Saturday, October 27, 2007

praxis:
1581, from M.L. praxis "practice, action" (c.1255, opposite of theory), from Gk. praxis "practice, action, doing," from stem of prassein "to do, to act."

The word praxis is one of the small nuggets from a trip this afternoon to Barnes and Nobel Booksellers. While my wife shopped for children's books for the Carnegie Public Library, I researched the Education section, looking for comparables. One of the things authors do to research the markets for our books, is to look for comparable books available in the marketplace. We want to see if the subject is already sufficiently addressed in published materials and and see if we can beat or better the competition. I wondered whether there were any books addressing the failure of education to engage the hands. The interesting thing I found was that none of the books addressed the hands at all. It seems that you and I are the only ones to have noticed anything... To most of the world of books and education, the hands don't exist at all.

This doesn't bode well for finding a publisher. It means that the book, Wisdom of the Hands, breaks completely new ground, and publishers aren't noted these days for taking risks.

If the Wisdom of the Hands book ever comes to press, it will be because some publisher is compelled to a leap of great faith. Please keep your fingers crossed. Both hands. In the meantime, I'll keep blogging. Keep reading. Take a note from the Greek, praxis. Take action. Do. Take a knife and carve some wood. If you can't think of something to do away from your keyboard, take a few moments to share this blog with friends. http://wisdomofhands.blogspot.com

No comments:

Post a Comment