Wednesday, May 31, 2023
push button smart?
Tuesday, May 30, 2023
An opening for one...
Saturday, May 27, 2023
teaching kids to carve...
You cannot whittle a stick without observing and forming simple hypotheses building the kind of understanding of basic reality fundamental to science.
Make, fix and create...
Wednesday, May 24, 2023
loose lid box
This simple prototype is the key. The first time I used this technique was in my book Simply Beautiful Boxes, my second book. The piece of plywood is a stand-in as I finish making the real lid. At this point the box and others are ready to glue up, and lids will be fitted later.
The way this lid works is that as the lid is raised at the front, it is confined by the back edge falls into a deeper groove at the back where it stands in place with no lid support needed. When closed, it simply falls into place where it is confined within the four sides.
I think readers of my new book, Designing Boxes, will like this box.
Make, fix and create.
Berryville Rotary
Schools have become places where students are constantly controlled while being measured in reading and math and the pressure is on. The pressure is on. The pressure is on. And we really need to pull the plug. I told my audience about schools in which play is intentional, as we all learn best when our passions are engaged. When we are at play, doing things for which we feel passion, our whole beings are placed in a state of alert and learning is at its best.
There's a whole lot more going on in education than can be covered in a thirty minute talk, but the answer to the problems of education can be found if we each reflect on those moments that have been most instructive in our own educational experiences. When did we learn best? What were the pivotal moments that gave direction to our own lives?
I told the audience of my own "pivot point" when my friend Jorgy made the suggestion to me that my brains are in my hands. The truth is that the hand-brain connection is there for each of us, and we learn best when our hands and whole beings are doing real things. When we are willing to arrive at our own understanding of our own learning experiences we'll not need educational experts to dictate what schools must become. We'll turn them into laboratories where children (and teachers) learn by doing real things.
As I mentioned to the Rotary members, real learning can be messy and noisy, and the noise and mess are what you see when students are fully engaged. Get over it. Would you rather see kids depressed?
A member of the audience asked a particularly interesting question about gun violence directed toward schools. I can tell you of specific instances when I was bullied at school by both students and adults. The pressures to perform and conform can make schools a hostile environment for teachers and kids alike. Gun nuts will claim that school shootings are due to schools being soft targets. My own urging is that they become softer places, where playfulness expressed through the arts is allowed to come forth and students are allowed greater opportunities for personal growth and deep engagement.
In my wood shop I've been making pattern-veneered lift-lids for boxes as shown. The residue of veneer tape is from holding the pieces together as they were put in the vacuum press.
Make, fix and create...
Monday, May 22, 2023
White oak
I expect to be able to make a number of pieces of fine furniture from this wood harvested in my own woods.
One of my blog readers reminded me of one of my earlier blog posts from March 14, 2016. It is about poet William Carlos Williams and his line, "no ideas but in things." You may find it to be a useful read.
https://wisdomofhands.blogspot.com/2016/03/no-ideas-but-in-things.html
Make, fix and create... Assist others in living likewise.
Thursday, May 18, 2023
Launch of the CSS Flag boat.
Wednesday, May 17, 2023
SS Friendship 2023
Make, fix and create...
Friday, May 12, 2023
finished class at MASW
Today I completed a 5 day class at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking. I had 15 students in the class with each having made between six to eight boxes. I suspect the total number would be a record. We all had fun.
I'll be headed home in the morning, grateful for a very nice week.
Make, fix and create. Assist others in learning likewise.
Tuesday, May 09, 2023
At MASW, ready for day 2
One of my students mentioned his need to make a wooden box for the ashes of a friend. This link is to a blog post I placed on the Fine Woodworking website in 2012 that describes the making of just such a box.
https://www.finewoodworking.com/2012/05/09/making-a-crematory-urn-box-part-i
The photo is from yesterday's class.
Make, fix and create...
Sunday, May 07, 2023
MASW
This morning I'm headed for Marc Adams School of Woodworking in Indiana, for my annual weeklong class in box making. Weeks have gone into planning for this year's class. I'll attempt to post photos during the week, but blog posts from previous classes can be found on my blog: http://wisdomofhands.blogspot.com Use the search block at upper left on the page and the search term, Marc Adams.
Make, fix and create.
Wednesday, May 03, 2023
today in the wood shop at CSS
Tuesday, May 02, 2023
as a how-to writer... I uphold the truth.
I and others have become increasingly concerned about what's called AI or artificial intelligence. Through programs like Chatbot GPT, AI can spew language, writing Shakespearian sonnets faster than you can spell Jackie Robinson. But what you get from the programs is BS. In fact, the more BS that's out there, the easier it becomes to fictionalize reality, and fool the pubic. AI gets even worse when it's creating videos and images intended to distort our understanding of reality.
When how-to writers write, our success is based not on being able to convince others to think what we think but to empower others to succeed in what we do, and we dare not lead others astray, as they will test what we've demonstrated in their own hands and haunt us for our failures.
This is one of the reasons that kids of all ages need to be doing real things in schools and that schools need as much as possible to be (not merely resemble) real life. The artificiality of the typical classroom environment leaves children untrained in the discernment of truth. It leaves them vulnerable to manipulation by despots, whether those despots are petty ones in our own families and communities, or are those who shape political opinions and rule nations.
When I spoke to the Holiday Island Rotary Club this last week, one member in the audience mentioned that she had visited Clear Spring School and that in her observations it was different from what she had observed in other schools. She had noted greater student participation and less teacher control, and she asked me if her observations and how she was describing things were correct.
I was reminded of a story local artist Zeek Taylor told of his first year of teaching high school art. The principal stepped into his classroom as he was preparing for the first day of school, and pronounced sternly as a warning, "Your kids must remain quiet." You'll not find that rule to be in force at the Clear Spring School, where teachers and students are responsive to each other, as must be the case for effective learning to take place.
I've had a few things running through my head of late. One is the Erikson-Anders 10,000 hour rule that suggests that to get world class at something, 10,000 hours of deliberate practice are required. Compare that to the roughly 16,000 hours kids spend at schools sitting passively at desks while teachers follow scripts devised by others and devoid of their own passion.
I've also been thinking about depression and boredom (not my own) that are imposed within the typical classroom environment. And I've been thinking about a revolution in which we empower teachers to do and create, and respect impassioned learning.
If we each observe and reflect on our own learning experiences and build from there we see a few things that were noted by Diesterweg in the mid 1800's. These observations presented by Otto Salomon in his book, the Principles of Educational Sloyd are: Start with the interests of the child, move from the known to the unknown, from the easy to the more difficult, from the simple to the complex and from the concrete to the abstract. In this I repeat myself, but if we were to design American education based on how we learn, and with an eye toward engaging students in the quest for truth, we'd be less at risk with regard to Artificial Intelligence, as each student would have real intelligences of their own and their 16,000 hours spent in schooling would not have been squandered. Better mental health would arise also.
Make, fix and create...
Monday, May 01, 2023
triangle boxes, quickly made
Make, fix and create. Assist others in learning likewise.