insurance and liability issues...

I got an email from Brent in East Tennessee, a teacher who is planning to retire soon to spend more time in his wood shop. He asked about insurance and liability issues as in his state, the high cost of insurance is claimed to be the reason for the close of woodshops and the  refusal to allow woodworking in schools.

Nuts. Woodworking with proper supervision is less dangerous than basketball, and far less injurious than football. And more instructive.

Please, when school administrators give you this kind of runaround, please ask to see the quotes for their insurance premiums, with and without woodworking included.

When the powers that be decided that we need not be a manufacturing nation, they proposed that we would send every kid to college and no longer need woodshops. We can see how that is working out, can't we? We have fallen behind other developed countries in our children's education and China is beating the pants off the US in research and development spending and graduation of new engineers.

The truth is that every child needs the opportunity to learn from the real reality of hands-on learning(even those going to college). Every child needs the opportunity to discover creating something useful and beautiful through the eyes of their own hands.

Today in the CSS woodshop, John was turning a piece of cherry. He made a smooth tapered cylinder and then sanded it to near perfection. Then he applied wax, and after polishing it was certain that he had never felt anything so smooth in his whole life.

Make, fix and create...