building a sense of commonality

We had a great time on Thursday at the Eureka Springs School of the Arts as members of the staff and I made boxes. Shared experience in a common venture builds a sense of commonality, that we're all in this together, and even though each person in class was working on their own box, the journey through the process required taking turns at the saw and allowing for the needs of each other. 

At one point I looked around the room at my students and each was holding their box as though it was a small child to whom they'd just given birth. That's directly a part of the nature of such things.

In selecting woods for lids, the students would take a board and work out with each other which portion would become the lid of their box. If anyone out there needs to find a location for a corporate retreat with built in team building exercise, ESSA might be the place for it, and box making might be an exercise around which various folks might gather.

Friedrich Froebel is remembered most for his invention of instructional materials related to his invention of Kindergarten. He was also intent on the creation of a sense of commonality within children through which they sensed their relationship to others and their place and potentials within community life and beyond.

These days a lot of politicians and policy makers are focusing their attention on devising a sense of common history, by prohibiting teaching about the uglier parts of American history. Slavery for example. That's a strategy that offers no potential for the development of empathy and leaves us divided against one another. But when we seek commonality through the shared process of creating useful beauty, walls come down. We take turns, not only at the saw, but also in listening to each other and building space for each other in each other's lives.

And I again assert that the creation of useful beauty should be a requirement for children in school as it can be instrumental in developing a sense of shared community.

Make, fix and create...