check out checkout

If you go to a self-checkout at Walmart you can see the future of education in action. You walk up to a computer, scan your knowledge, and instead of a whole line of highly educated teachers checking on your needs and assisting your growth, there will be one monitor watching to see that every transaction, every input of knowledge every interaction between man and machine proceeds in a timely and orderly fashion, and that you don't just walk off with the goods. Human beings and human engagement need not be present to win. You can see the efficiency of it, and you can see professional teachers being replaced by IT. And what's good for Walmart must be good for everything else in the whole dang world, right?

In contrast, I attended the Clear Spring School holiday program last night and watched our wonderful children performing. The skits were well rehearsed, well written by the children themselves, relevant to the social issues of the day, and presented strong evidence of shared learning and cooperative engagement. Two young men played the piano expressing skills and musical abilities beyond their years. We had a hand bell recital involving nearly every child in the school, and we watched children dance and sing. The pre-school children stole the show with their cute precocious behavior. Each was a star, not because they stood out like one person passing through self checkout at Walmart, but because each was engaged in teamwork and cooperative behavior.

And so Americans have to ask what we want in education... cold efficiency or heart and soul.

Linda Matchan, writer for the Boston Globe really wanted to know if I could refer her to research confirming the role of the wood shop in building intelligence, and all I was able to point to was research at Purdue drawing the connection between hands on learning and science. That research was unusual in that it was driven by grad students having an interest in the subject, not by a grant from a computer giant. Most of the research in the US is driven (like the government) by special interests, and that means computers when it comes to education. I was told by someone in the testing industry that to get money to prove the efficacy of after school computer gaming programs is drop-of-the-hat easy. About all you do is ask. To get money to research the importance of hands on learning involving saws, hammers, and the like is a completely different matter entirely. Forgetaboutit.

As you can see, common sense, derived from personal experience has little value in today's culture. The most interesting thing to me is that when you have a huge body of inconvenient information like the research proving a direct connection between screen time and childhood obesity, lack of social comfort and engagement, poor performance in schools, and lack of creativity, we go merrily along as though none of it matters. But when it comes to the value of hands-on learning that those of us who have hands-on experience have direct knowledge of, the challenge is "prove it, suckers." Well darn it, I can't. You will have to take a saw or some other real tool in your own hands and learn something about the world and yourself for yourself. Make, fix, create.

Today I'll be in my own wood shop. I have to finish some small cabinets to prepare them for their "beauty shots" to grace the opening chapters of my book "Making Small Cabinets." At times, I apologize, I may seem a bit smug. I'm really a bit angry. What surprises and angers me is that we have developed an educational system that leaves students lacking in curiosity, lacking in interest, diminished in creativity and we think it is OK to settle for that and for kids dropping out of school, when we really need the success of each and every one. And I repeat, make, fix, create.