understanding the interconnectedness of all things...

In Educational Sloyd, the objective was to start with the interests of the child, then move incrementally from the known to the unknown, the easy to the more difficult, from the simple to the complex and from the concrete to the abstract. Each of these pairs describe an aspect of the journey to an understanding of the interconnectedness of all things. While a teacher or a professor, after years of study and personal investigation may understand the relationship between physics and math, and from there begin to extrapolate this interconnectedness, even into music, literature and the arts, it is not something that can be presented artificially from without and thence fully grasped, but must come in some degree from an understanding achieved within each child.

For that reason, Educational Sloyd sought the measured and incremental growth of each child. Teachers of woodworking would be the same teachers who taught the child reading and math, rather than someone who taught within a separate, isolated discipline under silo-like conditions. Teachers were encouraged to teach each child individually rather than as a class so that no opportunity for vital connections would be missed.

Instead, we have a system of education in which students are written off as problems, as students who will not achieve, will not perform, as we revel in a false glory of those who do succeed. What a different planet we would live upon if all or most children were brought to an understanding of the interconnectedness of all things.

Today I've been writing the text for my article on a dedicated finger joint router set-up and fine tuning my outline for a book on hands-on learning. This afternoon, I will have 7th, 8th, and 9th grade students in the wood shop.

Make, fix and create...