the power of the real...

Yesterday I was tied to my desk as I wrote one chapter of my guitar book, and started the text and captions for another. That, I guess could serve as a reminder of what so many face. It is extremely important to get up now and then to do real things. Students and adults alike spend too much desk time. Fortunately I will have something to show for my desk time, in that in about a month and a half, my book will be ready for the editors and book designers to put it in shape for publication.

On another subject, I have been supplying text and photos to a web designer for the first attention my website has gotten in years. It is being completely redesigned, to be accessible from all devices and to provide regular updates from this blog. I have been working on the text for the page about education, and found this:

To reclaim the real, both in the way we encounter other people and in the way we encounter things, would have implications on education. They are crystallized in the following quote from Doug Stowe, a woodshop teacher and first-class thinker about education: 'In schools, we create artificial learning environments for our children that they know to be contrived and undeserving of their full attention. Without the opportunity to learn through their hands, the world remains abstract, and distant, and the passions for learning will not be engaged.' –Matthew Crawford, author of Shop Class as Soulcraft, from his new book The World Beyond Your Head.

Today, I will continue desk time to get another chapter wrapped up, but then go to school to work with first, second and third grade students in the afternoon.

Make, fix, create, and offer others the opportunity to learn likewise.