I have come to regard the manual arts as the best kept secret in education. While I was in California I met with some area high school teachers, and learned that while the governor is pushing for more money for vocational training, woodshops are still being closed at an alarming rate, that may be due in large part to our failure to fully understand the educational mission of the woodshop. Even woodworking teachers don't have the clearly rehearsed conversational understanding of what we do to be able to sell our programs. Realizing that we are linked and have compatriots, who share our concerns and interests helps us to build that conversation... First amongst ourselves, and then when it gets strong and clear, with others. As Jack Grube had noted when he was inspired to start the New England Association of Woodworking Teachers, woodworking teachers have had a tendency to work in the isolation of our own shops when we needed to be actively discussing and sharing the value of our programs.

The important value that Educational Sloyd offered to the conversation was the role of the hands in shaping and informing thought, and construction of higher values that pertain to craftsmanship and how they can extend into other areas of human engagement. For years in the US, woodworking teachers had relied on the easiest means of selling their programs... That they were justified as vocational education by American leadership as a manufacturing nation.

That has changed, and with the early abandonment of Educational Sloyd philosophy, woodworking programs and teachers have lacked a clear mission in the modern, computer obsessed educational environment. So, now it is time to return to the basics. Shown above is the proper stance for safe use of the knife.