A review of my speech at the CODA (Craft Organization Development Association) Conference in April is featured in the publication, CraftNet Sketches, June 2008, Vol. 4. CraftNet is an international network of community colleges devising innovative ways through partnerships to develop artisan-based strengths into a sustainable growth sector for each of their service areas. For up-to-date news and information about CraftNet or past issues of CraftNet Sketches, please visit the website of Regional Technology Strategies, Inc. or call 919.933.6699.
Doug Stowe, a self-employed craftsman from Eureka Springs, Arkansas, enchanted his audience with insights gleaned from his experience since 2001 with teaching in a program called “The Wisdom of the Hands” at The Clear Spring School. Stowe and his fellow educators were looking for ways to make woodworking relevant to the lives of all students and meaningful to their broader education. They drew inspiration from an almost forgotten, hands-on pedagogy called “Educational Sloyd” that asks students to use their hands in woodworking projects in order to stimulate their developmental progress in all aspects of academic learning. “Our hands are essential to learning,” Stowe writes in his ongoing blog about his discoveries. “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.” For more in-depth discussion about Educational Sloyd and the rewards of integrating hands-on woodworking projects at all levels of youth education, please visit Stowe’s blog.