This blog is dedicated to sharing the concept that our hands are essential to learning- that we engage the world and its wonders, sensing and creating primarily through the agency of our hands. We abandon our children to education in boredom and intellectual escapism by failing to engage their hands in learning and making.
Sunday, February 28, 2021
warding off
Thursday, February 18, 2021
Making things make sense
One is the muscular sense that tells us body position, stance and physical relationship to the real world, including the sense of the earth's own gravitational pull. As we lift things or even as we stand up, or even as we sit still this sense is active. I state muscular sense as being on of the physical senses because it's important and none of the other senses actually provide the information we receive from this vital sense.
The other of the two of the additional senses is the narrative sense, the seventh sense through which we compare all the other senses and the feedback we receive from them to determine what makes "sense." The narrative sense involves our own internal dialog but also goes far deeper than that, even into the realm of the unconscious mind. This seventh sense, called by some the "sixth sense" and associated with psychic powers is the one that's activated and used when we learn in and from the real world. It is the one that interprets and "makes sense" of the information presented by the other senses upon which it relies.
This is exactly why learning should proceed from the concrete to the abstract, and forevermore dip deeply again and again and again into the real world by doing real things. Without the physical senses providing crucial information to the seventh sense, students are left disengaged, disinterested and potentially disruptive of education affecting themselves and others in the process.
Fortunately, there's a relatively easy fix. Insist that schools allow the students to do real things.
Make, fix and create. Assist others in learning likewise.
quercus
Editor Nick Gibbs contacted me last week to resubmit a review of the Veritas number one plane which I did and which will be included in this issue. Subscribers can watch for its arrival. The magazine has a strong focus on the use of hand tools and the practice of traditional woodcraft.
I submitted answers this morning to questions from Idle Class Magazine for an article about my work.
On Tuesday Feb. 23, I'll participate in a zoom call with Building to Teach. If you would like a link to attend, please contact me via email. douglasstowe@gmail.com
Make, fix and create. Assist others in learning likewise.
Wednesday, February 17, 2021
the senses are key
"The ground of this business is, that sensual (sensuous) objects be rightly presented to the senses for fear that they not be received. I say, and say it again aloud, that this is the foundation of all the rest; because we can neither act nor speak wisely, unless we first rightly understand all the things which are to be done and whereof we have to speak. Now there is nothing in the understanding which was not before in the senses. And therefore to exercise the senses well about the right perceiving of the differences of things will be to lay the grounds for wisdom and all wise discourse, and all discreet actions in one's course of life, which, because it is commonly neglected in schools, and the things that are to be learned are offered to scholars without their being understood or being rightly presented to the senses, it cometh to pass that the work of teaching and learning goeth heavily onward and offereth little benefit."Comenius was considered the father of modern education. So here we are in a huge mess of things. Due to the pandemic, kids are kept home and sequestered from normal school life. Naturally we are all looking forward to a return to what had been our previous normal, which I described in an earlier blog post.
Sunday, February 14, 2021
Rosie loves snow and cold
Friday, February 12, 2021
Shop video
Thursday, February 11, 2021
Collector Cubes
Wednesday, February 10, 2021
postcards from the edge
One of the nice things about this project is that each requires hand sanding. That gives me a quiet activity to do on the front porch when the weather is less severe.
Make, fix and create. Assist others in learning likewise.
Sunday, February 07, 2021
our forests at risk
Human beings are not the only species to be suffering from deadly things that are too easily spread. Our nation's forests have long been under attack, and as the effects of global warming become more pronounced, the various at-risk species that we care for and rely upon for untold benefits will be suffering even more. This article from the New York Times tells a bit of the story.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/06/opinion/epidemic-invasive-species-trees.html
I'm starting work on a new bathroom vanity for our home that's to be made from ash. Currently ash is priced well in the market due to the rush to cut ash trees before they're completely lost to the emerald ash borer. By cutting infected trees and kiln drying the wood to kill larva there's a small hope that unaffected forests can be protected. We watched a similar story unfold many years ago as American elm trees of massive size were removed from cities to stop the spread of the Dutch elm disease.
The spread of viruses like that that killed most of our once glorious elm and chestnut trees, and the spread of insects like the emerald ash borer are directly related to international trade.
There's good reason in all this to think local as thinking globally as environmentalists suggests. We can treasure and protect what we have before it too is lost.
The screen shot is from the article in the New York Times. Read it if you can.
Make, fix, and create. Assist others in learning lifewise.
Friday, February 05, 2021
Chiseling Nut Mortises for Moxon vise
Thursday, February 04, 2021
A moxon vise
The Moxon vise, first described by Joseph Moxon in the 1700's is portable and is easily clamped to a work bench or table. One of its advantages is that there's quite a bit of space between the treaded rods that allows for drawer parts to be clamped for cutting dovetails. The guide bars in many vises get in the way of that. The parts kit is made available by Tay Tools, taytools.com and can also be purchased through Amazon.
I've gotten some positive feedback and direction from my publisher and am launching myself into a third draft of my new book, "Wisdom of Our Hands: Crafting Family, Community, Culture and Self," which I intend to have finished by March.
Make, fix and create. Assist others in learning likewise.
Monday, February 01, 2021
circumstances command that we teach and share.
"The nascent period of the hand centres has not been accurately measured ... but its most active epoch being from the fourth to the fifteenth year, after which these centres in the large majority of persons become somewhat fixed and stubborn. Hence it can be understood that boys and girls whose hands have been altogether untrained up to the fifteenth year are practically incapable of high manual efficiency ever afterwards. "The small muscles of the eye, ear, larynx, tongue, and hand have much higher and more extensive intellectual relations than the large muscles of the trunk and limbs. If you would attain to the full intellectual stature of which you are capable, do not, I would say, neglect the physical education of the hand."--Sir James Crichton-Browne
Please attempt to name a concert pianist who got his start on the piano late in life. A friend of mine, Dr. Frank Wilson who wrote an important book about the hands, had written an earlier book called "Tone Deaf and all Thumbs" recounting his experience trying to keep up with his daughter as she was learning to play the piano.
It is important that we recognize that crafting is a social engagement, and that skills in the making of beautiful and useful objects are built in an intergenerational manner. As Sir James Crichton-Browne notes, development of hand skills will be an exercise fraught with greater difficulties for those who get a late start. Recognizing that skills of hand and mind go hand in hand, and seeing that our own craftsmanship must also entail the development of skill among those who surround us, commands that we teach and share and most particularly with the young, who's skills of hand and mind are yet nascent.
In the wood shop I'm making boxes.
Make, fix and create. Assist others in living likewise.