this does concern box making...

I've awakened early and will go back to bed soon. Believe it or not, this does concern box making, for if a child (or an adult) can make a wooden box in which the corners are square, the lid fits, it serves a distinct purpose, it can achieve a purposeful standard of aesthetics, and expresses a growth within the student who made it, there is a truthfulness to it that can hardly be matched in other learning. When learning is purposefully divorced from responsive and responsible action to express learning, and is only measured in abstract means outside the child's own ability to assess success , can it be said that real learning has taken place?

One of the books I brought with me for inspiration is Felix Adler's Moral Instruction of Children, about which I've written earlier posts, including this one that does have to do with box making.

Make, fix and create...