This blog is dedicated to sharing the concept that our hands are essential to learning- that we engage the world and its wonders, sensing and creating primarily through the agency of our hands. We abandon our children to education in boredom and intellectual escapism by failing to engage their hands in learning and making.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
As you can see from the photos above, Lucy's toolkit is ready to wrap. How have I been so lucky? I get to spend time in the woodshop instead of in the shopping mall. There are people who don't know what they are missing. We still have 4 more making days until Christmas.
The Vaughan and Bushnell "Little Pro" hammer, the "centerpiece" of the toolkit is important. It is the hammer of choice in the Wisdom of the Hands program. In 2002 when I won my first Golden Hammer Award for How-to writing from the National Association of Home Workshop Writers, sponsored by Vaughan and Bushnell, I suggested that each Golden Hammer Award winner be given a selection of Vaughan and Bushnell tools to present to a school program of his or her choice. Clear Spring School was the first school to be honored in this way, and each succeeding year there have been more recipients in a program we call "Tools for Schools." Since this box was designed to help compensate for the lack of tools on my daughter's floor at Columbia University, it is also a fitting time to acknowledge Vaughan and Bushnell for their support of putting real tools back in schools. Even Columbia University in New York City will feel the effects.
No comments:
Post a Comment