Today at Clear Spring School, the first, second and third grade students all wanted a "free day" to make anything they want. I would prefer that they do some project that is more manageable. When I know what the project is in advance, I can prepare materials, have everything ready, but "free day" means I often have five or six children trying to explain what they need in order to do what they want. Each needs something different in the way of materials.
When a child is able to conceive an object, then plan and make it themselves or with just a bit of help, they have learned very many things besides the making of the object. So, while one child made a table, another made wind chimes, while another made a locomotive, another made tops and still another a toy helicopter. I was too busy helping where needed than to take photos, so you will just have to imagine. "Free," or "creative" day is the children's favorite time in the wood shop.
Tonight I met (on the phone) with North Bennet Street School executive director Miguel Gómez-Ibáñez and Paul Ruhlman, director of the woodshop at Buckingham, Brown and Nichols School in Cambridge to discuss our joint panel presentation on sloyd at the Furniture Society Conference at MIT in June. I am very excited that we will have the opportunity to present on a subject very dear to me.
Your third graders sound just like my senior wood shop students.
ReplyDeleteThey have no idea how to explain what they want to build, nor do they have any idea on how to go about designing a project. Seniors, soon to be the leaders of our society, that have no more ability to build, design, or create than the average third grader. It scares me.