say that we're neanderthals because we have our crafts and limited disposable incomes.

I have had some lengthy discussions with school leaders over what they considered to be my politically incorrect teaching methods because I believed that failure (safe failue) is an important teaching tool. They failed to understand how recovery from that failure is a valid and important lesson. I was always amused when I had a discussion with a kid about how he planned to build his project and I'd ask "Do you think that's a good idea? Maybe you better ask Ashley how she did that." As I walked away I'd hear the other kids talking to him saying that he'd better reconsider how he planned to go about doing it. Plus, it empowered and validated the kid that was consulted. I admit I'm a sneaky bastard when it comes to teaching.

The Oriental belief in "stealing" technique in a craft or martial art was always a good approach. Rather than ramming it down their throats I would pique their curiosity. I always had my own workbench in the shop with a project in process. I wouldn't tell the kids about it but, they would see me working and how I worked. Their curiosity would always bring them around with questions about what and how.

I'm very sorry to inform you that Joe no longer teaches. I know he was a good one.