A solution for the inefficacy of conventional education.

Anaxagoras holds world in hands

The hands are the primary means of engagement of mind in the world. If you have any doubt of this, take a few moments to observe a child at play. If your doubt is not erased by those few moments, take a moment more to observe your own hands. Not only do they sense the reality that surrounds you, they test and frame whatever thoughts you may have. On the less conscious side, observe how your hands move (and are required to move) as you speak. Gestures draw forth ideas that may have been hard to pull from the mind. Gestures express to others the force and certainty of your ideas.

And yet, we design educational institutions and classes in which the hand are left idle, and incapable of testing and discerning truth.

The simple first step in overcoming the inefficacy of conventional education is simply to take stock. First come to an understanding of the species of which we are part. The mind and hands of our species evolved simultaneously in coordination with each other as a system for learning and shaping physical and cultural realities. If anyone is incapable of understanding that one simple thing, they do not belong in education.

The second step is to design learning with the hand in mind.

A simple way to do that is to restore making as a primary activity in school at all levels.

I was asked by a reader for a link to Von Marenholtz-Bülow's book Hand Work & Head Work. This book can be downloaded for any reader, or read from your computer screen. It is also available as a reprint from bookfinder.com. Nearly all the great wisdom of the past acknowledged the role of the hands in acquiring it. Anaxagoras  (shown above) had said that man is the wisest of all animals because he has hands.

The illustration at left is from one of my prior attempts to explain how the hands are engaged in thought.

Today my wife and I (with friends) will attend an open house at Red Fern Studio, where my friend Ed creates beautiful hand blown glass.

Make, fix, create, and insist that others learn likewise.