necks and frets

Yesterday I shaped maple necks and cut the tight grooves for installing frets. It went faster than I expected,  not because I have any particular skills but because I've done it before. Experience counts. I used a template to mark the location for each fret and then used a block of wood clamped in place to help guide the saw.  After the neck is cut to its final length I can fit it to the box and install the top and back of the guitar. I hope to have much of it completed on Thursday.

That a box guitar can be so quickly made should convince others to do likewise.

Kim Brand  sent a link to a paper explaining the role of independent schools in bringing about school reform. The paper concerns the Hawken School in Cleveland: Why Hawken Has to Lead. It is an attempt to explain to the school community and others why independent schools (also like Clear Spring School) must have the courage to lead in bringing about real change. It should help some to understand that standardization leads to mediocrity. In trivializing education through abstract and trivial standards, we trivialize the child.

The correct formula is simple. Put children to work and play doing (and thereby learning) real things that benefit their communities. Student character and intelligence are allowed to grow when student interests and higher purposes are met. Instead of meeting artificial standards, doing real things has no upper limit and has real purpose understood by the child in real time as it applies in his or her own life.

Make, fix, create and adjust all schooling so that others may learn likewise.