Wisdom of the Hands

A walk inthe woods...

2012-02-01T08:25:00.003-06:00

Testing a travois

We are having unseasonably warm weather in Arkansas and today we had an unusual high temperature in the 60s F. This AM I took my chain saw into the woods to clear our nature trail and prepare it for short hikes with my first, second and third grade students who are studying American Indians in class. They've made dioramas in boxes made in wood shop, built a small teepee in their classroom campus and studied tribes from all across the US.


Playing horse... or dog. Men and women also pulled travois.

Tarrah went in the cave to the end, touched the wall and came out

While we have a forested area of the main campus, it is overrun with kids. And when they get out of class and are permitted to go in the woods, the children are whooping savages in comparison to the more reverent way we would like them to address the woods and wilderness.

Today my experiment was be to get them to walk more carefully, more quietly, and with greater sensitivity through the woods, with greater attention paid to observation and reflection. Do you know how difficult it has become to be silent? To have the capacity to maintain silent focus, to be still in mind and body is of immense value. To listen, to observe closely, unimpaired by the chattering monkey mind can be the way new insights emerge, and can offer a path to transcendent understanding.

I believe that the internet age has made things worse for all of us. We are in a hurry for our information, and read only part way through things before we frame our response. For instance, this morning I got an email from a reader of my book Simply Beautiful Boxes. He is a very capable cabinet maker but had not understood a sequence of photos which he could have understood if he had read the text. Also, I got a response to an email in which the correspondent had missed the primary point my earlier message had made. If our minds are too full of constant chatter, there is no-one listening, and there is no capacity for observation. How can we listen if we are full of ourselves? And so there is a need to slow things down. A walk in the woods can do that.

I asked my students to be silent. I asked them to walk with attention to quiet feet, as though we are on the track of wild game that must not be frightened. That is one of the better lessons we might learn from our nation's tribal heritage. Today they did well. As shown in the photos, we also made a travois, and tested it.

Make, fix and create...

make it easy?

2012-01-31T11:01:00.001-06:00

There is a delicate balance a teacher walks as lessons are planned and projects designed. In order for a child to grow, he or she must find success. That success gives the child some encouragement and inclination to proceed toward even greater success. But also, for a child to grow, he or she must be challenged by doing difficult things that risk failure. Mistakes are made. Otto Salomon had said that the value of the carpenter's work is in the object the carpenter makes, but the value of the student's work is in the student... in his or her intelligence and character derived from the effort to learn. That development of character and intelligence is directly the result of that delicate balance between success and failure. Often the greatest strength of character involves the willingness to engage and persistence toward success. A child with those character traits nailed, will inevitably find success.

If you've been a woodworker for as long as I have, you are aware of many of the things that can go wrong in the making of an object. And when you ask a child do the work, other things that you did not anticipate come into play, offering even greater obstacles to the child's success. For instance, a simple pull saw may operate differently in the hands of a child that in the hands of a trained craftsman. Just as there are things in the mind to learn there are actions in the body that must be refined in order to actually do any given thing. Successful cutting with a saw can also be dependent on strength... a thing often overlooked by adults with strong hands.

And so this is a challenge I wrestle with all the time. Do I set up jigs so the kid's work will be more successful with less effort, or do I avoid the jigs, make children more dependent on their own measurements, and allow them to learn from their own mistakes?

Australian shop teacher Richard Bazeley has been working on a jig (shown above) for cutting that will make things easier for children to hold their stock square and secure as it is cut. It can be adapted for either a pull saw or push variety and uses a cam to hold the material tight to the fence as it is cut. I have made earlier jigs that I have grown frustrated with, so I am looking for improvement. I think Richard is onto something. The test will come when children and saws put it to use. In an ideal world, students would have a sense of straight and square, but these things only come from attention and practice, making mistakes and through seeing the effects faulty attention and careless work.

Blog reader and children's woodworking author Jack McKee sent another technique for straight cutting shown in the photo below. He also suggests that readers visit Sherina Poorman's Build-it Bus. It is a great example of a church getting involved in our children's need for hands-on learning.

Make, fix and create...

Strå, kvist, gren...

2012-01-30T07:57:00.004-06:00

Straw, twig, branch...

These were among the materials that formed the foundation of human culture.

This morning I picked up an old notebook which I brought back from Sweden and in which I had written notes about a revolution in education based upon crafts. I had been looking for a notebook to keep at my bedside to record dreams, as part of an assignment for a Jung study group, but I put this one back on my desk as the notes seemed important enough to look at again.

These notes were jotted down as I was listening to a lecture by Lois Hetland, author of Studio Thinking. You might enjoy reading a bit from Lois Hetland direct, Why do we need the studio thinking framework anyway? Or you might enjoy reading one of my earlier posts, Arts and Smarts.

Today I had classes with the 4th, 5th and 6th grade students and high school. The elementary students worked on their sand boxes and the high school students made tools. A wood handled stone tool is shown above. Dax used raw hide strips they tanned themselves to make the leather wrap to attach the stone to wood.

Make, fix and create...

[sealed] No user service required...

2012-01-29T07:56:00.009-06:00

Opening the case will void your warranty. If you've visited a Toyota dealer lately and looked under the hoods of various models, you will find fields of plastic sealing the motors from view except for places to check the fluid levels. Remember when you used to open the hood and check the belts and watch to see that everything worked? No more. So while it may seem we have the world at our fingertips, we are being trained in disengagement from direct, local, physical reality. The idea is that if things look very simple, we will assume that they are. The message is clear... Everything small and everything complex should be left to the professionals, for fear of our screwing something up.

Friendship box made in OZ

Is that the world we want for our kids? We start them off as toddlers playing with high-tech wondrous devices, beyond their understanding but have forgotten the equally wondrous play with blocks. I am reminded of a woman who came up to me after I spoke about the Wisdom of the Hands at a conference. She had given woodworking tools to her grandson, but her daughter in law would not let them in the house. Her son, she said, would make a mess. And so she would rather make a mess of her child's mind than get sawdust on the rug.

Keeping our children entertained with digital devices is easier for parents to contend with than tools, easier than blocks. The messes made under glass will never need to be cleaned up and put away. Cleanup's automatic when the device is turned off. But if we want our children to grow up to be more than just consumers of objects and information, slaves to economic conditions and the twisted notions of those who would control them. We must give them more-- real tools, real materials, real gardens to plant, real opportunities to directly explore physical reality, if we want them to grow up with any real capabilities and self-confidence in the real world.

Richard Bazeley in Australia has made his own prototype of the friendship box for use with his students that is shown in the photo above. I like his lid keeper design, and that his nails were set and filled, giving a neater look overall. It makes a nice box (approved by Richard's teenage daughter). And it is nice to know that these friendship boxes will be made on the other side of the world from Eureka Springs. You could say that these are international friendship boxes, with the design having now traveled from one continent to another, engaging hands in shop classes in each. Richard used the technique of aligning the sharp edges of the nails cross grain, and was pleased to note that there were no splits, even in pine which is typically more brittle than the wood we've used at CSS.

On a related subject, the Arkansas remediation rate dropped from 52.5% in 2010 to 49.3% in 2011. That means that this last year, only 49.3% of students entering college in Arkansas were not ready for college. The remediation rate, even showing a slight improvement illustrates a glaring failure of our educational system, a waste of money, delayed entry into the job market, and is an embarrassment for our state. The train of thought was that by testing students and holding their teachers accountable for student success, students would end up with world class educations. But the train of thought left the station without as many kids as we would have hoped. The truth is that world class education will only come when students are engaged hands-on. To state, "engaged hands-on" is a redundant notion. By keeping students' hands stilled and unexpressive of learning, we stifle engagement, nail shut the doors of student interest, and watch the eyes glaze over in boredom. Instead lets:

break, make, fix and create...

Dengineering

2012-01-28T12:26:00.010-06:00

Click to view in larger size.

I am coining a new term that describes taking things apart to learn how they work. Dengineering is short for de-engineering. The idea is not the same as reverse engineering where the intent is to copy the way things are made, but rather to simply learn.

Later when students have a background in the working of things, they can take what they've learned and actually make something. The idea comes from 4 things. As a kid, my father gave me things that had broken that I was allowed to take apart. Secondly professor Alex Slocum at MIT had mentioned in a conversation that "kids need to be breaking things." In other words, what good is an old iPad if you can't break it open and learn something from what's inside?

The third thing was that as I was headed to the recycling center, I wondered how to remove the battery from the cordless tooth brush that was no longer in use. I had to smash it with a hammer to get the battery out, but in the process found an intricate electric motor that would have completely fascinated me as a kid.

The fourth thing is rather disappointing. A friend in New England, who has had many years as a successful woodworking teacher was informed that the administration is closing her wood shop. She asked for ideas from the veterans in the New England Association of Woodworking Teachers, and dengineering is my proposal. Dengineering can be done on the smallest of budgets. The materials for dengineering are to be found in every household for free. Why throw away so much educational value.

The way dengineering would work is as follows. Students spend one semester taking things apart, learning why and how they are put together as they are. Make reports on what they've learned. They keep all the motors, diodes, chargers and the like, and then second semester, make something from what they've learned.

The idea is to get children to understand that every thing is of educational value. Even a thing as simple as a nail invites investigation and understanding. The idea that sometimes nails split the wood and sometimes do not invites close scrutiny. The illustration above should make my point, and also put the use of nails and the avoidance of splits within grasp, both intellectually and physically. And what good is intellect if it does not bring an understanding of reality and the capacity to do real things? And what good is information if you don't test it in your own hanDs? Take a nail, and observe its qualities. Check the markings I describe. Once trained to understand nails you can roll them in your fingers and feel the right orientation to drive them split free into wood. Your fingers will sense when the sharp edges are perpendicular to the direction of the grain, and you will marvel that you'd never noticed this before. A simple nail is symbolic of our relationship with technology. We take it for granted without fathoming its full depth and many implications.

Make, fix, and create...

Friendship box...

2012-01-26T21:25:00.004-06:00

This drawing shows the most recent "friendship" box design at the Clear Spring School. If you can follow the steps described in yesterday's post, you can make these boxes with your child using materials ripped from common 2x4 lumber. Prepare the stock by resawing material 1/4 in. thick on the table saw and and cut the ends from 1/2 x 1 1/2 in. stock. Your student or child, using a hand saw and vise, can cut the front, back, bottom and top to length, and then nail the parts together using 3/4 in. #18 gauge nails. You will need a 1 1/2 in. long 1/4 in. dowel to attach the pivoting lid. Glue the dowel in the hole drilled into the end of the box and also glue the dowel to the keeper on top. The lid pivots on the dowel and is kept from coming off by the keeper which consists of a larger dowel or octagonal block cut to a 3/8 in. length.

This is a good project to follow the math facts box as the skills involved are similar though the project is slightly more complex.

Be careful not to glue the box permanently closed. Open and close the box as the glue sets to avoid having it get stuck.

The idea of the friendship box comes from the boxes that children at summer camps in the late 19th century would make and share in remembrance of the bonds formed among friends.

Make, fix and create...

math facts and more...

2012-01-26T09:31:00.003-06:00

The Wisdom of the Hands project was not only designed to tell why children need to be engaged in hands-on learning, but also to mark a path forward to do it. When we started my program at the Clear Spring School, we wanted to demonstrate how the wood shop could be used to increase the viability and direct use of the hands throughout the learning experience and throughout school. So I have focused our efforts on making tools. The simple math facts box is a great organizational tool because it is not finished when it leaves wood shop, but is brought to completion when the students have filled the box and their minds with the important foundation for their advancement in math.

Richard Bazeley, shop teacher in Australia, asked for permission to use this project with his kids. All my readers are welcome to use what I publish here to enhance your own child's hands-on participation in woodworking and education. So, here are the instructions. You can click on the drawing above to access it in a larger size.

I often use common 2x4 lumber for many of the projects at Clear Spring School. It can be ripped to various sizes and thicknesses, and the math facts boxes are made with hemlock or fir pre-cut studs, as these can be purchased at a low price and fair quality. The nominal size of an American 2 x 4 is 1 1/2 in. thick x 3 1/2 in. wide. I suggest adapting the size to your own system of measure based on the materials you have available.

I first cut the 2x4 in half to make it manageable on the table saw and then rip 1/4 in. strips from it. Each math facts box will require 16 inches of this stock. Rip additional material from 2x4 stock to a 1 in square dimension. To cut down on the amount of sawing in the wood shop when the kids arrive and because cutting very small blocks is almost too difficult for them, I cut the end parts using the sled on the table saw to a length of 2 in. To start the project each child is given these two end pieces and one piece 1/4 in. thick x 1 1/2 in. wide x 16 in. long from which to cut the bottom and front and back parts.

Before the kids begin, it will help to have a finished model assembled and an extra set of parts cut so I can demonstrate how it goes together.

We have a variety of hand saws available at Clear Spring School. Lately, I've been experimenting with a hand-powered miter saw to see if the kids can use it to achieve square edges and more accurate dimensions on their cuts. But I am ready to give that saw up and settle for less accurate work. To help the kids with that saw requires me rather than the vise to hold the stock for each cut, and it takes away from their opportunity to make mistakes. So perhaps best is to use a ruler, square and pencil to measure and mark the parts for free-hand cutting with the wood secured in a vise. This project is a great opportunity to teach math concepts like square, the use of the ruler or tape measure, and accurate marking on wood. Having a sharp pencil is important as it has effect on the accuracy and thickness of the marked line.

After the parts are cut, the students use our large steel stamp letter set to stamp their names in the wood on the front side of what will become their math facts box. We use 3/4 in. long #18 nails to attach the sides and bottom to the two ends pieces. It is important to carefully align the edges of the front, back and bottom with the edges of the end pieces. Expect lots of bent nails. Expect some split wood. The nails must be driven away from the center of the end pieces so that when the holes are drilled for the pencil and scissors, they will not interfere and mess up the drill bit. You will note in the illustration that the holes are off center to avoid nails.

When the math facts box is assembled, the students take turns drilling the holes. I hold the math facts box in position on the drill press as the children drill these deep holes. Because of the depth I remind them when the bit should be lifted to remove sawdust that has filled the hole causing heat to build up. We use a 5/16 in. drill for the hole for pencils and 1/2 in. for scissors and each are drilled to a depth of 2 in.

Students in first, 2nd and 3rd grade love to personalize their math facts boxes using markers. As they grow, this part of the process becomes less important to them, as greater quality of workmanship becomes too important to hide behind color.

The students make their own cards and write the correct answer on the back. We put a divider card in place so that those facts that have been mastered can be put behind the divider at the back. The math facts boxes can also be used for other things like vocabulary words and facts related to other studies.

There is one little secret to nails that most of the finest carpenters will not know but that can keep you or your students from splitting wood. To make use of this secret requires close observation of each nail as it is positioned to drive into the wood. This secret is an unintended consequence of the way in which they are made, but can be used to your advantage. When nails are made, wire is pressed between two dies that form its head and point. The process leaves a small mark across the top of the head, and two sharp edges at the point on opposite sides and parallel to the mark on the head. These sharp edges when properly aligned cut into the grain, allow the nail to pierce the wood without splitting if the sharp edges are positioned at a 90 degree angle to the direction of the grain. If the nail is positioned so that these edges parallel the grain, the point of the nail works as a wedge splitting the wood. On very small nails like those used in this project, the line at the top, and the tiny edges require close scrutiny. The edges are also sharp enough that you can determine proper orientation by feel. But learning the value of close observation is one more thing that students can learn in wood shop. This can be presented as a lesson on the value of close observation. And students can test themselves to see if the lesson is true.

With the students' names stamped on the box, and it providing a place for other important tools of learning, the math facts box serves important organizational functions that make the children much more interested in making it than for math alone. They are excited to have a place for their tools, and loved this project.

On another subject, related of course is this from the New York Times: In China, Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad
There is indeed a moral dilemma as we contemplate turning the education of our children over to high tech devices. What depth of learning do we hope for them? What kinds of moral citizens do we hope to create through our process of education?

Seriously, make, fix and create...

Finland, where every child matters...

2012-01-25T19:08:00.000-06:00

This is another view of Finland Schools that is illuminating.

Make, fix and create...

iPhones and the challenge at hand...

2012-01-25T07:42:00.006-06:00

Math facts box for 1st, 2nd and 3rd grades

This article in the New York Times illustrates the challenge involved in restoring American manufacturing. Apple, America and the Squeezed Middle Class. The article questions whether or not the US will ever be able to compete successfully against China in the making of consumer electronics. Perhaps not. And perhaps never. But should we try to maintain our creative edge?


Nails bend. Getting them straight is not just a matter of luck.

I got a call yesterday from an editor at American TV news program, ABC Nightline, researching a story on the use of iPhones, iPads and similar devices by by toddlers. The editor was wanting someplace to go to get a clearer sense of why despite the obvious attraction of leaving your child occupied and entertained by these devices, they are not the best developmental tools for our children's growth. The cute photos showing children engaged with these devices tells an enchanting and deceptive tale of engagement. The statistics and correlations of that engagement... a wide range of undesirable symptoms in those children tells a more frightening tale. If you want more information do a bit of research on your own either in this blog or on google. Use the search term "screen time" in this blog (box at top left), or "screen time and kids" on google. We watch kids manipulating the devices and think, "Isn't she smart?" when the intelligence is really only built into the box and what we should be noticing is how the device so effectively distracts the child from real life, and from engagement in it.

Lev Grossman, writer for Time Magazine had called the woman who told him of the direct harm to his child, "Suzie Joykiller." She had shattered his illusions of all the wonderful things he hoped technology was doing for his child. What about hand and eye coordination? These high tech parents ask. Try scissors.

Progressive education really means growth from within the child toward the embrace of the world at large and all the learning available within that expanding, progressive relationship. It begins with the family, proceeds from the school, through the community and through the culture. It explains why children in the primary grades used to visit their local fire stations. It wasn't just for fun but to expand the child's conception of self.

Otto Salomon, one of the primary co-founders of Educational Sloyd described progressive education in his prescription, "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." Anyone watching a toddler with an iPhone will see that they are interested in it. The easy manipulation of images on the iPhone screen can be addictive and for some has become a thing better known than the real world that surrounds them. You can become lost in it, distracted by it. But it all misses being developmental on two fronts. It is not concrete, does not lead from the concrete to the abstract, but rather begins in abstraction and it does not lead from the easy to the more difficult except in the least concrete of terms. It fosters far too little responsive, creative engagement in either family or community and no actual creativity, that William James had referred to as "correlative expression."

Ed Tenner had written a piece for the New York Times, telling that laptops are not laps, and that children need the latter. I referred the editor from Nightline to friends at the Alliance for Childhood. If we want our children to be creative, leading our future in ways that restore success to our nation, progressive education, including such things as play with blocks, would be a good way to begin.

Today the first, 2nd and 3rd grade students at Clear Spring School used saws and hammers, real wood and nails to make desk accessories to hold a pencil, scissors and their math facts. It will make their study more interesting and help them to better organize their desks. The prototype is shown in the photo above. I have fun designing projects that build step by step on their skills, and seeing their pride in their finished work.

Make, fix and create...

correlation...

2012-01-24T07:04:00.004-06:00

The following is from William James, Talks to Teachers on Psychology.

"No reception without reaction, no impression without correlative expression,—this is the great maxim which the teacher ought never to forget.

An impression which simply flows in at the pupil's eyes or ears, and in no way modifies his active life, is an impression gone to waste. It is physiologically incomplete. It leaves no fruits behind it in the way of capacity acquired. Even as mere impression, it fails to produce its proper effect upon the memory; for, to remain fully among the acquisitions of this latter faculty, it must be wrought into the whole cycle of our operations. Its motor consequences are what clinch it. Some effect due to it in the way of an activity must return to the mind in the form of the sensation of having acted, and connect itself with the impression. The most durable impressions are those on account of which we speak or act, or else are inwardly convulsed."

I read an article on CNN about the educational success of iPads in schools, iPad a solid education tool, study reports. We know that computer technology is having a major impact on every facet of modern culture, and human life. And so the question becomes, how to connect that technology to actual usefulness, and what James referred to as "correlative expression." Correlation was the term educators once used for curriculum integration, where all things even subjects as diverse as literature and math are seen as connected and in relation to each other. Correlation is the process through which students see that all things are related, and that they are also connected, woven so to speak, into the fabric of community and the full breadth of human culture through meaningful service to others.

To put most simply, we learn best those things which we are able to put to use in our homes and in our communities through meaningful service to others. The iPad can be a successful tool in that endeavor, but we must not forget all the other tools necessary to make human correlative response something greater than fingers sliding effortlessly over glass.

Today in the CS wood shop, some of my 7th, 8th and 9th grade students worked on automata, and others worked on the development of old time woodworking hands skills. The plane being used in the image above is a new design bevel-up smoother made by Veritas. New also to our wood shop, I allowed my 7th, 8th and 9th graders to spend time sharpening them and learning how to plane wood flat and square on the edges. It's an exercise I did in 7th grade wood shop, except that I was not allowed to sharpen the plane irons before use. Woodworking is not simply learned in the head, but must be learned in the hands, eyes and body as well. In order to do hand-tool woodworking well, one must sense a relationship with gravitational forces, the angle of hand and wrist and be deeply engaged in observing the effects of one's labor. Some, having too little understanding of reality would consider it "noncognitive."

Make, fix and create...

smart kids...

2012-01-23T06:49:00.004-06:00

Learning is the most natural thing on earth. And yet we have difficulty getting children in schools to learn. How can that be? For the second time this week I quote Williams James from his book Talks to Teachers on Psychology because he hits the nail on its head:

"Constructiveness is another great instinctive tendency with which the schoolroom has to contract an alliance. Up to the eighth or ninth year of childhood one may say that the child does hardly anything else than handle objects, explore things with his hands, doing and undoing, setting up and knocking down, putting together and pulling apart; for, from the psychological point of view, construction and destruction are two names for the same manual activity. Both signify the production of change, and the working of effects, in outward things. The result of all this is that intimate familiarity with the physical environment, that acquaintance with the properties of material things, which is really the foundation of human consciousness. To the very last, in most of us, the conceptions of objects and their properties are limited to the notion of what we can do with them. A 'stick' means something we can lean upon or strike with; 'fire,' something to cook, or warm ourselves, or burn things up withal; 'string,' something with which to tie things together. For most people these objects have no other meaning. In geometry, the cylinder, circle, sphere, are defined as what you get by going through certain processes of construction, revolving a parallelogram upon one of its sides, etc. The more different kinds of things a child thus gets to know by treating and handling them, the more confident grows his sense of kinship with the world in which he lives. An unsympathetic adult will wonder at the fascinated hours which a child will spend in putting his blocks together and rearranging them. But the wise education takes the tide at the flood, and from the kindergarten upward devotes the first years of education to training in construction and to object-teaching. I need not recapitulate here what I said awhile back about the superiority of the objective and experimental methods. They occupy the pupil in a way most congruous with the spontaneous interests of his age. They absorb him, and leave impressions durable and profound. Compared with the youth taught by these methods, one brought up exclusively by books carries through life a certain remoteness from reality: he stands, as it were, out of the pale, and feels that he stands so; and often suffers a kind of melancholy from which he might have been rescued by a more real education.

Early educators from Comenius, to Francis Bacon, to Pestalozzi, Froebel, Cygnaeus, Dewey, and Montessori, all held in common the understanding that the handling of objects, the examination of them through the senses, the making of things having useful beauty, were all essential to the processes of learning and growth. What more can I say? Education is not a matter of making kids smart... Kids are already moving on their own in that direction, and it is time to stop standing in their way, but rather make best use of their own natural inclinations. Today, one of my 6th grade students (a girl) said, "I wish I could always be in wood shop." I know just how she feels.

Make, fix and create...

estrangement from whole self...

2012-01-22T07:40:00.007-06:00

Participants wore a bulky ski glove on one hand, with the other glove dangling from the same wrist, while arranging dominoes on a table. Right-handers who wore the glove on their right hand became functionally left-handed, causing them to make good-bad judgements like natural left-handers. (Credit: Image courtesy of Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics)

Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain.-- Carl Jung

Those who watch American politics have probably noticed that these may be among the most politically radicalized and contentious times in American history. The days leading up to the Civil War were worse, but parties described as being left and right seem to be firmly entrenched in their positions, and it may be hard to find middle ground as one party or the other is pushed to its extremes. You might find it interesting as I do that politics are framed as spatial positions left or right, rather than as particular ideas.

In boxing you put on gloves. In street fighting, you might take them off, but can wearing or not wearing a single glove effect the way we think, and how we process our ideas? In last night's reading, I found that it can, and I think you, too will find this article and research fascinating: A glove on your hand can change your mind.

Unconsciously, right-handers associate good with the right side of space and bad with the left. But this association can be rapidly changed, according to a study published online March 9, 2011 in Psychological Science, by MPI researcher Daniel Casasanto and Evangelia Chrysikou (University of Pennsylvania). Even a few minutes of using the left hand more fluently than the right can reverse right-handers' judgments of good and bad, making them think that the left is the 'right side' of space. Conceptions of good and bad are rooted in people's bodily experiences, and can change when patterns of bodily experience change.

Researcher Daniel Casasanto, had noticed that Right handers would choose products or make decisions based on what they saw presented from the rigth side, but that if their dominant hand was partially impaired by wearing a single ski glove, their choices changed.

To test this theory, Casasanto and colleagues studied how natural right-handers think about good and bad when their right hand is handicapped, either due to brain injury or something much less extreme: wearing a ski glove. Stroke patients completed a task that reveals implicit associations between space and goodness in healthy participants. Patients who had lost the use of their left hand showed the usual right-is-good pattern. But patients who lost the use of their right hand following damage to the left-hemisphere of the brain associated good with left, like natural left-handers.

The same pattern was found in healthy university students who performed a motor fluency task while wearing a bulky glove on either their left hand (which preserved their right-handedness) or on their right hand, which turned them temporarily into left-handers. After about 12 minutes of lopsided motor experience, the right-gloved participants' judgements on an unrelated task showed a good-is-left bias, like natural left-handers.

Those who are involved in crafts, therefore, using both the left and right hands may have some advantages in dealing with complex decision making in that they may be less impulsive and more deliberative rather than automatically resorting to stock decisions based on left or right handedness. It may be that the notion that so many early educators shared, that the use of crafts for all in education would help build students who were whole, balanced and "all-sided," would have led us away from the political dissension that dominates the news, and has crippled the response to our economic crisis.

I have been reading Jung's Red Book, which is profusely illustrated and written in careful calligraphy and I had been led to this research by an interest in how the hands express the unconscious mind. Evidently they do, and they can. Carl Jung had said, "Hands, whose shape and function are intimately connected with the psyche, might provide revealing, and therefor interpretable, expressions of psychological peculiarity, that is, of human character." He was referring to the study of psycho-chirology, an advanced form of palm-reading. He may have been a bit off in his speculation. But it seems that an examination of the hands and how they function in relation to human thought will be revealing.

I will be interviewed on EdTalk Radio this afternoon at 4:10 PM Central, or 10:10 PM GMT

Make, fix and create...

creating a culture of learning...

2012-01-21T15:48:00.003-06:00

Several years ago, Clear Spring School was approached by parents in a nearby city wanting to duplicate our school in their town, making the quality and character of our education more easily available to them. But how can someone duplicate a culture of learning?

Educational visitors hoping to learn something from Finland face the same dilemma. How can they take advantage of the Finnish success story? Is there some small thing that can be copied, or must the whole system be duplicated? That would seem an impossible task.

A friend Elliot Washor, co-founder with Dennis Littky of the Met School and Big Picture Schools sent me a book about the life and educational effects of Uno Cygnaeus published in English on the two hundredth anniversary of his birth. One cannot fully understand the success of Finnish schools without understanding the contributions of Uno Cygnaeus and those who influenced the development of his thoughts about education. If you are interested you may find some important insight in this book, In the Spirit of Uno Cygnaeus--Pedagogical Questions of Today and Tomorrow.

The book was published by the University of Jyväskylä, the school Uno Cygnaeus established to educate teachers for his folk schools. One thing you will learn early on in the book was that Cygnaeus was regarded as a national hero, and that same sense of heroic regard for teachers was a thing that transferred and became part of the Finnish National Culture. You can see how far we've yet to go in American Educational reform. Cygnaeus also believed that ALL students should be exposed to the dignity and honor of honest labor.

Make, fix and create...

Talks to Teachers on Psychology...

2012-01-20T23:05:00.007-06:00

Tomorrow, I will have my third interview on EdTalkRadio, withPaul Preston. You can listen live at 2:10 PM Pacific Time, 4:10 PM Central, 5:10 PM Eastern, 10:10 PM GMT.

William James, one of the famous founders of modern psychology, was an advocate for manual arts in school for the following reasons:

Constructiveness is another great instinctive tendency with which the schoolroom has to contract an alliance. Up to the eighth or ninth year of childhood one may say that the child does hardly anything else than handle objects, explore things with his hands, doing and undoing, setting up and knocking down, putting together and pulling apart; for, from the psychological point of view, construction and destruction are two names for the same manual activity. Both signify the production of change, and the working of effects, in outward things. The result of all this is that intimate familiarity with the physical environment, that acquaintance with the properties of material things, which is really the foundation of human consciousness. To the very last, in most of us, the conceptions of objects and their properties are limited to the notion of what we can do with them. A 'stick' means something we can lean upon or strike with; 'fire,' something to cook, or warm ourselves, or burn things up withal; 'string,' something with which to tie things together. For most people these objects have no other meaning. In geometry, the cylinder, circle, sphere, are defined as what you get by going through certain processes of construction, revolving a parallelogram upon one of its sides, etc. The more different kinds of things a child thus gets to know by treating and handling them, the more confident grows his sense of kinship with the world in which he lives. An unsympathetic adult will wonder at the fascinated hours which a child will spend in putting his blocks together and rearranging them. But the wise education takes the tide at the flood, and from the kindergarten upward devotes the first years of education to training in construction and to object-teaching. I need not recapitulate here what I said awhile back about the superiority of the objective and experimental methods. They occupy the pupil in a way most congruous with the spontaneous interests of his age. They absorb him, and leave impressions durable and profound. Compared with the youth taught by these methods, one brought up exclusively by books carries through life a certain remoteness from reality: he stands, as it were, out of the pale, and feels that he stands so; and often suffers a kind of melancholy from which he might have been rescued by a more real education.

Some of my reader may recall that William James had written an endorsement of Educational Sloyd.

Today in the wood shop I will continue inlaying the lids for small boxes so they will be ready to hinge and assemble. In addition to Wm. James book, Talks to Teachers on Psychology,I am also reading Jung's Red Book. It was unpublished until recently, and was illustrated with Jung's small paintings, and was all hand written in calligraphy. It is a fascinating look at the intersection between speculative science and the arts. I suspect that Jung would have found interest in the wisdom of the hands. Can the hands be an access point for and examination of the unconscious? I think that is an area in which Wm. James and Jung would have found agreement.

Make, fix and create...

odds and ends...

2012-01-20T16:01:00.001-06:00

Today we began firing high school student clay projects in a barrel filled with sawdust. The idea is to do a rather primitive wood firing. It is experimental. We will see what results when the fire cools, and will unpack the barrel on Monday. If it works, we may do more. I had been a professional potter years ago, and if it can be as easy as this, I may get back in again to make a few things for fun.

We started with a lining of dried grasses, then laid a 4 inch deep layer of sawdust at the bottom. Each pot was filled with sawdust and wrapped in magazine paper to impart coloring oxides, and common newspaper tied with string. We covered all with layers of deep sawdust. Then a blazing fire of scrap wood was built at the top of the barrel and when it had burned down sufficiently, the lid was placed on to slow the burn and assure a reduction environment.

Also today, we assembled the 4th, 5th and 6th grade fish mobile and hung it in their classroom today.

I was contacted by the ABC News program Nightline, wanting to know my opinion on toddlers being given iPads and iPhones and other technology to play with. My opinion was pretty well stated in an earlier post.

Also, the following: You may have noticed that Sesame Street is trying to make a big change in their program design to lay greater emphasis on science, technology, engineering and math. STEM. Our schools screwed up badly when they abandoned wood shops and finally people are starting to notice the mess educators and politicians have made of things by failing to teach real things hands-on.

I got an iPad for Christmas. It is a wonderful device. It is so well deigned and so easy to use. Right out of the box with no learning curve and no instruction. But if we are trading high tech for low tech in the education of our children we are making them consumers of technology rather than creative users and inventors of it.

As a nation, we became so worried about students getting their fair share of technology. Parents come to a state of urgency in buying what they think will be their children's glorious futures as technology users. When my daughter started school all parents were worried that if they didn't get computers in the home and in schools ASAP, their children would be left behind. One point that is missed is that computer technology is designed to make things easier and easier for everyone who owns the device or the program. That means that the thrust of things is to no longer need skill or expertise of any kind. That means that for many children, they will no longer have anything to offer of value as any Tom, Dick or Harry with the same devices will offer the same stuff created with less and less effort or skill.

On the other hand, learning to do things that are difficult and challenging offer a far greater sense of creativity, sense of self, sense of self-actualization, and sense of fulfillment.

I get kids in school that have never learned to use scissors. I have had first grade students disappointed in the wood shop because we didn't have computer games for them to play. But children learn to find joy in doing things that can be hard for them, that contain challenges and through which they can demonstrate skill and expertise. It is even more glorious for them when the things they have created are tangible evidence of learning.

I am fine with kids playing with their parents iPad and iPhones, as long as they are given a much healthier dose of real hands-on creativity using real tools. iPads are great entertainment if that's all we want to offer. It is interesting that Buckminster Fuller first began constructing forms based on the triangle when he was in Kindergarten. Being nearly blind, he was working with sticks and peas, and while the other children worked on rectilinear objects that made visual sense to them, Fuller worked with triangles that had real strength. Frank Lloyd Wright laid down his architectural roots playing with blocks in Kindergarten.

So it would be tragic for our children and our culture to neglect all the other forms of creative technology that actually invite children to do real things, rather than merely participate in the entertainment that our devices so effortlessly provide. Let's not forget that saws, hammers, knitting needles and all other tools of craftsmanship are technology, too.

You might find it interesting that many of the most successful executives from Silicon Valley send their children to a Waldorf School where their exposure to high tech devices is restricted and object lessons in the use of real tools is assured.

My show at the Historic Arkansas Museum opened yesterday as shown in the photos at left and below.

Make, fix and create...

Today in the wood shop...

2012-01-19T08:08:00.002-06:00

This article, Finland’s education system is tops: Here’s why presents a nice overview of Finnish schools, which should help us to understand the things they do differently from us, and may help us to examine those areas in which we could most easily change and do better. "Policy makers, educators, and the media can take a lesson from Finland." One simple thing is that while we start pushing reading in Kindergarten (age 5), they begin formal education in reading at age 7 which means that by the time their students are tested at age 15 in the international PISA study, they far surpass American students in 25% less time. That alone should be telling us something. That when children have a bit more unpressed time to be ready to read, it may come more easily for them. My mother, as a Kindergarten teacher was trained to observe whether or not a child could skip. Skipping indicated effective cross-lateral integration between the brain hemispheres. Pushing a child to read before readiness was not only considered to be wasted effort, but could also destroy the child's interest in reading. In Finland:

Formal reading instruction begins at age seven, when children enter the comprehensive school.
Parents, community, and the culture itself support reading.
Schools have aroused student interest in reading, and students are interested in and engaged in reading.
Students read highly diverse materials.
Finland has a comprehensive network of libraries, which have separate departments for children and youth.

One of the things you can see is the effective partnership between home, school and community that is often lacking in American education. Uno Cygnaeus and Otto Salomon, co-founders of the educational Sloyd movement made a particular point of creating a sense of partnership and shared responsibility between home and school. And sadly we got off on the wrong foot in American education. Cygnaeus was the founder of the Finnish Folk Schools in the 1860s. He built the Folk Schools on the Kindergarten model, and used educational Sloyd to extend the kindergarten teaching method into the upper grades. The things the students made were designed to be useful in the home, assuring that parents found ways to feel connected with and support what their children were learning in school.

Readers might also be interested in this article, 11 Surprising Things that Determine Your Success in School. If you are a regular reader in the blog, you will find that many of the surprising things are not all that surprising, but the article makes a neat package for sharing with those who have college bound children. Even a thing as simple as understanding the importance of a good night's sleep could could make a difference in a student's success.

I will spend the day today in my own wood shop, inlaying the lids for all the many boxes I have in production. Each year at this time, I anticipate sales for the coming year, and fill holes left in my inventory by the holiday season.

Part of the wonder of woodworking is the opportunity to take something with no readily apparent value and make something beautiful from it. The same principle applies to all of economics. Those who understand values that others may not perceive have the upper hand. The photo above is of spalted wood found at the roadside in Eureka Springs that will be sliced thin and used as inlay in the making of wooden boxes.

Make, fix and create...

Those first two years of school...

2012-01-18T07:13:00.003-06:00

The first two years of school are absolutely critical to children's success. It is where they learn whether or not they like school, whether or not they are "smart" in school and whether or not they will find success within the school walls. Remember what I have mentioned before about children walking. Some walk as early as 7 or 8 months, and some not until a full year has passed. And yet we know that exactly when they walk is no exact determinant for future success. Parents are told not to worry. But as children grow, the window as to when each developmental marker takes place widens, not narrows, and so when children reach school age it is unreasonable to expect children to be reading ready at exactly the same time. In the US, students are pushed to begin reading in school at age 5, and in Finland, age 7, so by the time children are tested in the International PISA test they far surpass American students in 25% less time.

If that's the case, what are children to do in school, particularly in those important first years? The following is from Comenius (1592-1670), first great proponent of education:

"Boys ever delight in being occupied in something for the youthful blood does not allow them to be at rest. Now as this is very useful, it ought not to be restrained, but provision made that they may always have something to do. Let them be like ants, continually occupied in doing something, carrying, drawing, construction and transporting, provided always that whatever they do be done prudently. They ought to be assisted by showing them the forms of all things, even of playthings; for they cannot yet be occupied in real work, and we should play with them."

In other words, children's activities, their hands-on explorations, are a useful resources that educators should use, not waste, for in wasting their most natural inclinations, we damage them in ways only succeeding and preceding generations may understand. The impact of too-soon-forced academics has greater effect on boys and even greater effect on those boys from poor communities where parents have less time to reinforce important developmental values.

Today in the Clear Spring School wood shop, first, 2nd and 3rd grade students continued making friendship boxes.

Make, fix and create...

HAM

2012-01-17T17:46:00.002-06:00

I made a quick trip to the Historic Arkansas Museum this morning to deliver 16 small cabinets for my show beginning on Thursday. On the way down, I listened to a radio talk show from North Little Rock in which they were discussing the crisis in Little Rock Schools. It is difficult listening to a grandmother, Mary Jones, who knows by her study of statistics that one or more of her grandchildren will probably end up in jail having not been captured and turned into something more by an educational system that is failing far too many kids.

I wanted to call in and offer my simple formula for engagement. It may seem overly simplistic when the problems are so large, but to enable children to be creative and expressive, making things of useful beauty with their own hands can bring a 180° change in children's lives. But educators and politicians are so far out of touch, my offering is a direction that none consider. And so that is exactly why I keep making the same simple point again and again and again.

Make, fix and create...

moron NCLB...

2012-01-16T09:11:00.002-06:00

The article on No Child Left Behind legislation in this week's Time Magazine is really quite good at describing its effects...

"Signed into law by George W. Bush on Jan. 8, 2002, No Child Left Behind was a long-awaited shift toward accountability, but despite its admirable intentions and the measurable gains it has produced in the past 10 years, the good no longer outweighs the bad. Teachers and administrators say NCLB sets impossibly high standards and has narrowed curriculums, forcing teachers to teach to the tests, and it has labeled far too many schools as "in need of improvement," creating a race to the bottom as states dumb down their standards to ensure that more of their schools meet NCLB's rigid benchmarks."

Any teacher can tell you that the NCLB legislation has had harsh impact on students and within each class. And you might enjoy reading an earlier post, that Children are not Clockwork. Some children begin walking as early as 7 or 8 months, and some begin as late as a year or more, and where a child lies in that window of development means almost nothing relative to the child's long range development. But lay on a grid, and put a child into classes where children are all tested and measured and expected to develop and mature at exactly the same pace, and you will have created an educational nightmare, imposing severe limitations for some children, leading them to assume that they are not and will not be capable in certain areas. Math and reading are examples.

We are now, in American Schools, pushing kindergarten students to read too soon and as a result make reading is a chore to be avoided instead of the pleasure of opening the whole world for each child's enthusiastic examination.

According to the Time magazine article, teachers complain that "NCLB has sucked the creativity out of their lesson plans" forcing them to teach only those things that will be on the state tests. As one eighth grade science teacher explained, "the worst thing is when students have questions and interests and I have to say, 'Put your hands down. We don't have time to talk about that.'"

I am once again reminded of this story about Pestalozzi:

Back in the late 1700’s a child in Pestalozzi’s school challenged his teacher, “You want me to learn the word ladder, but you show me a picture. Wouldn’t it be better to go look at the real ladder in the shed?” The teacher was frustrated by the child’s interruption and explained that he would rather not take the whole class outside the building just to look at a ladder. Later, the same child was shown the picture of a window and again interrupted the teacher. “Wouldn’t it be better to talk about the real window that is right there? We don’t even have to go outside to look at it!” The teacher asked Pestalozzi about the incident and was informed that the child was right. Whenever possible children should learn from the real world and the experiences it offers.

Learning is best when it comes first hand.

Make, fix and create...

3 Ds...

2012-01-15T08:27:00.003-06:00

It appears likely at this point that No Child Left Behind legislation will soon be abandoned, itself left behind, as it seems to have garnered a "D" at best in our assessments of its results. Despite 10 years of effort, it did not live up to its lofty goal of improving education for our nation's students. According to some assessments it did the reverse of what was intended. We still have the same high drop out rate, and we still score significantly behind other nations in the international PISA tests.

The greatest problems in modern education can be summarized in the 3 Ds: disengagement, disinterest and disruption. Schools often fail to engage children's innate capacities for learning. In worst cases, students become disruptive of the educational interests and needs of others. At a very early age, children are instructed, "don't touch!" "Keep your hands to yourself!” But the hands and brain comprise an integrated learning/creating system that must be engaged in order to secure the passions and "heart" of our youth. It is the opportunity to be engaged through the hands that brings the seen and known to concrete reality in human experience. Without the opportunity to learn through the hands, the world remains abstract, and distant, and the passions for learning will not be engaged. When the passions ARE engaged and supportive systems (teachers, community resources, technology etc) are in place, students find no mountain is too high, and no concept too complex to withstand the assault of their sustained interest and attention. You don’t have to take my word for this. You can see it in action, and while I can describe my own observations, I know that you, the reader of this material can reflect on times when your passions have been engaged in your own lives and your own learning has been at its height.

So what is the answer to the challenge of engaging the heart in education? Get real. Real life engages the intellect and the imagination. Crafts are an excellent way to bring the real world into the classroom. Real tools, real materials, real work, making real objects with real use. The purpose of the woodshop at Clear Spring is to help all the other subjects become real and engage the hearts and the passions or our students in education. You know what? It really works.

Make, fix and create...

No hands left behind...

2012-01-14T15:43:00.002-06:00

Educational Psychologist David Henry Feldman had proposed a new metaphor for education which he called "the Child as Craftsman." The idea was that children hold the potential for excellence in craftsmanship as part of their innate developmental inclination. By neglecting that inner child of creativity that longs for the development and expression of skill, our children are diminished in nature and in character. Any artist or craftsman reading this blog would immediately understand what most educators seem to have overlooked. I urge all to remember sometime in the past in which we may have spent time striving to be good at something... hours at the free-throw line is just one example. The inclination and motivation to find some area in which a child is able to excel is universal.

The child as craftsman is an essential metaphor for understanding our way forward as American educators, parents, craftsmen and artists of all kinds. Becoming a nation of craftsmen requires that we begin to address the matter of craftsmanship with our children and in our schools and homes. This is not a new topic in the blog. I've written about Feldman many times before and of course I never wander far from the topic of craftsmanship. Use the search block at upper left and type in David Henry Feldman to read more.

Currently the No Child Left Behind Act sets standards for reading and math, but there are other important forms of assessment that David Henry Feldman laid out in two steps.

"The first is simply a restatement of the educational aim of engagement in a more precise form; to the extent that greater numbers of individuals find fields to pursue, find work that engages their energies and through which they derive satisfaction, education can be considered to be making progress."

One of the greatest failings of modern education is that of failure to engage, as children either sit bored and disinterested or become disruptive. Feldman's "second criterion of educational progress" follows from his thoughts about creativity. That if

"education is done well, creative contributions will tend to take care of themselves. In other words, an education which fosters sustained commitment, satisfaction and joy in accomplishment will naturally lead to occasions that require one to go beyond the limits of one's craft. To reach the limits and find yet another problem to be solved, a goal to be achieved, an idea to be expressed, a technique to be worked out--these are the conditions which favor creativity."

Feldman concludes:

"I submit that the twin signs of progress toward a fruitful education for the future are; (1) an increasing number of individuals engaged and committed to pursuit of mastery of their fields and (2) the number of novel, unprecedented, or unique contributions that occur in these fields."

This is not exactly measuring to see if students arise at some artificial minimalized standard of success, but rather an open ended model for assessment that recognizes with today's kids the sky's the limit.

I've spent the morning loading a trailer with small cabinets to deliver to the Historic Arkansas Museum for my show that opens next Friday. It feels great to have so much work safely packed and ready to travel.

Make, fix and create...

On becoming...

2012-01-14T09:06:00.003-06:00

Becoming a nation of craftsmen will not happen overnight. Craftsmen do not simply emerge from the woodwork. Instead, they are nourished, driven, lured, sustained and encouraged in their work by those who care about craftsmanship enough to participate in the growth of others. One could hardly stand in the midst of the beautiful work at Crystal Bridges Museum or in any of our other fine American arts museums and remain untouched by a sense of the beauty and craftsmanship witnessed within.

But how do we form those important bridges between our capacity to sense useful beauty and the duty of patronage through which those with resources encourage the growth of skill, character, intellect and economic resilience within their own communities?

I have a very good friend who might serve as an example. Paul Harvel is the director of the Fort Smith Chamber of Commerce. Each year he buys my work to give as Christmas gifts to his staff. It is a tradition he started over 15 years ago when he was director of the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce. His staff in Fort Smith and his former staff in Little Rock have collections of my work. Can you see how a man or woman, even without being rich can make choices that encourage growth in others?

Ever true to his community, Paul told me that if he can't buy it in the state of Arkansas, he questions whether he needs it at all. And yet, Paul is not shy in the dance of globalization. He works tirelessly to bring manufacturing jobs to Arkansas.

Can you see how this process works? Even without being a craftsman, a person can nurture and sustain fine craftsmanship. Even without being rich, a man or woman can become a patron in the restoration of community. Each of us can play a part. Whether making beautiful and useful objects yourself or not, buy work from those whose works you admire, or from those young people in whom you see hope for our nation's future. It is a simple formula. And by buying workmanship close to home, you can witness the effects.

You might wonder how someone like Paul would come to have such a firm grip on the importance of American craftsmanship. He had grown up an a farm and is currently restoring his father's tractor. After graduating from college, he became an industrial arts teacher. By having done some woodworking himself, he came to admire fine woodworking and to feel an affinity for it. Those simple things add up.

On another subject, Time Magazine this week has an article about the failure of the No Child Left Behind legislation as it faces its 10th anniversary. The original idea of NCLB was that the federal government would require schools to test children's performance in schools AND offer significant help in bringing ALL schools up to a uniform standard. The help never came. But the testing came on like gangbusters. Schools began being punished for failure to meet standards. That led to a teach to the test fanaticism that pushed aside the arts, cut PE and kept students from participating in music. In the alternate universe where craftsmanship was perceived as having value, we would have been heading in the other direction, secure in the knowledge that what we do with our hands, whether in music, crafts, art, wood shop or laboratory science will stick with us the rest of our lives and build both character and intellect. But don't just take my word for it. Read the article and draw your own conclusions.

Make, fix and create...

In an alternate universe...

2012-01-13T09:40:00.003-06:00

Here in the US there is a vast and growing gulf between rich and poor. According to one political party the rich are "job creators". But then if that's the case, a significant part of the American social fabric has been failing at its job. Money itself knows no patriotism, no debt of loyalty nor sense of responsibility to nation nor community. And while we may celebrate money above all other things, there are values beyond money that in an alternate universe, we would consider as well.

Last night I joined members of the Eureka Springs UU church in serving dinner at ECHO, a volunteer healthcare organization designed to serve the poor and those many who cannot afford health care. Echo operates every 2nd and 4th Thursday night of the year. It is staffed by volunteers including many of the best health care workers in the community who use it as an opportunity to give something extra back and fulfill a sense of duty to the foundation of community. Would it not be wise, if all so gifted were to act on their own sense of responsibility to give back? It is claimed that the rich are holding back in the employment of the poor because we have not made things lucrative enough. But enough! Aren't there greater things at stake? And better examples of who and what we might become?

Sadly, a nation untrained in craftsmanship fails to perceive the uplifting social effects of craftsmanship.

Yesterday my daughter and I ate at the Oasis, a small restaurant in the heart of downtown Eureka Springs. There are those who walk in, and thinking themselves as having arrived in a 3rd world nation by mistake, will turn around and walk out. But the Oasis is actually one of the finest restaurants in the US in near perfect disguise. My daughter, having spent 4 years in New York will rank the Oasis as one of the top restaurants in her rather broad dining experience. But part of the appeal of the place is not just its food, but that it is at the heart of the community experience.

When we wander into the world without roots, we miss the depths. In my alternate proposed universe of community and craftsmanship, our eyes are opened to other things. Beyond money charted on spreadsheets, there are people putting people to work doing their finest. I can hardly explain to those who have not lived in Eureka Springs or someplace like it, how being a part of such a place, being woven into the fabric of community, feels and what it means. I have been so lucky. And in these first days of 2012, I wish the same for you.

Make, fix and create...

true value, real cost...

2012-01-12T07:58:00.006-06:00

I grew up in a house full of antiques. The bug for old things came from my Aunt Allene who had an appreciation for all things fine and all things old, but along with all the old things came an understanding that objects told the story of our civilization and of community. Even scratches and wear told the story of those who came before.

So while our neighbors were sometimes swapping out furniture for the latest style my sisters and I were learning a few things at greater depth, and holding a few fine old things dear.

Our consumer economy is based on planned obsolescence, on a rapid exchange of goods, all made by large manufacturers and sold for low prices. These objects, large and small are manufactured whereever they can find the cheapest labor in steady supply. These objects are kept until we are bored with their design, until their design is eclipsed by newer products or until the cheap and often toxic materials with which they are made lead to the decline of their usefulness.

Outside many of our major cities there are mountains made from these objects mixed with the trash of our civilization, and inside the cities and throughout the surrounding countryside are lives trashed by our failure to engage our citizenry in the values of fine craftsmanship.

And so there are true values, real costs, that are hidden below the surface of our understanding. Only those having been exposed to the making of beautiful and useful objects and knowing the transformation of self that occurs in being so engaged, would likely understand the intrinsic value of hand-crafted products and hand-crafted lives. But I will come to that in a minute.

The cost of the cheap objects that fill our lives is hidden from us. We do not readily perceive the effects of burning of fossil fuels in the making of these things, or transporting them from great distances to us. The long-term environmental impact is a cost not reflected in the purchase price of these goods. At the checkout counter we are not charged disposal costs as the accumulation of these objects spill from our homes to be gathered in huge landfills where they poison the earth and ground waters with the toxic content that seeps from them as they decay. Then there are opportunity costs to reckon in our equation. When objects are not made in our home communities, our citizens are too often left without meaningful work in lives that too often lack the dignity and self-respect that a life of craftsmanship would have conferred.

The true value of hand-crafted objects is that someone grew in their making. That growth involves both the intellect and character. As meaningful records of that growth, these objects might become precious to us, kept as symbols of our highest aspirations, human attention to detail, and the quest for true beauty. So our simple choice is to continue as a nation of consumers as we are, or to become a nation of craftsmen. We can continue towards the decline of human culture or shift toward greater nobility.

Make, fix and create...

big things start small...

2012-01-11T08:36:00.007-06:00

Today in the wood shop, CSS first, 2nd and 3rd grade students will be making friendship boxes. Friendship boxes were once a tradition in American summer camps as they could be traded among friends and kept as symbols of that friendship.

There are dangers in our failure to engage ALL students in fixing, making and the creative arts. When some children are raised with a sense of intellectual entitlement, believing that they are the chosen few intelligent enough to grasp what they themselves cannot truly grasp, and that others are deemed capable of lesser contributions and are thus of lesser worth, we have a situation that will not sustain a strong middle class. I want to remind my readers that democracy and the middle class arose in the first place through the guilds and fine craftsmanship.

Most of the early proponents of the manual arts believed that all students should be exposed to making real things from real materials because not only did real work create greater intellect, it also pushed all students toward the development of greater character. For instance there are specific things that one learns in the crafting of beautiful and useful objects. A person will learn that making real things is not as easy as one might think. Thus those expressing skills beyond reading and math might deserve dignity and respect within the school culture. Then those who are acquainted with the processes involved in the creating of beautiful and useful objects are more capable of envisioning industries or enterprises in which the growth of skilled labor could be encouraged in others. Once establishing a sense of empathy and alliance with those who have creative skills, they might be inclined to do so.

In the case of the average Harvard MBA, we would find someone good with numbers but willing to export jobs since those jobs are little more than an inconvenient commodity to be acquired at the cheapest price. He or she will probably not have any experience in personal creative enterprises with real materials or management of muscle or time. He or she will have been educated to extract profit with little respect for those with the creative capacity, skill of body or mind to complete tasks which the MBA had too little experience to imagine in the first place.

There are many who believe that the rich have the ideas to drive the economy, and those ideas and the capital they provide, if left unburdened by taxes or regulation will blossom into success and prosperity for all. That principle might actually work if all were trained to accept their role in fostering the growth of others in their communities, and were willing to take actual steps in their own lives to put people to work doing creative things. But it is not easy to do these things, and most in positions of ease will not be bothered to do so.

What if ALL were to engage in a complete and total revival of craftsmanship and to understand its value? That's a thing unlikely since most have never been taught to understand craftsmanship in the first place. Even the poor these days are too often left untrained. But just imagine communities of craftsmen making furniture, doing fine creative work, not to be bought from Tiffany's or Sotheby's but from real people?

OK, at this point in things I'm just dreaming. But big things start small. Friendship boxes are shown above and at left.

Make, fix and create...

Incognito...

2012-01-10T07:52:00.003-06:00

I have been reading Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain by David Eagleman, and it points out that despite what we like to think about the brain, that our thoughts are in some way under control, the reverse happens to be true. Our brains are composed of competing systems. These systems compete for our attention, like the worst of rivals they argue with each other and the decisions that we make are not as rational as we would like to think. Incognito makes the point that our success as a species comes not from having a single voice in our heads, but from the diversity of voices, each seeking its own shift in our behavior. This was described by William James in Principles of Psychology (1890):

“We know what it is to get out of bed on a freezing morning in a room without a fire, and how the very vital principle within us protests against the idea… We think how late we shall be, how the duties of the day will suffer; we say, “I must get up, this is ignominious,” and so on.

But still the warm couch feels too delicious, and the cold outside too cruel, and resolution faints away and postpones itself again and again just as it seemed on the verge of the decisive act.

Now how do we ever get up under such circumstances? If I may generalize from my own experience, we more often than not get up without any struggle or decision at all. We suddenly find that we have got up. A fortunate lapse of consciousness occurs, we forget both the warmth and the cold; we fall into some reverie connected with the day’s life, in the course of which the idea flashes across us,

“Hello! I must lie here no longer” – an idea which at that lucky instant awakes no contradictory or paralyzing suggestions, and consequently produces immediately its appropriate motor effects. It was our acute consciousness of both the warmth and the cold during the period of struggle which paralyzed our activity. This case seems to me to contain in miniature form the data for an entire psychology of volition.”

Have you ever sat in class and felt the sudden impulse to get up and move around but were unable to do so? Welcome to the reality of humanity. We are complex creatures. Not only are we different in some ways from each other, we have that diversity within ourselves. And so it is ever so important that we cultivate the full range of our potentials, not just those that stimulate the intellect, but those that stimulate the emotions and physical capacities as well.

I can remember the day in 7th grade wood shop when I was using a coping saw to cut along meandering lines marked on wood that would become the sides of wall-hung book shelves. I noticed the saw beginning to wander from the line and looked over at my neighbor and saw that his was even worse. From those kinds of experience we learn things about ourselves, not just about the world that the teachers are held accountable to impart as "lessons." By doing real things, we learn about life, and our own varied and complex intersections with it. We may even learn that volition and consciousness are not what we have assumed them to be.

Today the 7th 8th and 9th grade students will be working on gears and mechanisms. Yesterday the 4th, 5th and 6th grade students made model sea life for a class mobile, and the high school students began making tools as an investigation of world history. wood shop offers the opportunity to explore other dimensions of learning that enhance both the mind and body and deeply engage the emotions. Children must come to terms with the full integration of self. In other words,

Make, fix and create...

but who's hiring...

2012-01-09T08:16:00.000-06:00

One of the candidates on the campaign trail in Hew Hampshire has persisted in making the claim that Blacks should just get jobs instead of relying on food stamps, but he is making the assumption that there are lots of jobs waiting and this matter of employment is simply a matter of will. Just in case he hadn't noticed, we have a tremendous employment problem in the US. Government employment has been steeply curtailed in order to reduce the budget. Manufacturing, though not as low as it was following the 2008 economic collapse when the American auto industry had to be bailed out is still in the pits compared to what it was before the Bush Republican years. So the idea that poor (of any color) can snap their fingers and get off assistance by accepting some waiting job is absurd.

The idea of the Reagan years was that money in the hands of the rich would trickle down to the poor and lift all boats as that money put people to work, and yet those rich, having little sense of social responsibility to the poor and working class, have not been engaged creatively in the economy to the degree of actually making jobs. The problem lies at least in part in our educational system in which education of the hands and education of the head alone have been isolated from each other and creative hand-work afforded less dignity. The situation allows for a huge number of students to pass through the system without ever understanding the intrinsic value of the goods and services provided for them. The system creates in those students a sense of entitlement and superiority.

In contrast, the idea presented by Educational Sloyd and many others in the early manual arts movement, was that through all students to being engaged in making useful and beautiful things, all would gain a greater sense of their intrinsic value and concurrently develop an appreciation of those who had crafted them. This is not quite the same idea as going to Tiffany's and buying expensive stuff that only a very few Americans can afford.

We have arrived at a time in American culture that was predicted by Mr. Charles B. Gilbert, Superintendent of the Newark, New Jersey Public Schools when he spoke about the danger of sacrificing our democracy on the division between academic work and skilled hand work in the 1905 meeting of the Eastern Manual Training Association:

The great function of all public schools, afterall, is not to give specific knowledge or fit for specific things, but to train democratic citizens. The attitude of the teacher toward manual training has very much to do with the democracy of the teacher. Any sort of separation of children into classes intended to go for all time through their lives is exactly antagonistic to democracy--could not be more directly antagonistic; it is the antipode of democracy... What is the great foe of democracy at all times? It is the building up of walls--permanent walls--between classes; is it not? So long as wealth disappears with a single generation or two generations there is not any great danger; but when we get into the position--condition (If we ever do)--that many of the countries of the world are in; if a child is born with the feeling that he is born in a class--that there is a great gulf or a high wall between him and his neighbor who is born in a different class; then democracy is dead.

Unfortunately American schooling does little to create a sense of the dignity of craftsmanship. But there are answers to be found within. Craftsmanship is the foundation of human culture and of democracy. One cannot be a creative and successful craftsman without being intellectually engaged. One cannot be a craftsman without being true to particular values that uplift the community in which craftsmanship is nurtured and takes place. Unlike American politicians who spew small lies and exaggerations right and left with every breath, a craftsman must be true to his materials, his design and to himself.

It is truly time to take matters into our own hands.

Make, fix and create...

How to bend a nail...

2012-01-07T20:48:00.008-06:00

A person might not ever want to know how to deliberately bend a nail, but if he or she does know why they bend, bent nails can be more consciously avoided. I was intrigued by Joe Youcha's use of the hammer in a discussion of physics. So I did these three drawings to show how to bend a nail, or not.

The first drawing shows what could be described as an "angle of incidence". If a hammer strike is not dead on in the direction one intends the nail to travel into the wood, it presents a lateral force, bending the nail. The second drawing shows a glancing blow that is roughly equivalent to two cars striking head-on, but off center. A bent nail is the result. The third drawing shows the face of the hammer striking the nail at the correct angle and with the nail at the center of the hammer face where the greatest direct force is conveyed. Unless the nail hits a knot or is being driven into wood too hard for the use of nails, it should go in straight. Learning to hammer, is not just a matter of the physics of the hammer, it is also a matter requiring close observation of self. In driving a nail, a kid's posture makes a difference. Working on a low bench or even on the floor allows the hammer to have greater force. The smooth motion of the arms is required and so the physical parameters of self come into play. These come from analysis and experience but the analysis need not be verbal.

A person can learn to hammer nails successfully without ever coming to an elaborate mental and verbal analysis of the geometry or physics involved. In fact, millions of successful carpenters have been able to do so. On the other hand, one might know all the physics and geometry and more, and really know almost nothing about how to drive a nail. Can you see how there might be advantages to both knowing the physics and math and having real experience driving the nail? Unfortunately the education of American school children is aimed at the passive acquisition of knowledge, not toward the active expression of it.

I plan to use these drawings to help my first, second and third grade students understand why nails bend. If I can give them greater observational powers, they will become better craftsmen, but also better mathematicians and scientists at the same time.

Time Magazine this week has an article, The Reason for Recess about schools once again realizing that the body needs exercise for the proper functioning of the brain. This was an idea held by Otto Salomon in his teaching of Educational Sloyd, and I was surprised when I visited at Nääs, Sweden and learned the strong role of physical education in the methods prescribed there. According to the article in Time,

"Physical activity can improve blood flow to the brain, fueling memory, attention and creativity, which are essential to learning. And exercise releases hormones that can improve mood and suppress stress, which can help learning."

Salomon and others from progressive education believed that learning should be "all sided" in that it should engage the child's physical nature as well as his or her intellectual side.

Make, fix and create...

Naming the parts of math...

2012-01-07T07:54:00.007-06:00

There is long tradition of building that did not require math in the formal sense of naming its parts. In fact a small number of boat builders today carry forth that tradition.

By the rack of the eye... Means to be guided solely by the eye without line or rule. --judgement by eye of accuracy, alignment, length, etc. (rather than by the use of a ruler or other instrument). Norse in origin, Usually heard only in the dialect expression "..bi t'rack o' t'ee" ("..by the rack of the eye"). cf Swedish rak (straight) and Norwegian rak (direct, straight, erect).

The rack of the eye building method was not devoid of math, but took advantage of the natural living math capacity inherent in the human body and its experience in observing physical reality through building real things. Two points have always formed a straight (rak) line, whether named as a line or not. Three points in space have always formed a plane. Four points on that same plane have always formed a square or a rectangle, parallelogram, rhombus, or trapezoid... Unless you are in the UK and have been trained to call a trapezoid a trapezium, which brings to mind one of the funny things about math. These concepts exist independent of their being named, and can be used by the "rack of the eye" in that they are fundamental principles in the structure of the universe, and a trapezium by any other name still contains 360 degrees of angles and is formed by four points on a single plane. Put those points on two planes and you warp suddenly into 3 D.

In schools, the whole idea of math is very much about testing to see whether a student can name and understand the words of math, like those above. And to those words you can add triangles, isosceles , equilateral, scalene, and add the concepts, right, obtuse, and acute, and then so very many more. I think you can see how much of math as it is taught is related to man's verbal capacity rather than his productive one. And I think that you can see that for some students math can become just one more bit of dry abstract schooling rather than an experience to get ones arms around and hands dirty in the making of real things. But teach a pupil to understand math from this other angle and he or she will become engaged in the exploration of the universe. What is there about that, that educators just can't get their hands on? Oh, yes, I remember. They forgot we have hands.

Tarrah was shocked on that day when she realized for the first time that we were doing math in the Clear Spring work shop. And I am reminded of my sister Ann. She and my mother were told by her 10th grade teacher that she had no mind for math and could never be expected to do well. And yet, Ann became a designer of counter-change smocking techniques and had her own designer series with McCalls featuring counter-change smocked children's dress patterns that she designed herself. Only a pedant would think that was not demonstrating success in math.

And in the meantime, on the 10th anniversary of The No Child Left Behind Act, we seem to have left too many stranded in the teach to the test schooling that the NCLB legislation imposed. Read about it HERE.

Photo above by JD.

I have been working on a post about how to bend a nail. Yes, it involves math. Check back tomorrow for that.

Make, fix and create...

build a boat, teach math

2012-01-06T08:07:00.007-06:00

Joe Youcha at Alexandria Seaport has gotten funding to widen the range of his program, building boats to teach math. So watch for some growth. If you are involved in teaching, you might enjoy making use of his program. Some of the training will be offered on-line. Check out Building to Teach. You can't build anything successfully, a boat or a box without using math. And a bit of math will help to understand tools and make them more useful in your hand.

I think this can be an important step, and Joe has gotten the Office of Naval Research to concur. We know that there are many more things we learn in wood shop beyond math. But most of us actually get better at math by using it for something real and practical. The video is an example of some of Joe's teaching material.

Something we need to come to terms with is that there is a difference between math verbalized and math used. Our body-neglecting teach-to-the-test educational culture lays great emphasis on the verbalization of math nothing on its use. But have a kid stand straight and tall, and he or she is using the math of the body. Swing the arm holding the hammer and the child is forming an arc. Strike a nail and there are events involving angle of incidence and vectors of force. I am thinking about doing a chart or video on how to bend a nail. For one cannot drive a nail "straight" (a verbalization of a math concept) without using the body's understanding of math, but one can certainly bend lots of nails if one does not. Unfortunately, a verbal understanding of math alone will get you no closer to making something real, but understanding the body and math, will get you to the point from which you can better understand the words of math and make something real at the same time.

Unfortunately, teaching to the test, and being able to verbalize math matters more to the educational status quo than being able to use it. Perhaps when they see what kids can actually do, we can change that.

Some days are like that, right? I spent hours today trying to figure out why a cabinet door wouldn't close properly. I took the hinges off, put them back on a number of times. I bought new hinges, even though I couldn't find a thing wrong with the ones I had. Then I decided to check out the rare earth magnets I had inserted in the case and doors to hold it closed. I found I had reversed one, so it was holding the cabinet open instead of closed. From now on, I'll be more careful when I glue them in place. Don't we all have days like this on occasion? Now I am relieved. The doors and I can go on to other things.

Make, fix and create...

individualized vs. group learning...

2012-01-05T14:25:00.001-06:00

Shop teacher Richard Bazeley asked about the modification of sleds to enable a class to learn machine box making using a table saw. He suggested a plexiglass shield over the area where the blade cuts to prevent chips from flying, stops to prevent the sled from pushing too far, and a blade cover at the back to prevent the blade from being exposed at the back side of the sled as it is pushed forward. These are three very good suggestions particularly for those inexperienced in table saw use, and for those teaching in a classroom setting. In fact these are the three modifications we make to my sleds at Marc Adams School when I tech classes of up to 18 students at a time. When you teach, minds fade in or out, students are distracted in side conversations, or by internal dialog, or even by the rumblings of their stomachs, and can miss essential bits of information that might have kept them out of danger. Also students who have very little familiarity with other cutting instruments may not even know the dangers they face or the careful placement of the hands necessary to do woodworking with safety.

The world is safer than it has ever been, but students sheltered from risk can do stupid or careless things. The best reason for that plexiglass over the cut is not to protect from sawdust, but rather to keep students from dropping things on the blade as it spins.

With younger students these days it is a struggle to get their attention, and I believe this is in part because they are so deeply engaged in other forms of learning. For instance computers offer individualized learning, whereas getting a number of students' attentions focused as a class on the same issues with equal understanding has grown nearly impossible, I think because students brains are actually adapting to computerized learning styles.

So what is taught to an individual in which a relationship in which teacher and student each have each other's undivided attention is best, but when you are not in that situation but instead must share learning with a class, extra precautions are required.

This morning I did a radio interview for Ozarks Harvest Radio Hour that will be broadcast at a later date. I wanted to talk about community and craftsmanship. But as all things go, the finished interview may be more like a shaggy dog story. Who knows where all things will end up? I will let you know when the interview will be aired and will provide a link for a podcast.

This is the year I passed the age at which my father passed away, and when men reach that age we begin thinking of ways our lives and who we are might live on in some way. Making things with lasting value is one way. Using tools that have lasting value and that will express that lasting value through the hands of other craftsmen is another. Can you pick up a tool and feel the life force of another inside? Or do you think you might consciously put your own creative force within some simple tool? Realizing the illusory nature of individualism, and that in essence we are all expressions of a common humanity is another way we can see our own lives as being greater than self alone. Caring for our children is but one more. Teaching children is one of the most powerful. The list goes on and on. The ironic thing is that we may get to the point at which our own identity might be so strongly integrated with that of the whole of humanity that we might not be that concerned of frightened when the moment of death arrives. I am reminded of the zen monk who on his death bed heard his disciples gathered around wailing, "Master, master, don't leave us!" He answered, "Don't be silly. Where in the world would I go?"

Make, fix and create...

Today in the CSS wood shop...

2012-01-04T18:30:00.003-06:00

Today, I had the first second and third grade students making wooden trays for dioramas. The project involved a great deal of sawing and sanding, then hammers, bent nails, nails that went in the wrong way and stuck out the side, nails that were put so far from the edge that they stuck out in the middle. So there was a whole lot of fixing going on, and after a short time they learned how to fix their own mistakes. In woodworking there are all kinds of things that can go wrong, but with the exception of one thumb hit by the hammer in the two classes, things went well. The thumb soon felt better on its own. And when the kids were finished with their work, they each made one more top, as making tops has become the favorite activity in wood shop. How is it that educators might consider a digital learning experience better than this? Know what to do about it? Best to set our children loose with hammers and saws and see what kinds of character they develop in themselves.

Make, fix and create...

links to furniture making at Democrat Gazette...

2012-01-03T11:39:00.001-06:00

Blog readers had expressed an interest in reading the articles from the Democrat Gazette that came out on Friday. I received the links this morning. There are three articles with separate links. Totally Ingrained is the main article. Then there are sidebars, Woodworkers: Start with basic hand tools and Classes in woodworking on hand for eager beavers.

I went back to school today, teaching 7th, 8th and 9th grade students in the CSS woodshop. The photos are a preview of our current project. As an introduction to mechanical design, students are making automata in which a crank turned causes things to move up and down, or side to side or around. In the motion prototype shown the waves go back and forth and the one piece rises and falls. I made this model to help students understand some of the possibilities. Note the positions of the parts and crank in the two images.

Make, fix and create...

Southpaws no longer suspect?...

2012-01-02T08:20:00.005-06:00

On NPR yesterday they had an interview with Rik Smits, author of a new book about lefties, The Puzzle of Left-Handedness. On the same web page you will find links to other interesting articles on the subject of left-handedness. I had an interesting conversation yesterday with a former craftsman friend who now manages computer systems, but keeps his hands engaged through a variety of hobbies. High manual efficiency is always a two handed thing with left and right each playing a designated part. For instance, as I am routing a small part with my right hand, I am picking up and orienting the next piece with my left. If I tried to do all my work with my right hand alone, I would only work at less than half the speed. We talked about how as craftsmen the integrated use of left and right was far more more important than which had took the lead. Left or right has only really become an issue in more modern times with the manufacturing of tools designed for a particular handedness, and in schools where teaching of writing to lefties by predominantly right-handed narrow minded teachers created difficult situations.

The article suggested that in China where they take a more integrated view of reality, (yin-yang) rather than only seeing it polarized left-right or right-wrong, being left handed is no big deal.

Research on bird brains is particularly illuminating in the areas of left and right. Animals That Favor One Side More Successful. Makes me wonder where we are going with our kids as we teach them to do little more than slide fingers over glass. This video presentation from Iain McGilchrist presents a rationale for a different approach to the education of our children.

The top item on wish lists for 6-12 year old children this holiday season was the iPod 2. We want smart devices that do cool tricks, but don't seem to understand the necessity of doing difficult things. Can it be that we are leading our children out of touch?

Make, fix and create...

moral character and community...

2012-01-01T08:40:00.005-06:00

Happy New Year! For the first day of the year 2012, I will continue the notion of our becoming a culture of craftsmen.

Tim Holton had pointed out in a comment a few days ago, that back when things were mostly made by craftsmen in our communities there was greater incentive to make things well. A craftsman would not put his signature on work that he knew would give him a bad name in his or her community where he hoped to live and work the rest of his life. He would care about his name within his community and care deeply what others thought of him.

Now, we have lost much of that strength as we have exported production and made cities places in which most are anonymous and our goods are made and distributed by companies that come and go and have no care in being there for us in the long term. Even major purchases like washers and dryers are made fast and far away to last only a short time.

One of the inevitable consequences of living within a modern culture is that if a person wants to get noticed in that larger culture, his or her work, whether it is in music or craft must attain what can be called signature qualities... In music it can be the unusual unexpected movement of notes as written by Stephen Sondheim, or unique qualities of voice like those of Bob Dylan. In craft it can be some unique signature effects that identify the work as being from a particular individual. The consequence is a culture in which artisans in music or craft seek the objective of being different rather than the simple objective of offering good, useful, lasting work. And so, you can see that the signature of a craftsman's work has changed from being goo, lasting and useful to being contrived to clamor for attention in a broad market.

In light of that and in relation to yesterday's post, I want to once again turn attention to the development of will, for it is the exercise of will to serve that provides the foundation of community, and offers our best hope for a broad restoration of craftsmanship as an American value.

In Gustaf Larsson's book Sloyd, printed in 1902, he refers to Felix Adler's discussion of creating strong and useful will. You will remember from yesterday's post that psychologists see great value in making very small manageable changes as a means to enhance the powers of will to control even greater factors in our lives. Larsson states:

"I like to dwell upon the moral influence of the work(manual training or Sloyd) which is so effectively emphasized by Dr. Adler, because I believe that without definite and adequate provision for the moral growth of children in elementary schools the higher educational institutions can hardly reach the desired standard."The moral effect of manual training is often apparent in the child's behavior and in his respect for his skillful schoolmates. Some teachers have observed that more accurate thinking and improved methods of study, especially in arithmetic, have resulted from manual training. It gives a child independent standards. He loves good work, likes to be useful, prefers occupation to idleness; and thus the germs of good citizenship are planted at the time most favorable to growth and development. A healthy impetus is also given to the moral nature by the improved physical condition resulting from this training. A freer circulation promotes health, increases happiness, and opens a way to the best impulses of the heart. The youthful energy, which is often too much confined to the exercise of the brain alone, finds, by the use of tools, a natural outlet in the bodily powers.

As we may walk through cities and see decline in character of our people, and deficiencies in care in the sustenance of community spirit, we can see that our failure has been one of failing to offer children the opportunity to:

Make, fix and create...

There is a great story this morning on NPR in support of the issue. Artisanal And Authentic, The Flavors Of The New Year

greeting the new year...

2011-12-31T08:49:00.004-06:00

As we welcome the end of 2011 and greet with hope the arrival of 2012, which of course are only mental constructs in the first place, some will be making resolutions about what to do next and how to improve our lives. My apologies, first of for not being as clear and concise as I would like.

Yesterday I listened to an NPR radio program, Talk of the Nation, with interview guest Roy Baumeister, co-author of Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength. His suggestion with regard to New Year's resolutions was not to try to change everything at once, but rather to address one small thing at a time. The successful change of one small thing can have major impact on the sense of self and the growth of confidence to change other things. Baumeister suggested that even the effort to change one's posture could be enough to awaken latent will.

So here, as I address the change necessary to bring a new age of American Craftsmanship we will start simple things.

For instance, set up a regular pattern of interchange with others. Most Americans are strategic shoppers looking for the best deal. But if we did our shopping based on the simple objective of establishing relationships instead, we would find different results. If instead of focusing on the objective of getting the stuff as though the maker and source of supply did not matter, we were to look toward building the foundational relationships of local supply, the fabric of our communities would be dramatically changed.

First is that instead of rushing from place to place seeking the best deal, one would build relationships with those in the store of choice, and build relationships with other customers likely to be shopping at the same time. This idea is based on observation here in Eureka Springs, where there are just three places to shop for food, and each has its own niche. We have the farmers market, where we meet the actual producers of the food, we have the health food store, and we have Harts Grocery. Each is a social center, each offering opportunities for social engagement within the community. You can drive 20 minutes to Walmart, and you may meet one or two friends who are also there shopping for the best deal, but if you are shopping for meaningful relationships instead, you will find your truest bargains at our local stores, as you can see in the graph.

After living in this small town for as long as I have, it is near impossible to go to any of these three stores at any time of the day without a chance encounter with friends and conversations that assure deep roots in community. By understanding the need for community development as being greater than getting the best deal assures greater things.

If you live in a larger community than Eureka Springs, you will need to refine and narrow choices, whereas here in order to build community, we simply need to make the choice of not driving to Berryville. Of course there are other ways to build your community. For instance regularly attend your local public library, or join civic groups. These things are free.

Another key to being successful in either craftsmanship or the building of community is to wear your heart on your sleeve. Instead of being armed, let others know your kindness, your accessibility and availability, and your hopes and aspirations. They will often arise to enable your progress and be encouraged in their own.

The article for which I was interviewed in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette came out this morning and I will try to get a link through which it can be read. The point I hoped to make is that if we want craftsmanship we need community. As we develop skills, our communities may grow wider. At this point, my own community due to the sales of my products and publications, my teaching and this blog is rather wide, but it was not always so, and even now, it is the participation in local life, and local community that is most real and offers greatest depth. In order to create a society in which craftsmanship is encouraged and supported as a wide foundation, and to present the widest possible opportunity for our children we need the fabric of narrow deep community to do so.

My simple notion of change is built on the model of progressive education. Start with the interests of the child. The first community is that of the family, then the child is brought through gradual awakening to greater, wider things. Blog reader JD sent photos of his grandchildren in his workshop, showing the projects they had completed together. Such things are the foundation of our future.

Make, fix and create...

community and craftsmanship...

2011-12-30T08:23:00.004-06:00

I live at the edge of a small tourist town. Living here at the edge of Eureka Springs, pursuing my career here as a woodworker, and marrying my wife Jean, a public librarian, were the three best decisions I made in my life.

When I moved to Eureka Springs in 1975, it was a small town recently discovered by hippies. Those of us who gathered here found instant community with each other, and with a few older open-minded residents who saw our arrival as a good thing. That sense of community made Eureka a place worth proselytizing about. We were all excited about this place as though we'd discovered paradise. Some were just here to grow pot, but others were here to build lives outside the main direction of things as craftsmen, potters, painters, poets, writers, musicians, storekeepers, teachers and every possible niche one can think of when we think about small town life. Within that matrix of aspirations, we gave aid and comfort to each other. Many of us had grown up in cities where we'd been anonymous. In our midst and welcoming us were nationally known senior artists like Louis and Elsie Freund, Ely De Vescovi, and so many more who opened their homes and hearts to us. As they listened to our aspirations they offered to us a sense of our own personal credibility as though we fit here.

After first trying out as a potter in a town rich in potters, I found my own niche in making small wooden boxes, display cabinets for shops and galleries all up and down Spring Street (most of which can still be found in use today) and a bit of furniture for the homes of artists and friends. Woodworking is on my own personal list of best things because in it, I found the opportunity for life-long learning. Each day there was some new joint to cut, some new skill to master, and it was not just what I could learn in my head each day but in my hands as well. After having found myown place in the community, I called the meeting of artists on the shores of Lake Leatherwood that led to the forming of the Eureka Springs Guild of Artists and Craftspeople. Through along shaggy do story we later morphed that organization into the Eureka Springs School of the Arts. I'm telling you that not to brag, but just to point out that in a small community, one person can truly make a difference, and what we all found here was a small pond in which we could each join forces, offer our best and be encouraged to do so.

I will not attempt to describe what being married to a public librarian has meant for me. And so, rather than make a feeble attempt, let it be known that being in the heart of community, woven in, warp and weft, is a profound experience that too few in this day of upward, downward and cross-lateral mobility know enough about.

The creative work of one man is seldom the craftsmanship of one man alone, but is instead related to the community in which he lives, and the support he or she receives within that community, and the way forward that I am attempting to describe on the entry to the new year is of those things. Craftsmanship and community.

As I reflect back on those early times, my companions in the discovery of this community I see hearts beating on shirt sleeves. We were each filled with deep personal aspirations not having much to do with money, but rather with growth toward fulfillment in deeper things. We were lucky to find each other for support.

These days, I wonder how we can apply this example set by this small community in Arkansas to bring about a transformation in American life. I have this day and one more left in 2011 to spell it out. In your own life and as the best starting point wherever you find yourself:

Make, fix and create...

make local...

2011-12-29T10:18:00.001-06:00

Yesterday I suggested finding a way forward from the situation we are in as a way of closing out 2011 and greeting the new year, 2012. We are suffering from economic recession that goes on and on with no end in sight. Our homes have lost value in the trillions of dollars. Our schools cannot compete successfully with schools in many other nations. Educators and politicians have pushed for national standards, but those standards and adapting to them have pushed us further behind. Major industries have complained that they have jobs unfilled because of lack of qualified applicants, and here in Arkansas, Whirlpool is shutting down a plant and moving the jobs to Mexico.

Not all on the horizon is so bleak. Reader Tim Holton sent a link to an article about a restoration of a wood shop program in San Francisco. Shop class retooled for future at O'Connell High We are beginning to see efforts at local levels to bring things back.

Yesterday I mentioned widening the narrow path forward. And what I really mean by that is opening all the doors to our children's success. In schools we have very narrow definitions of success. If who you are cannot be easily laid on a spreadsheet of data, you will not measure up and are led to know it. But what if we had so many more ways in which children's successful spirits can be expressed? The arts are one key, and community is the other.

I am curious how many of my readers take full advantage of the communities in which we all live. The idea of local is essential to widening the narrow path toward becoming a nation of craftsmen in its highest sense. Whether we are talking about music or food, or consumer goods the power we afford to others in our communities by listening, hiring, buying and making, are transformative.

René Dubos was a French born American environmental activist who coined the slogan, "Think globally, act locally." And this sage advice applies to nearly all things. Listening to an artist on your iPod should not prevent you from encouraging the musicians in your local pub. The internet and human global connectivity should be inspiring local effort, not diminishing it. But in order for this to be the case, we each must act in the encouragement of others.

The idea of local is at the heart of "progressive" education like what we practice at the Clear Spring School. It should not be thought that progressive and progress within the macrocosm are the same thing. Progressive means movement from the center of the child through a gradual awakening to community and beyond. In so far as each child is unique and each community is unique, the idea of imposing standards of curriculum, standards of measurement and standards of "success" for all children is to neglect the teachers best ally, the child's inquisitive relationship with all that surrounds. It is easy to see how the term progressive has become misunderstood, as it was presented as something "new" as shown in the marvelous video above.

As the last few days of 2011 pass I will continue to greet the new year with ideas on the path forward. I invite my readers to consider how the concepts of local and taking matters into our own hands are exactly the same thing.

In the wood shop, I have been making parts for small boxes and am now in the midst of hundreds of small parts, at various stages in the milling and shaping operations.

At school I am preparing for classes to resume on Tuesday.

Make, fix and create...

Widening a narrow path...

2011-12-28T09:57:00.001-06:00

As we close the year 2011 and consider what we wish might come next, and what we might become next, I would like to spend a few days laying out breadcrumbs that might be followed to a new American century of craftsmanship.

"When a man teaches his son no trade, it is as if he taught him highway robbery." Talmud

and to that, I would add, when a man teaches his son or daughter no art, he has blocked the door to the kingdom of heaven.

We all need ways to make an honest living. We each need ways to discover true self. One path fills the larder, the other elevates the soul.

Living in my small town of Eureka Springs offers evidence of a path forward. I have been lucky to make my living from a thing that I love. But I have friends whose lives are just as rich as mine, who have dual roles, one more practical and the other in the arts. Cynthia is an APN at our local medical center. When she's not seeing patients, she does incredible oil pastels. Ken serves at a fine restaurant, and plays classical violin. Nick is a carpenter but also a singer/songwriter. Jim graduated with a Masters in Fine Arts, became a shop keeper and now with 3 stores and a gallery has returned to crafting his own exquisite work. The list here goes on and on, and for the new year, my wish is that for all America, the example served by my own small community could widen the narrow path.

Can you see what's happening here? It is called enrichment. It serves the pocketbook, the soul and the community. These persons, each pursuing both vocation and avocation are not simply community servants, but also have great stature within the community achieved through performance and discipline in the arts.

Doesn't this make you wonder why we would choose to ignore the arts in our nation's schools and lay such extreme emphasis on standardized tests?

As I was driving the the post office this morning, I listened to Performance Today on National Public Radio, and the interview with Charlie Albright, young Harvard pianist, spoke directly to the point of today's post. Albright pointed out that everything he's done has built depth in his study of piano. If he were not so successful a musician he would be describing how music has brought such depth to his engagement in everything else.

Make, fix and create...

a plea for skills based learning...

2011-12-27T11:12:00.001-06:00

My wife and I enjoyed another day at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and enjoyed introducing out daughter Lucy to our new favorite area destination. There are some wonderful things about the museum. The collection of early works showing the wilds of our great continent through the eyes of our nation's earliest artists is made more poignant by the lush American wilderness that surrounds the museum itself.

Today I am making more boxes. It is a thing I normally do this time of the year. If you were standing in the shop watching, you might think it is a near mindless operation as I stand at the table saw, making cut after cut, but there is an intense observation going on as the materials is evaluated moment by moment in order to select the best flawless piece of wood for each part.

There are foolish assumptions made about skilled behavior... That it is mindless, That it can be performed without benefit of cognition, and that those who perform it are evidently capable of nothing more.

Years ago, I took a tour of the Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago with a college class. The tour guide was careful to explain to us that just because we saw a man with his head down on his desk, he was not "doing nothing," but rather was deeply engaged in thought.

With the current misunderstanding of the qualities of cognition involved in skilled labor, a similar warning should be stated wherever tactile cognition takes place. Just because a man or woman's hands are busy, does not mean their minds are absent, or that their work is absent minded.

There are values of character and intellect that best arise when the hands are busy making things of useful beauty, making music, or serving others in a myriad of intelligent ways. To leave the earning of skill outside the efforts to reform American education is the greatest foolishness of our age. Skills based learning should be front and center in the debate.

Make, fix and create...

Skill...

2011-12-26T07:48:00.003-06:00

The word skill implies a variety of components. One of these is practice. Another is observation. A third is evaluation. A fourth is reflection. Then there is an investment of time. Ideas may come quick. Skill often takes time.

Did you know that you can develop skill at taking bubble tests that has major impact on results? Back when I was first exposed to bubble tests, I was an elementary school student in Omaha, NE. Later, I took the SAT test in preparation for college, and there was never any thought of practice or test preparation beforehand. Now ACT preparation, SAT prep, GRE prep, training classes and practice tests are big business in all three, and students are promoted or afforded (or denied) major opportunities based on test results. ACT prep alone, to prepare students skills in taking the test is a 4 billion dollar industry not counting the efforts made within schools to raise test scores.

I am not saying that there is an easier/better system for all this. As long as we keep looking for easy ways to measure smarts, there will be a denial of the value of those skills that are hard to measure. How about being able to concentrate through the whole of one's body as one must do in taking a straight shaving off a plank? So many behavioral expressions are cognitive but also connected through the whole of one's experience, not isolated in the brain alone, and these skills and abilities, often described as "noncognitive" are difficult to measure and thence ignored in American education. We are all diminished by their absence. A major portion of a child's interest in learning comes through the development of these real skills. Interest in learning arises through the sense of deeper connection one gets through being involved in real multisensory experience and personal agency within.

Today, my wife and daughter and I are going to visit Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. I'll make a delivery of small boxes as shown above to the museum gift store.

Make, fix and create...

by the way, happy holidays...

2011-12-24T18:35:00.001-06:00

Here in Arkansas, we have been cooking all day. My daughter and I went out for a last minute shopping adventure. I've been making pies, apple and pumpkin. We are set for a holiday feast. I am grateful to have my daughter Lucy home from grad school.

There are those who take offense at those of us who say "season's greetings" or "happy holidays!" in place of Merry Christmas. There is no war against Christmas despite the anger they may feel. There are many of us who may not believe that the story of great faith is exactly as was told in the Bible. For instance, there were no Christmas trees in the Bible. That symbol came through the Christian conquest of pagans. There were no ornaments, no giving of gifts, and no wishing of Merry Christmas. But these are things we have come to do, that we have grown up with and find meaning within.

This is a time for reflection, for being thankful, for giving gifts. Those gifts are best when they come from the heart, not through some obligation imposed by others wishing to control what we think, who we are or what we express of ourselves. Friends have sent me photos of some of the things they've made. Gifts made with love express the very best.

Season's greetings is an inclusive wish, that ALL may find peace, ALL may find joy, and ALL, even the least among us may enter the new year to find it better, that we may each live in better health, be more creative, more successful, more fulfilled.

Peace on Earth, goodwill to all women and men.

Make, fix and create...

fakability question...

2011-12-24T08:40:00.007-06:00

ETS gives as their reason for not taking "noncognitive" skills into consideration in their wide array of tests like the SAT, and GRE and other more basic tests used throughout education the fact that these "noncognitive" skills cannot be easily measured without running the risk of answers being faked. So, even though they claim to recognize the importance of "noncognitive" skills, they choose to ignore them rather than apply concerted effort toward resolving the matter.

"With a strong justification for developing noncognitive assessments and ETS’s history of involvement with them, why does the organization not offer a full array of noncognitive assessments today? Why is there no noncognitive GRE or SAT subtest? The answer: Many policy makers and scientists are skeptical that noncognitive qualities can be measured reliably and in a valid way. Typically, in both research and operational use, noncognitive qualities are assessed through self-ratings. Examinees are asked questions such as, “Are you exacting in your work?” “Do you get chores done right away?” “Do you keep your emotions under control?” “Do you take time to reflect on things?” There are two problems with these kinds of ratings—the standard is not clear (i.e., relative to whom?), and they are easily faked. In almost any serious discussion of the use of noncognitive assessments, the issue of “fakability” or “coachability” comes up, and this issue is the trump card that thwarts further discussion."

In other words, they know these "noncognitive" skills are important, but they are too hard for them to reliably measure. That they choose to thence ignore these skills creates a state in which they no longer receive the emphasis they deserve. One of the important reasons they acknowledge for using "noncognitive" skills as part of standarized testing is as follows:

"An argument for noncognitive assessments is that they go beyond “academic intelligence” as Robert Sternberg (1985) puts it and tap the full range of qualities that affect and are affected by schooling. But another argument is that using noncognitive assessments may serve to reduce the test score gap, the mean difference in scores between White and Black test takers commonly observed on more narrowly focused cognitive assessments. Research suggests that there is no score gap or a reduced score gap on noncognitive assessments (Sackett, Schmitt, Ellingson, & Kabin, 2001). Combining noncognitive and cognitive test scores in a selection index would result in a reduced overall score gap."

So, in other words they are willing to ignore the full range of skills and they acknowledge the distortion in the testing of black children vs. white children but this doesn't matter enough to ETS to do anything about it. It takes a huge amount of academic arrogance to make such a major adverse impact on American education while being knowledgeable of the harm they inflict, and to thence to do nothing about it because of the vast amount of money they are raking in at the time. Skills actually fall into two convenient categories... those you can easily measure and those you cannot. Measuring one while ignoring the other is distorts the whole fabric of American education.

My own use of the term "noncognitive" is placed in quotes as even ETS recognizes the term, despite their frequent use of it is a misnnomer. They excuse themselves as follows:

"The term noncognitive, although a misnomer, is widely used in psychology and measurement. Other relevant terms are nonacademic, socioaffective, affective-motivational, and personality."

Unlike the realm of high-stakes standardized testing where there all kinds of opportunities for fraud and fakability can and do occur, when you make something from real wood, its truth of its character and intelligence is present for all to see. You cannot fake the cutting of a joint. The grain at the corners of a box was matched with care or it was not. The lid fits or does not. The work expresses care or it does not. So let's not fake our children's educations. Let's give them real things to do that promote real hands-on learning and all the important facets of human character and intellect that arise from it.

Make, fix and create...

cognitive vs. noncognitive part 4...

2011-12-23T07:50:00.010-06:00

This morning I delivered a table to a customer. It is made of maple and cherry and was featured in my book Making Elegant Custom Tables. I had kept the table for years, and while I could have sold it on any number of occasions, I was waiting for a special home for it... The one to which it was delivered this morning.

It seems that in the minds of ETS and the American psychological community, human intelligence deserving the term "cognitive" is that which can be most easily displayed by filling in bubbles on paper with number 2 pencil. But even dogs have a way of knowing things. There are certainly other ways that human cognitive capacity can be observed. For instance, when my mother was a young first year kindergarten teacher in Ft. Dodge, Iowa, her classroom was in the basement of the school building with windows that led right out onto the playground. The bathrooms were upstairs, and so it was a challenge directing her children of which she had 30 at a time, through the daily routines. The windows offered the children a chance of escape (which they sometimes did) and at the top of the stairs on the way to the bathrooms was a long rope hanging down with a sign attached that said "pull." You can imagine the challenge facing a first year kindergarten teacher... Sixty kindergarten students total in morning and afternoon classes, windows luring children to even more interesting activities, while children learned their first words including the word "pull." The long rope on the way upstairs to the bathroom was attached to the fire bell, its sign inviting the demonstration of newly developed cognition and all the senior teachers throughout the building were watching to see how Miss Bye would handle the strain.

There was a time in America when teachers were trusted to observe and measure evidence of their student's learning, of cognitive development and growth. They were trained for such things, not just in the narrow confines of reading and in math, but in the development of the whole child. These days, 30 years after Howard Gardner's Frames of Mind and his presentation of the many ways in which we are smart, for us to have undermined the traditional role of teachers, and to have narrowed our assessments so as to marginalize the many forms of not-so-easy to measure cognition is ridiculous, destructive and absurd.

If you've been reading the last few days, you'll know that I took umbrage at the deliberate use of the acknowledged misnomer, noncognitive by the testing industry to describe those skills that are are difficult to measure. There are a wide range of them that roughly correlate with Howard Gardner's list of human intelligences. All involve cognition. They include music, dance, and the visual and tactile arts. They ARE expressions of human intelligence, though not so easy to measure with standardized tests. And I was asked, how would I describe the difference between those testable forms of cognition and those not so easily tested. To be completely honest and to avoid the repetitive use of the misnomer noncognitive, and to avoid opening other cans of worms, like "academic vs. nonacademic" the testing services should state, "We test those components of cognitive skill that are easy for us to test." It would be honest. It might humble the industry to be so honest and save American education at the same time.

Make, fix and create...

to be fair...

2011-12-22T09:35:00.007-06:00

As pointed out by UUupdater in a comment on last night's blog post, Cognitive vs. noncognitive part 2..., I should note that the article from ETS that incited my ire over the issue of cognitive vs. noncognitive skills, was attempting to point out some of the shortfalls of the current methodology of standardized testing. In addition, it did point out in a footnote that the term which it used consistently throughout the report, "noncognitive" is a misnomer, in other words, a term which suggests an interpretation that is known to be untrue. That the report then chose to persist in using it despite the term's perpetuation of a serious misunderstanding prevalent in the halls of academia... that skilled trades and performance art are noncognitive activities and thus of significantly lesser importance than those matters of cognition that can be most easily measured, illustrates the depth at which the industry bias exists.

I know for some, I may seem like Dorothy's dog Toto barking at the Wizard, but that Wizard and standardized testing have been allowed to become all powerful in American education. It is past time to draw back the curtain and reveal that there are other skills of hand and heart that are important in our children's educations, and furthermore in their lives...

Make, fix and create...

cognitive vs. noncognitive part 2...

2011-12-21T20:35:00.006-06:00

Materials published by ETS, Educational Testing Services offhandedly suggesting a difference between cognitive and noncognitive skills is damning in that it tells of the distinct bias they sustain thus disparaging the value of the skilled trades, engineering, hands-on learning, and all those components of American education that don't lend themselves to easy measurement on standardized tests. To portray only those skills they measure on their tests as cognitive, while describing those more difficult to measure as noncognitive, they display their own ignorance and indifference to what it takes to craft beautiful and useful objects or to participate in a myriad of other non-academic skilled professions. You can read part one, yesterday's post here. I am uncertain what to do here. I feel like Dorothy's dog Toto barking at the foot of the Wizard. ETS is too big for one man, a woodworker in Arkansas to challenge for their arrogance. So rising up against the testing industry by myself is fool hardy at best. But to throw around terms like cognitive and noncognitive thus disparaging the actual cognition required in the mastery of not so easily measured skills is an abomination if not a crime against intelligent humanity. They should be taking every possible step to mitigate the harm they do.

Is music noncognitive? Is dance noncognitive? Is woodworking noncognitive? I would invite any of these ETS turkeybuzzards to join me for just one day in the woodshop. I (with the help of their own hands) could teach them a few things about cognition.

Make, fix and create...

cognitive vs. noncognitive...

2011-12-21T07:07:00.010-06:00

I'm following up on yesterday's post. Evidently in the psych world, the distinction between cognitive and noncognitive, as absurd as it may seem is a real one (to them). Google "noncognitive" and see what I mean. You will find it referenced seriously in many scholarly articles all over the place as in this paper at MIT, or the following from ETS, the world's foremost testing service:

ETS is known for its work on the SAT®, Graduate Record Examinations® (GRE®), National Assessment of Educational Progress, The Praxis SeriesTM, and other tests of knowledge and cognitive ability.

But does ETS have assessments of noncognitive qualities — persistence, dependability, motivation, the ability to work with others, intercultural sensitivity? Do these matter? Do they affect success in school or in the workplace?

Are Noncognitive Skills Important?

They apparently are important in industry. Employers report valuing job stability and dependability, and they often use noncognitive assessments in employee hiring decisions, for good reason. Meta-analyses (analyses of the combined results from multiple studies) have shown that noncognitive measures provide a 20% improvement over cognitive ability measures in predicting training success and job performance(Schmidt & Hunter, 1998).

You can download the ETS pdf here. It is rife with references to noncognitive skill. The interesting thing to me of course is the absurdity. First, what is skill and how can it be noncognitive? How in the world did they arrive at the conclusion that skills other than reading and math are not demanding of congnitive engagement? Are these skills for the mindless or what? Development of skill, even those that cannot be so easily measured as those in math or reading, require feedback, observation and reflection which are clearly cognitive activities unless you've been trapped in an academic or institutional environment so long as to have lost touch.

It is completely amazing to me that we have turned American education over to the testing industry, and yet we can see so clearly that they are fundamentally flawed, misunderstanding skill and expressing academic bias against it... unless that skill is one of filling out bubbles in number 2 pencil.

Some things like reading and math skills are easy to measure. There are skills and qualities of character that are not so easy to chart. But to presume one set to be cognitive and the other not, is arrogance of the worst kind. And that arrogance has been damaging to American education. It seems that those difficult to measure skills of heart, and skills of hand that matter most to our children's futures have been assessed as having no value in American schooling. Take matters into your own hands.

Make, fix and create...

non-measurable qualities of success...

2011-12-20T08:18:00.006-06:00

Our local school officials are pleased that standardized test scores are on the rise. According to an article in our local Carroll County Newspaper, "Carroll County schools were among several listed for improved test scores on the Benchmark and End-of-Course (EOC) exams given this year." Unfortunately, there is no direct correlation between what the tests measure and the qualities of hand, mind and heart required for student long term success. Others on the horizon are looking at what they've termed "non-cognitive," behavioral or emotional predictors of success. According to Paul R. Sackett, professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota, the greatest predictors of student success are "conscientiousness (e.g. work ethic, dependability and perseverance) agreeableness (teamwork, emotional stability) and various kinds of extroversion and openness to new experience." Those are qualities that don't show up on standardized tests.

I have become suspicious of the use of terms like "non-cognitive". The implication is that there are elements of human behavior that do not require thought. For instance, the waiter serving you tonight's dinner might be assumed mindless by those who've fallen on the less comprehending side of the academic divide. And yet he deserves only to be considered mindless if he has forgotten nearly everything in delivering what you've ordered.

There are two areas of cognition, involving the left and right hemispheres of the human brain. Standardized testing measures only that which comes from one side, and we have to wonder when American education will remember the whole child which cannot be fully educated without music, the arts, crafts, dance, creative interpersonal problem solving, play, athletics and hands-on learning.

It will be interesting to discover down the road many years from now whether the teach-to-the-test experiment will pay off in leading children to become adults who have some drive toward their own success. But I strongly suspect, based on what we know of the left-right brain divide through study of other species, that we will have neglected the most important of that which we as responsible teachers and adults have been entrusted to impart.

Make, fix and create...

thrashing wildly through the woods...

2011-12-19T08:50:00.007-06:00

Those of us who live in Arkansas on regular basis come into contact with those who've never been in the woods before, never floated a stream, never walked in the dark under a starry sky, and it seems remarkable, unbelievable to us that there can be those among us who have never been so touched by real life.

Back in the earliest days of the manual arts movement in the US, John Runkle at MIT, Calvin Woodward at Washington University and others had noticed that since so many of their students were no longer growing up on farms and were thus no longer engaged in hands-on problem solving from such early ages, something must be done to bring their engineering and math students up to snuff. When thumbs are left twiddling, little sense of real life is discovered. That sense of real life is the foundation for all subsequent real learning. Runkle and Woodward started woodworking education at their prestigious universities to bring real-world hands-on learning to their students in engineering and math.

Then (as now) we had the problem of schools which Eugene Davenport, Dean of the College of Agriculture and Director of the Agricultural Experiment Station, University of Illinois from 1888 to 1911 described as follows:

Schools have much to do to compensate for the fact that they take the children out of real life for a period of years into an artificial world that we call the school house. They come out of it "long" in information to be sure, but they have lost a subtle something that comes only from personal experience in real life during the days of development. We are coming at last to realize that there is more than one avenue to a successful life, that the way by the schoolhouse may not be the best for all people, and that whether it is the best will depend upon whether the school gives a true or a distorted picture of life. Is the mirror of life which the schools hold up a true one? Is it badly concave or convex at any point? If so, then that concavity or convexity needs correction.

The farm and the shop and the work of the household have a powerful influence in developing executive ability and the power of initiative quite independent of acquisition of knowledge, and if we make the mistake of substituting mere accumulation of facts for this sort of development, and sacrifice the one for the other, it is more than an open question if on the whole we have not lost more than we have gained.

I am reminded of Felix Adler's essay on the value of manual training delivered in Buffalo, NY 1888, at the National Conference of Charities and Corrections. He described a meeting with an aging poet* who turned to him and said,

"That is all very well. I like your factories and your wealth; but tell me, do they turn out men down your way?"

And Adler asks, "Is this civilization of ours turning out men — manly men and womanly women?" Those are the values of character that come from hands-on learning that our schools neglect and that our children so desperately need. Do you think those experts looking for what are essentially non-measurable qualities of success will know where to look for them or how to create opportunities for them in our nation's schools?

I have a friend Ernie who is a watercolor artist. He also runs a float service on a local river. He is an expert paddler, having survived the worst of river conditions and water rescues. You could think of him as a "man's man". He told me about the tourists he meets. One thought that that the river went in circles, that he could put his family in canoes here and after a wonderful day on the river take out there, pointing immediately upstream. Another customer after hours on the river assumed he had missed his takeout point, abandoned his canoe and then spent hours thrashing wildly through the woods. He emerged from the woods looking like a scratched and half-naked madman.

I am also reminded of my friend Chon who had taken 50+ year old guests on a night walk with flashlights into a meadow. They were terrified to turn out the lights and to experience the dark night star-strewn sky for the first time in their lives.

So what the heck are we doing in American education? John Dewey had asked that schools become engaged in real life... That schools not be artificial constructs that distort children's understanding. And yet, that is what they have become. And so much more so in our present time.

Take matters into your own hands. Help your children to:

Make, fix and create...

*When asked about Adler's quote of the "aging poet," Walt Whitman said, "I guess that's me: and it is very kindly and friendly, isn't it?"

power of making...

2011-12-18T07:39:00.007-06:00

Victoria and Albert Museum has an exhibit called "Power of Making" and my readers might find as much interest in what is said about making as the objects themselves included in the exhibit. For instance,

"Thinking by making"
"Many people think that craft is a matter of executing a preconceived form or idea, something that already exists in the mind or on paper. Yet making is also an active way of thinking, something which can be carried out with no particular goal in mind. In fact, this is a situation where innovation is very likely to occur.

Even when making is experimental and open-ended, it observes rules. Craft always involves parameters, imposed by materials, tools, scale and the physical body of the maker. Sometimes in making, things go wrong. An unskilled maker, hitting the limits of their ability, might just stop. An expert, though, will find a way through the problem, constantly unfolding new possibilities within the process."

I take pleasure in the things I have made. I also take pleasure in what I've learned in making them. The new wooden hinge on the recipe box is an example. I had visualized how it would work and then made it. And in that is a sense of agency that psychologists will tell you is essential to human feelings of well-being.
This was the first wooden hinge of this design for me. Having done one, I can visualize now how to further refine the process and will do so before writing an article about how it is made. One of the things that worked for me in making this box was a decision that came late in the game, that of extending the hinge beyond the ends of the box. It is evidence of the thinking process that takes place during the process of making even the most simple of objects. The effect was to dramatize the wooden hinge making it an even stronger element of design.

In this month's Wooden Boat Magazine, the "Getting Started in Boats" supplement is by Joe Youcha describing how building a skiff teaches math. Joe runs a program for inner city youth to build boats at the Alexandria Seaport Foundation. The article is a wonderful example of what some of us know by heart: that we learn best, we learn most effortlessly, and we retain learning longest when that learning is hands-on doing real things. Like building a boat...

Make, fix and create...

LTSP...

2011-12-17T11:40:00.006-06:00

Folks are now talking about the need for people to get back into making things, but the new high-tech way. High-tech seems to be an idea with sex appeal for those who've never made anything before in their lives and are slightly afraid of breaking a nail. Or those who are slightly afraid of the long hours one needs to invest to develop skill.

This movement (if it is indeed a movement) is called HTSP, or "high-tech self-providing," and is described in this web page: New work centers and HTSP by Juliet Schor.

Can you imagine do-it-all fabricator machines in place of our TV's? Instead of watching TV at night, we could watch our very own small trash cans and other self created plastic objects being molded, trimmed and spit out the fabricator's side door in a variety of fashion colors. Because these are production machines in a non-production environment, we could set up Amway like customer marketing schemes to bring in just enough profit to keep feed our addiction to the making of HTSP stuff.

I am reminded of the Styron® crystals my dad brought home for us to play with in the 60's. They would melt at temperatures reached in our home oven into whatever shapes we could imagine and make molds for. My dad's idea was that big 100 lb sacks of Styron® direct from Dow® could be repackaged and sold at a huge profit through craft supply outlets. In using this wonderful product there were gasses and fumes emitted that turned our house into an industrial danger zone. Fortunately my dad gave up on the idea of marketing home-crafted plastic products before any of us were permanently damaged or deranged, and before health related law-suits began pouring in. We have love affairs with our ink jet printers, don't we? We can buy one cheap and then buy expensive ink cartridges for it until its planned obsolescence. The same thing will be true of these devices that are suggested to turn our lives into creative bliss. 3-D thermal object printers? Give me a happy hammer and a cheerful saw and some real non-toxic wood any day of the week.

Out of concern for the health and happiness of others I would propose a different scene. I call it LTSP or "low-tech self-providing." Imagine if we were to take a fresh look at the pleasure and satisfaction that can come from self-supplying goods for our own consumption, but instead of insisting on high-tech banishment of skilled hands, we were to take a low tech approach using traditional tools. In honor of the past and the long heritage of intelligent craftsmanship, we might also call it Hëmsloyd. For that is what they have traditionally called cottage crafts in Sweden.

Yes, the idea of just self-fabricating stuff without skill is appealing to our generations all abuzz with high-tech devices. But we must not overlook the merits of doing things the old hard way that lifted our spirits, raised our intelligence and put a polish on our sense of self.

ABC News did a survey claiming that:

If every American spent $64 on something made in America, we could create 200,000 jobs right now.
That might sound like a lot to spend until we heard that the average American spends $700 on Christmas or holiday gifts.
So where will you spend your money this year?

Don't wait, make something beautiful and useful today and join what might become a growing legion of the LTSP, more commonly called craftsmen.

The photos above are of small cabinets made during the filming of my DVD Building Small Cabinets. These were all made with relatively low-tech tools, the skilled way. And you can spend wonderful hours making fine furnishings for your own home and reduce your carbon footprint at the same time. For some reason the high-tech folks don't seem to know that.

Make, fix and create...

Making wooden hinges...

2011-12-17T09:17:00.004-06:00

Open, the wooden hinge is attractive.

Yesterday I made a prototype wooden hinge as a sample for the editors of Fine Woodworking. In order to keep articles coming through magazines I have to keep busy pitching proposals, and in this case, the editors wanted to actually see a box made with the technique I was describing to them. My idea is to write an article showing at least two ways in which wooden hinges can be made, and I know from teaching that wooden hinges always interest my students just as they will subscribers to Fine Woodworking Magazine.

The box shown in the photos is a "recipe box" made of black locust. The size is intended to offer the space required to hold recipe cards. The box is not finished. I will do additional sanding and apply a Danish oil finish.

Yesterday's post mentioned Calvin Woodward's "alphabet of tools." If there is an alphabet of tools, there would also be a library of techniques, and a whole language of form in the making of useful things.

The idea of an alphabet of tools was probably not original to Woodward.

Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746-1827) had created an "alphabet of form" breaking down the patterns required to observe, draw, illustrate and design that I had described in an earlier blog post. He also suggested that an "alphabet of practical abilities" should be designed so that manual work and physical exercises could be broken down into elements, and teaching schemes devised to develop skill.

You can see Pestalozzi's ideas more fully developed in the work of Victor Della Vos and Otto Salomon who formulated the early programs of manual arts instruction. Pestalozzi's alphabet of form has proved more difficult to use. But children with words alone and no tools with which to commence real learning are deprived of their creative capacity. Is that the world we would consciously choose for them?

Make, fix and create...

gaining an alphabet of tools

2011-12-16T08:42:00.003-06:00

The following is from Calvin M. Woodward's book, the Manual Training School, and outlines his vision for American education.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE POLYTECHNIC SCHOOL.
This distinguishing feature of a polytechnic school, next to the kind of knowledge it aims to give, lies in its method of combining theory with practice. Not only should a polytechnic school aim to give instruction in the scientific principles theoretically involved in every important branch of industry, but it should not be satisfied until the student himself is sufficiently familiar with the details of the processes in question, and sufficiently skilled in the necessary manipulations, to enable him to illustrate these principles himself. These two things characterize the ideal technical school, and mark the educational progress of this generation: First, the things studied and taught are of immediate importance and of intrinsic value; second, one is not supposed to understand a process or an experiment till he has performed it. You know how it is in music. I may be quite familiar with the mathematical and physical theories of music. I may have studied with Helmholz the wonderful mechanism of the ossicles of the ear. I may be deeply read in the aesthetics of harmony and thorough-bass. I may even be able to explain the exact difference between a euharmonic and a common organ. And yet, if I can not play, I am no musician. Moreover, this playing on an organ is not a manual accomplishment merely. The brain is more concerned than the fingers. It is so in every thing. What avails your knowledge of photography unless you can take a good picture, and of what worth is your engineering if your bridge will not carry its own weight, and you have designed an impossible engine? None but the wearer can know where the shoe pinches, and none but a man who has had some practice is prepared for practical difficulties. Prof. Tyndall says, "Half of our book-writers describe experiments that they never made, and their descriptions often lack both force and truth. No matter how clever and conscientious they may be, their written words can not supply the place of actual observation," and he might have added, "of actual manipulation." Theory and practice, then, must go hand in hand; and, in order that the practice may be adequate to the theory, the hand and eye and head must receive previous careful training,—the hand in the use of instruments and tools; the eye in measuring distances and angles, in detecting peculiarities of form, and in observing the details of a construction; the head in a knowledge of the common properties of the commonest material substances, such as wood, stone, iron, glass, etc. The hand is a wonderful organ, and capable of performing vastly more than it is usually made to do. The same is true of the eye. Close observation is a habit which few acquire.

MANUAL TRAINING.

Children should early be taught to use, as well as to beware of, sharp tools. Just as every boy should be taught to swim, to row, to ride and groom a horse, so he should be taught to use the ax, the saw, the plane, and the file. Even a little skill in the use of these tools is invaluable. No one possessing manual dexterity of any kind fails to find abundant opportunity for its use.

I do not think I overestimate the value of physical strength, dexterity, and skill. It is in vain to assert the dignity of labor. Unless it has something in it besides dignity, we are not likely to be very zealous in seeking it. But skill we delight in. It is the exercise of skill which gives zest to all our games and sports, and removes the curse of Adam. There is not a person before me possessed of unusual skill, — I care not whether it be in handling the carpenter's ax or the painter's brush, in playing the organ or in shooting game, in driving horses or in sailing a boat, in making bread or in fitting a garment,—who is not conscious of a feeling of gratification and pride in consequence. Carlyle says in his Sartor Resartus‎, "Two men I honor, and no third: First, the toil-worn craftsman," etc. It is obvious that it is the craft that lie honors, and not the toil.

I therefore plead for a more extended and more systematic physical [manual] education. It is the best aid towards securing a wholesome intellectual culture, and it is the only means for making that culture of practical use. The world judges and rates us according to what we can do; and as an accomplished gymnast never loses his presence of mind, whether hanging by one foot or turning in mid-air, so a well-trained engineer is rarely at a loss. An acquaintance of mine, a young man well trained in both the theory and use of tools, and accustomed to do things, chanced to pass, in the city of New York, a gang of workmen endeavoring to move an immense iron safe. The unwieldy mass had partially slipped from their grasp, and all efforts to bring it again under control seemed to fail. Taking in the situation at a glance, my friend stepped forward and assumed the command. Clearly and without hesitation he gave his orders; promptly and willingly the men obeyed. In a moment the safe was well in hand, and expeditiously moved to its place. As the young engineer turned to go, a gentleman stopped him and said, "Young man, I will give you three thousand dollars a year if you will enter my employ and take the charge of moving our safes." Besides saying that the skill thus displayed was gained by study of the strength of materials and the mechanical powers, coupled with the actual use of tools in his own hands, I ought to add, perhaps, that the blunt offer was politely declined.

SHOP-WORK.

But the acquisition of this desirable manual skill requires workshops and tools and teachers; and, as such essentials are not in general to be had at home or at a common school, the work must be done at a polytechnic school. Hence, at the earliest possible moment, in the lowest class, students must enter the workshop. From the bench of the carpenter they should go to the lathe. Wood-turning is an art requiring great judgment and skill, and any one accomplished in it will testify to its great practical value. After wood, come brass, iron, and steel turning, fitting, and finishing; then the forge, where each should learn welding and tempering. This is the alphabet of tools. Next will come their legitimate use in the manufacture of patterns for castings, in the construction of model frames, trusses, bridges, and roofs; in the cutting of screws and nuts with threads of various pitch; and in the manufacture of spur and bevel wheels, with epicycloid and involute teeth. This shop-work should extend through the entire course of four years, varying somewhat according to the professional course selected.

Professor Woodward was the professor of mathematics and engineering who is considered the father of manual arts in America. We have an alphabet of letters that we push in schools whether the children are ready or not. We have an extreme sense of urgency about that. But if we have no alphabet of tools, what will children do with the many words they can can spell? And will they have any deeper sense of understanding?

Hinge made of hardwood dowels and brass rod.

This afternoon, I have been working in the shop, putting finishing touches on small cabinets in preparation for a show that begins in January in Little Rock. I've also begun playing with another type of wooden hinge shown in the photo above.

Make, fix and create...

disgusting and despicable...

2011-12-15T07:47:00.002-06:00

A man or woman can lie with words, create verisimilitude capable of deceiving a half billion fools, but a thing made is either well crafted so that all can perceive its truth and that of its maker, or poorly made, so that all can see the truth of its shameful bluster and wasteful effect.

I have nearly given up on watching American politics for the shame of it. Where are the truthful makers when we need them most? Where are those who have a well worn grip on reality? You will not find them on Wall Street or in the halls of congress. Usually when ideological principles become the main thing for political parties, you can count on real people being cut short. When we gave up on craftsmanship in American education, we gave up on the principles and values of craftsmanship as they can be applied to nearly everything else.

Fortunately there are matters we can take into our own hands. There are matters of personal integrity that can learned through the process of making simple things. Get a grip.

Make, fix and create...

today in the woodshop at CSS...

2011-12-14T19:18:00.001-06:00

Children from Clear Spring making our annual delivery of toys.


Ian's marvelous wooden truck and example that inspired it.

Today we visited our local food bank to deliver toys that our Clear Springs School children made for holiday distribution. Then the first, second and third grade students had their last wood shop before the holiday break. Ian finished his marvelous wooden truck which was inspired by a children's toy truck loaned to the wood shop by our art teacher.

Make, fix and create...

into the not so vast scheme of things...

2011-12-14T07:32:00.007-06:00

I have a small Norwegian box called a tine or cheese box that my great grandmother used to carry her personal precious things from Norway to the US in 1864. She was 11 years old at the time. Those familiar with Norwegian handcrafts can examine it and know that it came from the particular small town from which my mother's family came. The patterns are there in the Rosemaling. The method of work is there that reflects the culture from which it and my great grandmother arose at nearly the same time. When my mother was a small child, the bentwood box was where family photos were kept. When my grandmother died, the box came to my mother empty, the photos having been divided and shared. The box, missing parts, and having suffered indignities of repair is an object that tells a great deal about an earlier time. For instance, the cheese box belonging to my great grandmother would have been made by someone known to her. But the things in our own lives have become anonymous, ubiquitous, detached from their human makers, and thus of so much less value.

We have gone from a time in which we would have had a few precious things to lives filled with too many, and they have each declined in value. As a culture, we browse far and wide for our collection of things, but they are made no more meaningful to us as a result.

Can you see how when a person might commission work, or be on the other end as maker, relationships are woven that encompass and sustain the object made, making it of greater value? As each object becomes reflective of striving, and humanly care, it can become symbolic of so very much more... invested with human love, creative capacity, and aspirations toward humanly perfection.

And so in the scheme of things, things once brought us together and now hold us apart, as we are often overwhelmed and left disconnected by them. To quote Wordsworth, "getting and spending have laid waste our powers." That, however, is an easy thing to fix by taking matters of making into our own hands.

Today the first, second and third grade students at the Clear Spring School will be making Christmas ornaments, and we will make our annual delivery of kid-made toys to the local food bank for holiday distribution. It seems that the ones most impressed with the toys our children have made are not the children of the poor but the older men and women who still remember the power of having made something themselves.

My great grandmother's tine is shown in the photo above.

Make, fix and create...

Liberty Tool and the importance for all to make...

2011-12-13T07:08:00.007-06:00

There is a great message here:
The great idealistic notion from the Reagan administration that shaped our American economy is that if the rich had more money, it would trickle down to the poor as the rich engaged the poor to develop and express skill and create beauty. But if the rich have learned to have no sense of creative design, and have earned no understanding of the ways that craftsmanship lifts all boats, all persons within a culture to greatness, they spend money on themselves, not setting others to work in the making of useful beauty to thus arise in character and quality through such acts.

Sotheby's is having a record year as the rich bid up prices on antiquities and art of certified market value. Market value is the only thing so many rich people have been taught to understand. It seems to be a great time for dead craftsmen and their work. And so this is a sequel to yesterday's post on furniture making.

Children of all classes and from all income levels and particularly those in positions of entitlement need to learn the values that are acquired from working with their hands. And yet, we cannot expect a groundswell of understanding to arise for this issue without the participation of all those who know that great meaning can arise through great making. The following is from Otto Salomon:

"Persons not manually trained, generally regard the products of manual labor at less than their real value. They think it much more difficult to solve a mathematical problem than to make a table. It is not an easy thing to make a parcel-pin or a pen-holder with accuracy, and when students have done these things they will be the better able to estimate comparatively the difficulty of making a table or chair; and what perhaps is of still greater importance, they will become qualified to decide between what is good and what is bad work, and thus avoid the misfortunes which befall the ignorant and credulous through the impositions of knaves."

But the matter is even worse now than what Salomon describes. So many from all sectors of society have so little sense of what it takes to create, and have not learned that craftsmanship is the foundation of human culture. As our economy fades, those who have power and those who do not have little to do but stand idly by with twiddling thumbs.

I assume that if you are reading here you know better than that.

"When a man teaches his son no trade, it is as if he taught him highway robbery." Talmud

We have witnessed that very robbery taking place in the halls of congress and in the financial industry.

Make, fix and create...

Furniture making

2011-12-12T06:58:00.001-06:00

I had an interview yesterday with a writer from the Arkansas Democrat Gazette newspaper on the subject of furniture making. A couple of my friends who are also furniture makers had suggested that she contact me. There aren't many professional furniture makers in the state despite our abundance of beautiful woods. She wanted to know why.

First, it can be a hard way to make a living. Homeowners can buy what they want at a price they can afford from any number of suppliers foreign and domestic. It takes plenty of imagination for most customers to walk into furniture stores and choose ready-made things that will look nice in their home. When it comes to having something made by a craftsman, it will most likely cost more money, the customer will have to wait for it, there are no exact guarantees that it will work the way they've conceived it, and most customers don't have quite the visual imagination to know how it will look. Most are so used to thinking in words, not pictures, and will have great difficulty applying their imaginations to how a custom-made piece of furniture will fit their home or office decor.

It can be hard for a craftsman to sell enough work to keep in business and get good at making furniture. I was reminded of Joe Doster, one of the furniture makers who had given my name to the reporter. For years, Joe and I sold our work at the same craft shows. He would travel with a truckload of furniture that he hoped to sell in addition to the cutting boards he made. I would always travel with a piece of furniture or two along with my boxes just to let my customers know that I could do so much more. Loading work in and out of exhibit halls is work. Keeping customers aware of our skills as furniture makers was a challenge. Even with all the shows, taking time away from our wood shops, few would know that our skills were available, and selling fine furniture at craft shows did not work for for either of us.

There is an upside. From the craftsman's perspective there are few occupations offering more potential for growth. For customers, there can be no better chance at making their home environment unique and uniquely expressive of personal relationship with fine craftsmanship and materials. Imagine having furniture made from real woods that were grown in your own state or community instead of particle board. A few still care that there is a difference.

But here we come to the crux. Commissioning work from a real live craftsman in a customer's community, fosters growth within that community. Ask a craftsman to make something unique and of great value, and you've asked that craftsman to arise to his or her highest standards, greatest creativity and to a lofty place within human culture.

Perhaps we've all had the experience of being in a major city where buildings are no longer crafted with such care as they once were and seeing beggars in the street. That is the choice we made by going cheap and neglecting craftmanship.

Comenius (1590-1652) was the first great theorist of education. He said, "We give form to ourselves and to our materials at the same time." In other words, the maker of beautiful and useful things busily shapes him or herself at precisely the same time. Thus the woman with paint and brush becomes the artist, the potter at the wheel, hands wet with clay, a craftsman, and in the vast scheme of humanity there are no greater values than those expressed through the arts. It is an alchemy of the truest sort... turning lead lives into the purest gold.

People gripe that they see a dearth of values in our nation and within our communities. We spend our dollars in other countries and understand that our commerce in foreign lands may lift their poor to higher standards, but we have no shared notion that the same principle works amongst our own. As we've given up on craftsmanship in our cities and towns, we've given up on the effort to arise as a culture of caring folks. We were once a nation of craftsmen. Now we are a nation of consumers, and the great pity is that there are some who do not know the difference or care that there is one.

Make, fix and create...

the debate over cursive...

2011-12-11T08:46:00.007-06:00

They're still talking about whether or not cursive should still be taught in schools. Many states have already cut out just about all things that require the non-keyboardian use of the hands. With pressures on standardized testing, and trying to squeeze maximum value from our teaching staff, our schools have been dismasted. Politicians and administrators hack away at the rigging and let the ropes trail behind in an angry sea. As a society we are deeply engaged in a transfer of intellect from the mind and hand to our machines. The process makes a huge volume of human knowledge instantly accessible for our amusement, but leaves us unable to contribute anything real or of real value. This article in the Baltimore Sun, Writings on the wall for school cursive courses tells a bit about the ongoing story. Who needs to write with some physical semblance of skill or beauty when you can type or rely on voice recognition software to tell your tale? Who needs to sign documents when you could scan a retina, or spit to have your DNA scanned, analyzed and affixed?

We are in a process of losing fundamental human creative techniques and expressive capacities, just as when the pioneers reached the Rocky Mountains and threw precious heirlooms off the backs of their wagons to ease their climb to the top. Nowadays significant elements of human culture are being tossed off the backs of our wagons for the climb to the top of a digital divide. The hope is that as we arrive at a promised digital land, cursive and all other creative things requiring skilled hands will have no longer have use.

Today I will have an interview with a reporter from the Arkansas Democrat Gazette about furniture making. Will anyone be interested in such a thing? Can't they just live their lives as avatars swirling around among tiny screens? As avatars they can choose digital furnishings at no cost, no real wood or effort or skill required. On the other hand and at the risk of sounding crazy, I suggest we engage our fingers in exploring things that are not flat and have texture other than glass. One landscape is far richer than the other. If you are bothering to read here, I suspect you know which.

Make, fix and create...

15,015 hours in school...

2011-12-10T08:12:00.006-06:00

K. Anders Ericsson, is a Swedish psychologist at Florida State University, who came up with the 10,000 hour rule on the attainment of mastery. The rule is understood to apply to a wide range of practices and was made popular through Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers... The rule can be applied to writing code on a computer, athletics, dance, or music, woodworking, art, and so many things that offer the opportunity to earn and express mastery. Anders Ericsson's article in the Harvard Business Review can be found here, or a pdf download here.

"Back in 1985, Benjamin Bloom, a professor of education at the University of Chicago, published a landmark book, Developing Talent in Young People, which examined the critical factors that contribute to talent. He took a deep retrospective look at the childhoods of 120 elite performers who had won international competitions or awards in fields ranging from music and the arts to mathematics and neurology. Surprisingly, Bloom’s work found no early indicators that could have predicted the virtuosos’ success. Subsequent research indicating that there is no correlation between IQ and expert performance in fields such as chess, music, sports, and medicine has borne out his findings. The only innate differences that turn out to be significant— and they matter primarily in sports—are height and body size.

So what does correlate with success? One thing emerges very clearly from Bloom’s work: All the superb performers he investigated had practiced intensively, had studied with devoted teachers, and had been supported enthusiastically by their families throughout their developing years. Later research building on Bloom’s pioneering study revealed that the amount and quality of practice were key factors in the level of expertise people achieved. Consistently and overwhelmingly, the evidence showed that experts are always made, not born."

All of this presents a rather frightening scenario for the future of American culture and economy. We have no innate claim to excellence or superiority, and if we give up our inclination toward hard work and long practice we will make very little of ourselves.

Last night I began wondering how many hours children spend in school and what they learn from it. Bear with me as I do the math... Nine months with 4 weeks per month and with 3 weeks off for breaks equals 33 weeks. Thirty-three weeks times 5 days per week times 7 hours per day equals 1155 hours per year. Kindergarten through 12 grade equals 13 years which times 1155 hours equals 15,015 hours in school. Children in preschool have even more hours. Those hours are enough time to attain mastery in one thing, and half-mastery in another and yet there is not much chance of mastery of even one thing in sight.

They say that children facing employment in the next few years may have as many as 5 to 8 jobs in a 10-15 year period. What does this all say about the rewards of accomplishing difficult and demanding things that reinforce one's sense of self? Will there be opportunities to get really good at something? Even just one small thing?

What children most often learn in school is that they do not like school. And while 10,000 hours may be enough time to become world class in something, 15,015 hours could be enough to enter to make masters in boredom and mediocrity.

In our homes, we present children with wonderful technologies that entertain, and make easy. So again let's do the math. In an average day at home, each child sits in front of a TV or computer screen 3-5 hours (or more). Three hours times 365 days a year times beginning at age 3 equals 16,425-27,375 screen-time hours by the time a child reaches 18 years of age. That would be enough time to get really good at something. How about basketball or the clarinet, or wood turning... Mastery of one thing, and half-mastery of another?

1/16 in. brass stock is perfect for forming small cabinet door pulls

Yesterday we finished the filming of my DVD Building Small Cabinets which will be released in March, so now I can do all the finishing touches on the cabinets which will go in a show at the Historic Arkansas Museum starting in January. What you see in the photo above are brass pulls I'm making for a small white oak display cabinet. To bend the curves to create finger grips, I used the DuoMite bending jig shown in the photo below. Next I will need to cut these pulls to length, drill and countersink mounting holes, sand and polish the edges smooth and mortise the edges of the doors for them to fit.

The Duo-Mite bending jig is used to bend
precise curves in brass or steel stock.


After rounding the edges, I drill mounting holes.

After polishing the pulls are ready to install.

Make, fix and create...

what difference does it make???

2011-12-09T07:14:00.003-06:00

Some of my readers may wonder what difference it makes whether human intellect first arose through the use of the hands or through man's verbal-linguistic capacity. That is the current argument going on between followers of Noam Chomsky and those who are exploring the roots of human intelligence in the use of the hands. It is actually an interesting intellectual battle which rests upon the presumed supremacy of the academic mind. If we knew more about the development of intellect, that understanding could alter our expectations as to what children should be doing in school. Is it enough that they be taught reading and math? Or should they be instructed in other things, like art, laboratory science, music and wood shop. This last sentence was in the form of a question, but one posed without a question mark, as I believe we all know what the answer should be.

If every aspect of human intellect arose through our capacity for speech, then reading ought to be enough to fill the bill. But many of the greatest minds point to the wide range of activities through which human intellect is developed and expressed. If we wanted to encourage the wide range of intellect and full development of our children's minds, our schools would be workshops humming with music, noise, self-directed developmental activities of all kinds, all well beyond the capacity of standardized testing to record.

One of the things that we find in schools is that the activities are made for one hand or the other, with the right being the preferred hand. And as the left (or right) is neglected, left untrained for much more than holding the paper in place as the dominant hand holds the pencil or pen, we are missing out on important components of brain integration that lead to human intuition, or in German, fingerspitzengefühl, which means having the appearance that all knowledge is at the tips of one's fingers. It is no coincidence that this term for the full expression of human intuition would be described in the language of the hands.

When thinking of human intelligence we rarely think of human intuition as an expression of it. German Field Marshal Rommel, the "dessert Fox" was described by as having fingerspitzengefühl as he eluded the British in North Africa, but his feat was not a matter of divine intervention but one of integration of the two hemispheres of his own brain. Through the integration of his left and right hemispheres he was able to maintain what appeared to be an extrasensory grasp of the minute details and a simultaneous sense of the whole range of battle. Of course you could say this is just woodworker's speculation, but it has been observed by others. This phenomena was what Jean Jacques Rousseau was describing when he said,

"Put a young man in a woodshop, his hands will work to the benefit of his brain, and he will become a philosopher while thinking himself only a craftsman."

And so, if you are paying attention, you will know why we need to turn our schools into workshop/laboratories, where children are making things, doing experiments, learning hands-on, playing instrumental music, each activity engaging both hands. Children may feel a powerful, intuitive capacity as they slide one finger over glass, but real fingerspitzengefühl arises when children are engaged in their learning hands-on, both hands, and with their hearts engaged also.

So, yes it does make a difference understanding how human intellect arose in the first place.

Today Gary Junken and I will finish the Building Small Cabinets DVD. We may have just a few voice-overs later to finish up and meet a February deadline and spring release.

Make, fix and create...

Back to small cabinets...

2011-12-08T06:29:00.005-06:00

This morning Gary Junken from Taunton Press will arrive to continue filming my building Small Cabinets DVD. We will be cutting one kind of corner joint, retaking footage on another, and then getting background video on the various cabinets, and small cabinet details featured in my Building Small Cabinets book. The video work leaves very little time for other things. So read deep in the blog if you come here and find nothing new.

Six ways in which segments can be rotated for use as
tools and weapons. The stippled areas represent adhesive.

Mary Marzke sent me links to an article by Lyn Wadley on the use of adhesives to attach stone to wood in the making of shafted tools, weapons and instruments. Wadleys's work was published in Current Anthropology, and illustrates the intellect involved as early man crafted tools to enable his survival. Evidently, there was enough adhesive remaining on some crafted pieces of stone from 70,000 years ago to reformulate the means through which they were attached. This work pushes forward by 40,000 years, the earlier speculation by V.G. Childe and others that the handle came as late as 30,000 years ago.

Compound adhesives were made in southern Africa at least 70,000 years ago, where they were used to attach similarly shaped stone segments to hafts. Mental rotation, a capacity implying advanced working‐memory capacity, was required to place the segments in various positions to create novel weapons and tools. The compound glues used to fix the segments to shafts are made from disparate ingredients, using an irreversible process. The steps required for compound‐adhesive manufacture demonstrate multitasking and the use of abstraction and recursion. As is the case in recursive language, the artisan needed to hold in mind what was previously done in order to carry out what was still needed. Cognitive fluidity enabled people to do and think several things at the same time, for example, mix glue from disparate ingredients, mentally rotate segments, talk, and maintain fire temperature. Thus, there is a case for attributing advanced mental abilities to people who lived 70,000 years ago in Africa without necessarily invoking symbolic behavior.

There is no concrete evidence that man's development came as a result of language alone, but there is evidence that the making of things took a leading role in the development of man. There is a growing body of evidence that making the tools for our survival and the increased size of the human frontal lobe were parallel developments. You can find Lyn Wadley's article Compound‐Adhesive Manufacture as a Behavioral Proxy for Complex Cognition in the Middle Stone Age here. In order to understand all this and write this paper, Wadley had to make the adhesive from materials found in the natural environment and then replicate the methods for attachment, demonstrating again that you won't really learn all that much about real things by just yakking. "Her main research interest is ancient cognition and her experimental archaeology is geared towards understanding the mental architecture required for various behaviors."

In order to better understand your own mental architecture,

Make, fix and create...

The chart above was made at MIT to show the number of jobs created through the spending of 1 Billion US dollars in various economic sectors. You can see that government support for education pays off far more as an economic stimulus and essentially gives two bangs for the buck. It is kind of like how cutting firewood warms you twice. But we are far too stupid in the politics of this nation to do anything about it.

the hand, primatology and anthropology

2011-12-07T07:19:00.003-06:00

Hand author Frank Wilson introduced me to Mary Marzke (via email) and she is one of the world's foremost authorities on the evolution of tools and adaptive use of the hands. It is an exciting connection for me. I suggested to Mary that:

"One of the things we need to be thinking about is how the hands interface physical reality in partnership with the eye. The paper (I referenced in the blog yesterday) notes that the finger tips are good at sensing texture and temperature, but not shape. The back and forth rubbing motion of fingers is used in the manipulation of tablets which offer no discernible texture. Are we ignoring other important hand senses in our and our children's engagement with reality by giving them a steady diet of digital devices? The hands and eyes work in partnership. When flat screens meet iPads and we fail to engage the hands in the sensing of weight, scale and shape, what other things are we failing to offer?

There are tests that they give students to determine IQ, asking how is this shape different or the same in comparison to other shapes. I strongly suspect that that sensitivity to shape, and ability to interpret the meaning of shaped objects is related not only on the seeing of shape, but related also to the catalog of ideas of shape that have arrived within the brain by the handling of those shapes. It would be interesting to prove it."

This idea presents some interesting research opportunities that Dr. Marzke says she will present to colleagues engaged in study with chimps.

Another thing that I shared with her that she thought would be useful for an upcoming speech was the role of kindergarten and play with kindergarten objects in the personal intellectual development of Buckminster Fuller and Frank Lloyd Wright.

I am hoping that Dr. Marzke can help me with a question I've been wrestling with... the development of the handle. It was suggested by V.G. Childe and others that while the making of tools goes back over 2.5 million years, the application of the handle came only 35,000 years ago, corresponding with an explosion of brain development and vastly increasing the power and range of our tools. This virtual explosion of intellect, came as man was able to use metaphor to apply the notion of the handle to an ever increasing and widening array of instruments. It may not describe a causal relationship between the hand and the development of mind, but may add evidence to the discussion of whether the explosion in brain capacity came as a result of language use, or tool usage. It also makes a difference whether we think of metaphor as a widely applied human capacity or just a word game.

"The act of imagination is the opening of the system so that it shows new connections. Every act of act of imagination is the discovery of likenesses between two things which were thought unlike. An example is Newton’s thinking of the likeness between the thrown apple and moon sailing majestically in the sky. Hence, the ‘discovery’ of the laws of gravity." — Jacob Bronowski

In the wood shop today at Clear Spring School, first, second and third grade students will make decorative Christmas trees in preparation for the holiday season.

Make, fix and create...

hand and eye...

2011-12-06T08:54:00.002-06:00

There is evidence linking exploration by the hands to the development of intellectual grasp of physical reality. Lederman and Katsky:

"...carried out seminal work on exploratory procedures, classifying typical hand movements into six types (lateral motion, pressure, static contact, holding, enclosure, and contour following) and characterizing each type based on factors such as compatibility with other EPs (exploratory procedures) and execution speed. Of particular interest for this study is their demonstration that the choice of EP determines the nature of the information which can be extracted about an object. For each EP, they estimated EP-to-property weightings which represent the extent to which an object property can be extracted using a given EP. For instance, lateral motion, a back-and-forth rubbing motion of the fingers over a surface, is best-suited for extracting texture, but provides little or no shape information. Enclosing objects in the hand provides information about global shape and texture, but little exact shape information. Contour-following provides access to texture and global shape, while also providing the most information about an object’s exact shape."

This paper may be a bit deep for many of my readers, but was sent to me by Dr. Frank Wilson, author of the Hand.

One of the things we need to be thinking about is how the hands interface physical reality in partnership with the eye. You will note in the above quote that the finger tips are good at sensing texture and temperature, but not shape. The back and forth rubbing motion of fingers is that which is used in the manipulation of tablets. But are we ignoring other important hand senses in our and our children's engagement with reality by giving them a steady diet of digital devices? The hands and eyes work in partnership. When flat screens meet iPads and we fail to engage the hands in the sensing of weight, scale and shape, what other things are we failing to offer?

There are tests that they give students to determine IQ, asking how is this our sensitivity to shape, and ability to interpret the meaning of shaped objects is related not only to the seeing of shape, but related also to the catalog of ideas of shape that have arrived within the brain by the handling of those shapes.

One more reason to make, fix and create...

Interesting op-ed piece in today's New York Times about the failure of sanctions-based No Child Left Behind Legislation.

wherewithal...

2011-12-05T07:23:00.002-06:00

I have been a longtime member of the National Association of Home Workshop Writers and had served for a term as VP and then as President. I continue to serve as a member of the board. We are currently opening up a membership drive to recruit new members interested in professional level writing for the do it yourself market. I will have more information to share in the blog at a later date.

We all know that the loss of shop classes in American schools was a truly dumb idea, and those of us who write about DIY know that far better than most. Children have been introduced to technologies that make things easy for them and offer little encouragement toward development of the wherewithal to do difficult and challenging things. That's something we need to fix. As writers, it affects our industry.

Also, because DIY writing involves the hands and direct teaching of practical things, it is placed on a lower intellectual and social hierarchy than fiction and other non-fiction materials. Start an organization to promote fiction and you'll have zillions of members overnight. But write about subjects based on real experience that others can replicate in their own hands and the market shrivels in today's world where "ease of use" matters so much to everyone and children are seldom asked to do difficult things. So successful how-to writing that encourages readers to read and become engaged in making real things and to discover their own wherewithal to take on real challenges in the real world requires how-to writers to stick together and encourage each other in our work.

I was at Lux weaving studio yesterday selling my small boxes and working on a letter to promote the Eureka Springs School of the Arts. A man came in looking for a plumber. He's a skilled software engineer recently retired to a grand historic home in Eureka Springs who had never applied his hands to anything beyond the keyboard, and as he worried about how to find a plumber on a Sunday in Eureka Springs, I offered the use of my wrenches... along with the suggestion that he take time to discover the pleasure of knowing how to do something himself. He listened to my encouragement, but I could see it didn't stick. It is extremely difficult to awaken a person to their own capacities. It was obvious that he came from a social strata in which gentlemen did not do plumbing. I tried to tell him that having the wherewithal to fix things on your own time, without dependence on others is an ennobling and fulfilling endeavor. Can you imagine sitting around wringing your hands on a Sunday afternoon rather than choosing to take matters in your own hands and discover your own physical and intellectual power?

wherewithal is a very good thing.

Make, fix and create...

silence, please...

2011-12-04T07:55:00.006-06:00

Over a year ago, I ran into a dear friend in the airport. We were each leaving on flights to different destinations. While he was leaving to take a month-long retreat in silence, I was headed off to teach a class in box making in which I would be talking a great deal and students would hang on my every word. Being good friends, we reveled in support of each others adventures.

I recently asked John if he would be willing to offer a Sunday program at our local UU Church about his experiences in silent reflection. In response he asked, how could he share the experience of silence without being silent? It is a dilemma. There are those things well beyond words, that cannot be easily expressed in language. And yes, this is related to the posts of the last couple days.

From an academic perspective, Noam Chomsky, and all, the idea is that language is the highest expression of human intellect. (That would certainly be the position an academician would take). If a matter can't be put into words, it is not of real value in the academic scheme of things. From a craftsman's view, I see other things at play. There are many things that cannot be put into words, need not be, and may be made trivial (except through poetry) by our attempting to do so. Jill Bolte Taylor's book, A Stroke of Insight describes her experience of having a stroke that robbed her of the function of the left (analytic and language) side of her brain. Being a brain researcher and watching as her left side brain function collapsed gave her extraordinary insight. Her account of her stroke is fascinating, because she describes the experience as a somewhat frightening uncontrolled entry to a state of glorious nirvana. In fact the left and right sides of the brain might provide a map for the discussion of my friend's silence if I can convince him to take part. There is a great TED talk by Jill Bolte Taylor describing her experience.

When we create educational systems with only our left brains in mind and overlook the right, we create children that early educators had described as "one-sided." If you look at today's culture, you can see the results. We have this "teach to the test" view in which a subject is not learned if it is not measured and if it can't be easily measured is of no value. To our children we have offered a world in which anxiety is the norm, little comfort can be found in the making of beautiful and useful objects, and in which their failure to find happiness through meaningful service is reasonably assured.

The strategic implementation of the hands, left and right, offers an alternate model for education. To repeat Ruskin, "no lips of man" can teach those things that are of the greatest importance, but the hands can, and where the hands lead, the heart and mind follow.

One of the things that one can learn in the wood shop is silence. And it can be required in order to do the best work. Have you listened to the plane shaping an edge? Did you know that human wisdom is best expressed not through words but through silence?

To listen to today my interview today on Inside Education with Paul Preston, Click Here.My interview on the Wisdom of the Hands begins 1 hour and 5 minutes into the recording.

Make, fix and create...

The consequences...

2011-12-03T07:18:00.004-06:00

Yesterday's blog post was about understanding the cognitive implications of craftsmanship, and of course there is much more to the subject than can be explored in a single blog post. It is a subject I return to again and again in the blog. Keep reading, and you still will not fully know that which can be best learned in your own hands.

I want to take readers in a slightly different direction this morning to explore the consequences resulting from our assumptions that hand work is not on the same level of cognitive activity as purely academic work, when in fact, purely academic work is often idly speculative, often unsupported by evidence, and may resemble the truth without being true. It creates an intellectual system in which belief and rigid adherence to dogma is regarded just as important as observable truth. It encourages the development of faulty character as we see too clearly in the financial and political cultures that have poisoned our nation...

Jean Jacques Rousseau had said,

"Put a young man in a work shop, his hands work to the development of his brain and he becomes a philosopher while thinking himself only a craftsman."

You will read in that quote a sense of humility along with the sense of inadvertent triumph over matters of intellect... You can find the same ideas about the relationship between science, philosophy and the work shop expressed in the longer quote from Charles H. Ham in yesterday's post.

Can you see the tragedy of what we've done? Instead of a nation of craftsman/philosophers, we've created a nation of consumers, debt ridden, obsessed with ideological positions, seeing no hope but that of salvation by others. Seen from another political perspective, our system of education has created an upper class isolated from reality, unaware of the essential values that craftsmanship can bestow on the character of a nation. A social and economic class unaware of its own potential and responsibility to move our nation toward greater things.

Have you visited the Yale campus? It is exquisite. It was financed by a wealthy philanthropist and intended to resemble Oxford. The stone masons were imported from Europe, and the stone was buried for two years to take on the right aged patina before being used to construct its glorious buildings intended to look just as old as the great educational institutions of the UK. Did you know that you can spend 4 years at Yale without ever gaining insight into the mason's art? ...without being drawn by your on curiosity to engage creatively with the beauty that surrounds you? Can you see that there is a wrongheadedness to our endeavors? Did you know that seeing the world from a more hand-centric view casts things in a whole new light?

"Let the youth once learn to take a straight shaving off a plank, or draw a fine curve without faltering, or lay a brick level in its mortar, and he has learned a multitude of other matters which no lips of man could ever teach him." --John Ruskin, "Time and Tide", 1883

But we have done none of these things.

Author of the Hand, Frank Wilson, sent me this link to an article by Ed Tenner of Yale, suggesting "that kids need laps, not apps," and pointing out the unknown potential effects of the introduction of digital devices to children. We know that screen time has all kinds of adverse effects on child development, but that does nothing to dispel the enthusiasm parents and technology companies have for selling these devices and targeting them toward underage use.

Tomorrow I will have another interview on the Inside Education. My segment will air at 5 PM Pacific Standard Time. Click the link where it says "Listen Now".

This evening I will be at Lux Weaving Studio, 21 White St. in Eureka Springs, hours 5 to 8PM.

Make, fix, and create... You will learn amazing things about materials, but also about yourself.

academics vs. craftsmanship?

2011-12-02T07:36:00.004-06:00

My point is not to disparage, but to help establish a more leveled playing field for the arts. I was reading an article yesterday in which my blog was mentioned and it said,

"The discussion in the Netherlands about skills-oriented education versus academic, cognitive schooling reflects similar discussions elsewhere."

This quote inadvertently describes a pervasive false assumption about manual arts... that the manual arts or crafts, in comparison to academic studies are non-cognitive. I know this was not the author's intent. As well known by those who work to create useful beautiful objects, there could be nothing further from the truth.

There are some differences between academic scholars and craftsmen, but the difference is not one of cognitive engagement. Each endeavor takes intellect. The tools may be slightly different. The tools of the craftsman, each of which has evolved through many generations to embody greater intelligence, are for defining the shape, size, beauty and utility of materials. The books in a scholar's library are tools recording the thoughts of previous generations just as the tools on a carpenter's bench record the skills, thoughts and experiences of previous generations. Like a craftsman the scholar will also utilize some physical tools, like writing instruments, computers and the like. He or she uses concepts, references and analogy in place of materials in his work. His or her work exists primarily within the confines of language and published material may be the only tangible expression of his or her labors while the craftsman makes beautifully intelligent things each day to serve in the lives of others.

And then we come to the truth. This is from Charles H. Ham, 1880:

"Nothing stimulates and quickens the intellect more than the use of mechanical tools. The boy who begins to construct things is compelled at once to begin to think, deliberate, reason, and conclude. As he proceeds he is brought in contact with powerful natural forces. If he would control, direct, and apply these forces he must first master the laws by which they are governed; he must investigate the causes of the phenomena of matter, and it will be strange if from this he is not also led to a study of the phenomena of mind. At the very threshold of practical mechanics a thirst for wisdom is engendered, and the student is irresistibly impelled to investigate the mysteries of philosophy. Thus the training of the eye and hand reacts upon the brain, stimulating it to excursions into the realm of scientific discovery in search of facts to be applied in practical forms at the bench and the anvil."

The human being is constantly seeking the truth; the hand is constantly finding it.

I am preparing for a Holiday Art Show at Lux Weaving Studio on Saturday (21 White St. 5-9 PM, and I am cleaning the shop, finish room and office to prepare for a video shoot next week. I will be like a fish out of water as my hands are put to tasks other than making beautiful and useful things.

Make, fix and create...

out on a limb...

2011-12-01T09:42:00.002-06:00

I have been reading a book about how academicians think we think. It is a heavy read for one unfamiliar with the concepts. I tend to have a more practical approach. I tend to prefer tools to concepts. Tools are used to manipulate objects; concepts to manipulate understanding and/or verisimilitude. One is the domain of the craftsman and maker and the other the domain of the professional academician even though Einstein had said, "My pencil and I are more clever than I am."

We know that a huge amount of intelligence is invested in the man-made and natural objects that surround us, and intellect is not something that resides within the brain alone. But I have started to learn that when complex concepts concerning human intelligence are addressed one must walk with care or be subjected to attack by those who make a living from their speculations. I ran across the following quote in The Way We Think, by Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner:

"Linguistics is arguably the most hotly contested property in the academic realm. It is soaked with the blood of poets, theologians, philosophers, philologists, psychologists, biologists, and neurologists, along with whatever blood can be got out of grammarians."-- Russ Rymer.

Not quite the same blood as when one gets a slice from a sharp chisel but I do not like the sight of any blood, particularly my own.

I know that the blog has acquired many readers from around the world, and I was informed of a link to Wisdom of the Hands from Radio Netherlands Worldwide. They, like so many here in the US, have become concerned that their education is failing their kids and their whole nation by neglecting the education of the their hands. They wrote,

"The link between educating children and hands-on work is explored in depth by US woodworking teacher Doug Stowe in his blog, Wisdom of the Hands. One of his tenets is that "creativity is accomplished through the engagement of the left and right hemispheres of the human brain". Current education is increasingly focusing on the left, language-oriented, half of the brain, while ignoring the right-hemisphere-based, creative problem solving skills, Stowe says.

It is interesting that many of the early advocates of manual arts training emphasized the need to educate the "whole child." And while they did not discuss the left and right sides of the brain, they knew that something vital was missing when the hands were not engaged.

These days academic hot water awaits all those who attempt to explain things in terms of the left and right sides of the brain. There are academicians laying in wait for the unwary to mention such things. But I will trudge along and just as left or right might offer useful directions when you get to the intersection at the top of the hill, they offer concepts useful in finding our way toward better education.

In the wood shop today, I have been sanding boxes and oiling boxes as you can see in the photo above, bringing some to completion some freshly made and some that have languished on the shelves unattended for years. My object is to be able to sell some this Saturday at Lux Weaving Studio in Eureka Springs where I will join two other favorite artists in selling our work. 5-8 PM Saturday at 21 White Street. Bring your checkbook.

After using the word "languish" I wonder if you've noticed the similarity between it and the the word language? While evidently unrelated, coincidence may be telling us something...

Go ahead, join me on a limb and explore your own true intelligence... I'll lend a saw.

Make, fix and create...

creative engagement in the real world...

2011-11-30T06:53:00.004-06:00

It puzzles me that some would think that students sitting in classrooms with their hands stilled would be a good thing for the intelligence of our nation's kids. There are countless examples otherwise. Our most creative scientists and inventors are not idle in their pastimes. Alex Slocum, a leading professor at MIT is one of those pushing the frontiers of science, and in his spare time is an amateur woodworker. Columbia University Professor John Mutter, whose work at the Earth Institute has helped reshape our understanding of the earth is an amateur painter. Others may do all kinds of other things as "pass-times" that offer creative opportunities within their inventive minds. Seymour Cray who invented a series of computers that for years were the fastest in the world spent his evening hours and weekends digging a tunnel from his basement to a distant woods. And those who do not understand creative engagement in the real world would think that these examples are absurd and unrelated. They are not.

The way this works, for those of you who are not presently creatively engaged is this: Creativity is accomplished through the engagement of the left and right hemispheres of the human brain. The frontiers of human thought are pushed through the use of metaphor, the development of which is an exclusively right brained function. Nuts, bolts, spreadsheets and the like are one thing, creativity requires a more expansive view, and one thing you can see is that Slocum in his wood shop, Mutter at the easel, and Cray in his tunnel have in common is the opportunity for right brain engagement that comes as both hands are expressively engaged in doing real things.

I'm never quite sure how to explain all this but I'm trying.

In the lives of real human beings (here I'm talking about those who cannot be nailed down in spreadsheets), the shortest distance between two points is rarely a straight line, and certainly not an express lane. In Chinese philosophy, the I Ching, it would be called "happy wandering." We may have perfect destinations that are only arrived at through taking circuitous routes.

If you watch the news, what you will see are greedy, ill-informed, rude, thoughtless, and stupid behavior by those who had missed the opportunity to benefit from the creative engagement in making real things. A person learns a few things from craftsmanship. You learn honesty from the honesty of real materials. The materials will not lie, nor will they completely hide your character as a failed or careless craftsman. You learn humility, for attempting to accomplish difficult things will test your foolishly inflated reckonings of self. You will learn in time to create things that inspire others, serve others in simple ways, and in doing so will discover the simple un-inflated truth of your humanity.

The toy truck at left in the photo above is being made by a first grader using the model shown in the same photo at right. The project was his idea. I've helped by making a couple scroll saw cuts, lending my pen, and setting up the drill press to drill the right sized hole. My student even wanted to change the drill bit himself, and he did. All of the first, second and third grade students in todays classes said things like "Wood shop is my favorite class." And Wednesday is my favorite day because we have wood shop." Get it?

Make, fix and create...

the hand's path forward...

2011-11-29T10:37:00.001-06:00

This morning, I am working in my own shop for a bit, and will have middle school students in the afternoon. When I am at work in my shop, some of the work is routine, allowing my mind to wander, and as you might guess much of what I think about is the hands.

We have developed a model for education in the US in which teachers stand at the front of the class and deliver as much information as they can in the hopes that enough of it will stick that their class as a whole will test well enough to justify what they are paid. It is certainly not quite that bad in elementary schools, where the pressures on student achievement are not so grave. But as students advance through school, the pressures increase and the fun diminishes. Parents have high expectations. Administrators and teachers have high hopes, but students themselves, are left wondering, "What in the world am I doing here?" and "Why is this so boring and so little fun?" And the saddest question of all, "What's in it for me?"

The hands offer a path forward. Put the hands in use, with each child actually doing interesting things, using real tools and education becomes real to each child. The use of the hands engages all the senses, sight, sound, smell. It engages all the child's innate capacities and interests. If we put children of any age in classrooms, proceed to address their minds while ignoring their bodies, we create a situation that fails to engage.

I visited our CSS high school classroom yesterday afternoon to take a photo of my student's finished dovetailed box. My visit was after time for school to be let out. The students were playing a game of Bingo using facts from their current course. Not one child was willing to leave until the game was complete. Each was disappointed that they day's lessons were over. There was no rush to leave class. There are things that can be done to make learning more engaging, more successful and more fun. but you've got to:

Make, fix and create...

Juxtaposition of three things...

2011-11-28T07:04:00.003-06:00

From the New York Times: René Morel, Master Restorer of Rare Violins, Dies at 79He was one of the greats whose careful handwork was responsible for sustaining much of the world's best music.

Also from the New York Times, The Machine That Makes You Musical is an article about how iPad applications allow the machine to be used to simulate a variety of musical instruments. It is certainly a wonderful thing to think that everyone should be involved in making music, or loving music, and playing music with others from around the world, but is it OK that that music be played without effort and without skill? Is that how we can best arise as skilled and creative human beings?

A third interesting component is that the company that makes Guitar Hero has announced that it is going to discontinue the product. It was introduced in 2005, and had children across the US pretending they were rock stars while strumming along, not making real music, but pretending to do so. It was a high profit item for some time, but as sales have fallen, the company is moving on to other things.

Can you see some interesting things in this juxtaposition? Are there cultural values at risk? It is said that human culture must arise anew within each generation. Perhaps in the long run we will be left fiddling around on real fiddles, with our own musical inclinations having been abandoned by developers as they race along to new profits.... Perhaps a good thing. It is best when human culture is hands-on and arises within the agency of our human hands.

Today in the CSS woodshop, 4th, 5th and 6th grade students made toys and the high school students turned wood and cut dovetails.The first dovetailed box is complete as you can see in the photos above.

My advice?

Make, fix and create...

keeping things sharp...

2011-11-27T08:20:00.009-06:00

This morning as I was moving in and out of a lucid state, I was thinking about sharpening things, the character of steel, how it can be hardened and marked so it can be used to cut itself, as in the making of files for sharpening saws and shaping steel. You can take a hardened steel tool, use it to mark soft steel, then harden that steel and use it to file on wood or metal. That process is truly the foundation of all modern human culture. We would be napping flint and wearing animal skins without that foundation. We would also live in endless forests, for it was the making of charcoal to support the making of iron, that exhausted the forests of most of the ancient world from which our western culture grew to dominate the entire planet.

I had a friend for many years who owned a lumber yard in downtown Eureka Springs. After work when the yard had closed, he would sit at a bench and sharpen saws. A straight carpenter's hand saw could be filed sharp for a dollar or two, and circular saws could be filed for a bit less depending on the number of teeth. It was something Warren did when all his employees had gone home. It made extra money and gave him meditative time to reflect on all those things that had arisen in the course of the day. No doubt, he gave some time in thought to the owners of each saw, as each was marked with the name of the craftsman who had worn its teeth cutting wood. Now we have carbide blades that require more sophisticated equipment, and saw sharpening has become more complicated than a man sitting at a bench with a sharp file. Most carpenters just buy new blades.

Years ago, when I bought my first Japanese dozuki saw, they too were saws that could be sharpened, and Japanese craftsmen were known for the ability to file the full blade flat, and then re-file and reset new teeth one by one down the full length of the blade. I tried it one time and found it to be very difficult and time consuming, a thing that would only come easy through long practice, but in the old days of craftsmanship, time was less a pressing concern. Sharpening was a time to reflect on your day and express concern toward other matters. Sharpening was a thing that you did so well that as you moved from tooth to tooth, your hands cutting each one precisely in skilled manner, your mind was freed toward a more expansive state.

Can you begin to see what we are losing here? The "ease of use" in the products designed for us, means that no skill must be earned in their operation. There can be no earned sense of awe in our developing capacity. We become expendable rather than expandable in that anyone with the same machine can take our place without investing in his or her own development; without aptitude, which now, too, has become of less importance.

In my semi-lucid state, I began to wonder what would become of us if the grid failed, or the Internet went kaboom? Where would we be with our devices? Remember when tools offered ceremonial use? Do you remember when they were used with reverence, and when they gave rise to skills within the hands and minds of those who used them?

I am just asking for a bit of remembrance and restoration. There are parallels between a sharp tool and a sharp mind that we should be thinking about.

But no, I'm not asking you to give up your iPad. Just give it to your cat who can operate it with nearly the same level of proficiency and interest as you, yourself or I.

Make, fix and create...

a beautiful and useful object...

2011-11-26T07:00:00.008-06:00

I spent yesterday at the the Fine Art Show sponsored by the Eureka Springs School of the Arts. The show is more successful for some artists than for others. There, I am surrounded by some of the finest work by artists and craftsmen in the state. The work is beautiful, but as one of the artists mentioned to me, when times are tough, one of the last things a person may need is something decorative, regardless of how beautiful that thing might be.

Oscar Wilde had said,

"I have found that all ugly things are made by those who strive to make something beautiful, and that all beautiful things are made by those who strive to make something useful."

While I do not agree with Wilde completely, and do find beauty in many useless things, and find the artist's growth expressed clearly therein, Wilde's observation might be of use to those who aspire to make a living from their work. How can we make things that are both useful and beautiful that thus have value in enriching people's lives even in the most difficult of financial times?

I have been fortunate to have practical leanings in my inclination to make. And this is not intended to slight the painter in his or her craft. Some of them have told me of their own longing to make things that are useful -- that they themselves might use each day rather than just have the things they've made take up space.

I offer the following advice to craftsmen. Make things that are useful. Those things that offer humble usefulness in addition to their simple beauty, may define a clear path toward the artist's success. These things being used, will grow in beauty until they are used no more and those who have used them will then seek replacements that might offer the same rich character. The following poem makes a useful point.

"Things men have made with wakened hands, and put soft life into are awake through years with transferred touch, and go on glowing for long years.
And for this reason, some old things are lovely warm still with the life of forgotten men who made them." -- D.H. Lawrence

If you are a local reader, come by the show at the Inn of the Ozarks Conference Center, hours 10 AM - 6 PM. You will find things that aren't made of plastic that you might feel inclined to actually use every day for the rest of your lives. If you are too far away then

Make, fix and create...

what you may have missed...

2011-11-25T06:37:00.001-06:00

I know I have many readers of the blog throughout the world, not just in the US. The cartoon of "Thxgiving" may help you know what you missed in yesterday's celebration of our national holiday.

Today I will sell my work at the Fall Art Fair in Eureka Springs. There will be fine artists and craftsmen selling their hand-crafted work and wares.

The location is the Inn of the Ozarks Conference Center and the hours today will be noon to 6 PM and the hours Saturday, 9 AM to 6 PM. Come and buy art.

We have become so fixated on our electronic devices, that they intrude on everything... even those things that should be sacred and held as most important. If we are glued to pictures under glass and trapped in the one finger means of expressing diminished human agency, when will we make art?

Make, fix and create...

one finger sliding over glass...

2011-11-24T07:59:00.006-06:00

Chestnuts: Cut an "x" on the flat side

This morning is Thanks-giving Day in the US. Here people are up early to cook and to prepare wonderful meals for friends and family, and this is my favorite American holiday. In addition to cooking and eating, we also reflect on the many things that we have to be thankful for. I have more than most. I was reading in the paper that the jailers of Carroll County are getting a raise. I am thankful to not be a jailer. In fact, being a woodworker, having a wood shop, knowing how to make beautiful and useful things, being given the opportunity to teach woodworking and write about woodworking have been great gifts, for which I am thankful.

My daughter Lucy is home for thanksgiving. Since she was away for college in New York City for the last 4 years, this is her first Thanksgiving to be home with us in that time. And so, as you can see, the real important values have to do with family, and with those things of greater value we can offer to our own communities. Believe it or not, those things take work. They don't come easy. Being a person who can offer lasting value to others takes more real work than we might have been led to expect.

We are doing some things in American education and American culture that concern me, that will undoubtedly undermine the potential for thankfulness in our children's futures.We give them pictures under glass to be manipulated by sliding fingers. Ease of use technology is a trojan horse of human demoralization. It makes things seem that they should all be as easy as one finger sliding over glass. Our children watch things happen on screens having barely lifted more than a finger to set things in motion. These things offer a false sense of agency in which no for real agency exists. Comparing that to less entertaining challenges of doing effort-filled-things in real life, our children tend to give up before having barely tried to do real work. As their teacher in wood shop, I urge, "Now that you know how hard it is, try again." Ease of use is the anathema to human development.

Unless we give our children real challenges they will not know that it can take so much more than fingers sliding over glass to arrive at a place in which the best of thankfulness can be felt and measured as connected with the real stuff of which human life is made.

Boil 5 minutes so the shell and skin can be removed.

For Thanks-giving, I am the chief chopper and number one dish-washer. Fox News reported that the Occupy Wall St. group at Zuccotti Park was hiding a "weapons cache" consisting of a butcher knife and cardboard tubes. Did they not know that knives are tools, not weapons and could be used to prepare for Thanksgiving? Only in the minds of pinheads can such idiocy exist...

In the photos above you can see the preparation of chestnuts. First cut an "x" on the flat and then boil them so they can be peeled. These will next be oven roasted and used in stuffing. These are locally grown Chinese chestnuts, as our indigenous variety of chestnut, the chinkapin, was lost to the chestnut blight that killed most of the native chestnut trees across the US.

Make pies, fix dinner, create friendships and loving relationships.... eat and feel thankful. Happy Thanksgiving...

three methods...

2011-11-23T07:16:00.005-06:00

Baked burritos

Charles A. Bennett in his 1917 book The Manual Arts, describes three important methods of teaching manual arts. The first is the imitative method. He states,

"Imitation is instinctive, and the teacher who does not utilize this natural force fails to avail himself of one of his strongest allies."

Every teacher of handwork knows "that the easiest and quickest way to get a boy to hold and use a tool correctly is to show him how to do it. Often it is not necessary to speak a word; to do the thing in his presence is sufficient."

The second method is that of Discovery or the "heurisic" method. Bennett quotes Charles Bird, Supervisor of Manual raining in Leicester, England.

"It will hardly be denied that the normal child possesses in a marked degree such characteristics as curiosity, inquisitiveness, a love of prying into things, of questioning and doubting, which are frequently amusing and sometimes embarrassing... It is these characteristics, so preeminent in their importance as assets in after life, which a reasonable system of education handwork can stimulate and strengthen. For this purpose the children must be allowed to depend upon their own thought and judgement in doing things."

I think that you can see that there must be a natural balance between showing things and knowing when you are showing too much, as part of the process of teaching is that of preparing the ground for children to make discoveries of their own.

The third method Bennett describes as the "Inventive" method. According to Bennett,

"The inventive method places the worker in a relation to his work that is entirely different from that in the imitative method. It places him in the position of a master, of a person with authority and power to control. If a student is working from a blueprint or other working drawing given him by the teacher, he is expected to follow the drawing exactly in material and form and dimensions... if he has designed or invented the piece he is making, he is the guiding force in the work; he can change material or form or dimension. His own ideas are to be carried out, not those of some other man, except, of course, as he takes advice from the teacher."

Bennett notes that all three of these methods are important and should be balanced in the course of instruction. The purely imitative method alone can be rigid, oppressive and uninspiring. The discovery method or the inventive method alone without the foundation of imitative instruction can lead to poor workmanship and deficient products.

"If the schools are to produce citizens with (a) skill, (b) initiative and (c) power to think for themselves--those who can follow directions efficiently or can invent a better way, all three methods must be employed in teaching the manual arts in schools."

You will possibly notice that skill, initiative and power to think creatively are often lacking in the graduates of American education. We need to bring back wood shops and teach in the three methods that Bennett describes.

Apple and pumpkin

Today I was off from school to prepare for Thanksgiving. I'll was in the wood shop for a short time, and then baked pies and baked burritos for dinner as you can see in the photos above. The baked burritos are imitations of one I ate in a restaurant in Madison, Wisconsin. The pies are from recipes in Joy of Cooking. In my case, everything in the kitchen is related to all three methods of learning, a bit of imitation, a bit of discovery and a bit of invention.

Make, fix, create... (and eat)

late blooming...

2011-11-22T07:30:00.008-06:00

We live in a world in which so much pressure is put on children to perform. Reading was once a gentle thing, learned at the pace of the child, but now children are considered failures if they are not reading and writing in kindergarten or first grade. Jim Henry is 98, but was unable to read or write until he was 96. In the nursing home friends learned that he was illiterate and began to teach him with the gentleness with which reading and writing should be taught in the first place. He then began writing his history and now has published a book about his life as a fisherman. He had been a lifelong lobsterman and the captain of 3 fishing vessels.

So now Jim Henry describes himself as the happiest man in the world. He is a late bloomer.

I saw a news segment on the new director of the International Monetary Fund Christine Lagarde. She had gotten in trouble in a speech in which she had informed the nation of France that they are "thinking too much," not giving enough of themselves to direct action. Isn't that the way of things? We get balled up in positions like those taken by our "Super Committee" in Congress, in which they pretend to think and think about issues and end up doing nothing except protecting their own personal self interests.

It is time for us all to become late bloomers. Take matters in our own hands. Solve real problems. Take our children to wood shops where they can learn that actions speak louder than words.

On a related note, Thomas Thwaites, had noticed that he could just about do diddly squat, so he decided to see if he could actually make a common household object which he did in the Toaster Project. Of all the thousands of common household objects he settled on a toaster because Doug Adams had described a character inThe Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Mostly Harmless as follows:

"Left to his own devices he couldn’t build a toaster. He could just about make a sandwich and that was it."

We are moving rapidly into the age of our incapacity. While Captain Jim Henry could pilot vessels and return safely to port year after year with his catch without knowing how to read and lived to tell about it in his first book. Our children, in stark contrast will be much like our politicians, capable of diddly squat. Give them real life experiences on the other hand, and they may read and write when they have interests to pursue and something worth writing about.

Make, fix and create...

a quest...

2011-11-20T15:51:00.007-06:00

I am a firm believer that we all need to do difficult and demanding things. We are not best defined by a narrative in which we describe all the many ways things have been made easy for us, but by having faced things that have been difficult... that have pushed us to discover our limitations and to surpass those which we were able to surpass. Matti Bergström had said that culture must arise anew with each generation. Personal narrative is the means through which we sustain ourselves and fabricate meaningful lives.

Joshua Slocum was the first to solo circumnavigate the earth. His was a remarkable story, and if you have not read Sailing Alone Around the World by Joshua Slocum, I recommend it. It is a story of personal triumph over many very difficult things. The book I am reading now the Hard Way Around, by Geoffrey Wolff is about Slocum's whole life. And we learn that the circumnavigation in his small craft Spray was not his first voyage, for he had circumnavigated the planet 4 times before in command of much larger vessels. In an earlier "honeymoon" voyage to South America with his second wife, his ship, the three masted Aquidnick had disintegrated and sunk near Paranaguá, Brazil, and he personally built another smaller boat, not much larger than a sailing canoe from its remains which he called the Liberdade in honor of the end of slavery in Brazil. Liberdade was an extremely small vessel with no amenities and hardly any room below decks. When his wife Hattie was asked about her voyage by a reporter from the New York Tribune she answered, "It is an experience I should not care to repeat, although now that it is mine I feel a certain satisfaction in having gone through it."

That is the kind of feeling often expressed by those who have been pushed to their limits and survived. So I asked my friends John and Jesse Grossbohlin to tell about their summer adventure riding bikes from Colorado to Washington across the Rockie mountains. John's comments are as follows:

From my perspective the bicycle trip was an opportunity to help Jesse on his journey to adulthood, and present him with a rite of passage experience. I felt that if I didn't do something big with him when he was 15 I'd not have a chance later as girls and other distractions would take over his life... Any younger than that and it would be unlikely that he'd have the physical and mental strength to succeed. I saw the trip as a chance for us to bond and have a unique shared experience that was ours alone. I think the trip was a huge success in those regards and in two years when my other son Joshua is 15 we plan to undertake a big adventure also.

Before we left I'd hoped Jesse would learn how to make decisions when faced with sub-optimal alternatives, learn perseverance, and learn how to overcome problems while on the road. It turned out that there were a lot of learning opportunities. Those opportunities ranged from coping with extreme heat and elevations of over 11,500 feet above sea level; to finding food; and coping with flat tires and defective tires. A few other things that had to be dealt with were the aftermath of a bad crash that Jesse took early in the trip that did a lot of damage to his equipment; and later dealing with a crash that I took in which I injured my left knee and from all indications cracked some ribs. We were in remote locations where towns were a significant distance from each other and frequently had populations of under 30 people. We often had to make do with what we had as there was no place to buy supplies or parts.

Jesse described himself as "a different kid" when we got back home and he is a different kid. Before the trip he had good relationships at school and had no problems with any of the kids. That didn't change. What did change is his attitude about his classes and his desire to do well and study. He has stepped up as a leader in his Boy Scout troop and in school... he is now a role model for the younger Scouts and he encourages and helps other kids in school.

I think we had a great relationship before the trip but now we've got an even better one and have things that only we understand. For example, when we hear people complaining about things we grin at each other knowingly as what they are talking about often pales in comparison to the challenges we faced.

Needless to say, I'm really proud of Jesse.

For me personally, this latest bicycle trip reinforced the notion that if you keep moving you can keep moving. Sure I ached at times, and I didn't bounce like Jesse when I crashed, but I did ride a bicycle over 1,600 miles through the Rocky Mountains and the high plains of 5 western states. I can live with that!

It should be noted that John had taken an earlier ride on his own as a young man, so he was well acquainted with the formative aspects of such an adventure. Jesse's comments are brief, but equally telling:

On the bike trip over the summer I learned a lot about myself. I learned that if I put my mind to whatever I want to achieve it can happen. This bike trip meant a lot to me. I look back on the pictures and I remember how I got there and I feel a sense of success.

Now, because of the bike trip, my dad and I are both a lot closer. Now I can actually talk to him easier. Also, because of this bike trip, my dad and I both know each other's weaknesses and strengths.

As so many parents are so deeply concerned about finding ways to make things easy for their children a person must wonder why. Would it not be better if we joined them on some form of quest that tested their metal and our own? My thanks to John and Jesse for sharing their observations and for embarking on such an inspiring journey. I suspect they were an amazing example for all that they met along the way. The photo above is Jesse crossing into the state of Washington.

Make, fix and create...

agency, creative power and self...

2011-11-19T07:17:00.005-06:00

Bret Victor who created a wonderful rant on pictures under glass asked, "I'm curious what your thoughts are on CNC mills, and designing objects in CAD software instead of working by hand."

There are feelings and values that are lost in automatic making. And there are things on the other hand that carry a sense of personal provenance, a personal narrative of sacrifice and effort. We know that the high-tech world is sold on the promise of once difficult things being made easy, so that anyone who can buy the device can do these tasks without training and without effort. But if anyone can do it without training and without effort, what will its value be? The enabling device will have value but the task to be accomplished little or none. A number of years ago, my mother who would shop at thrift stores on occasion gave me a small pen holder with a laser engraved sailing ship on the front. She bought it for only 50 cents, because it had become meaningless to its previous owner despite being made of fine wood with the intricate engraving on the front. I suspect that if it had more human engagement rather than the attempt to make it appear human through the use of automatic processes, it might not have been sold so cheap and may have had greater value.

I make things that are difficult and require effort of both hand and mind. I compete in selling these things with objects that are impersonal, carry no sense of who made them, and I compete in a marketplace that has very little training to sense the difference. More and more I make my living by training others to witness a different sense of object, that of seeing and feeling it arise through the personal agency of their own hands. There is a sense of personal agency that arises in creating things through difficult means. When you set up a machine to make things, you can watch the machine do its thing. The process is under glass, with no sense of tactile engagement, so just as the small pencil holder given me by my mother had no value, no feelings, and was made without difficulty, the objects made have no greater dimension, no greater intrinsic value. They may have the same use and even the same beauty as something crafted by human hand, and yet be lacking in human qualities.

I have quoted Matti Bergström, Finnish author and brain researcher many times before in the blog:

The density of nerve endings in our fingertips is enormous. Their discrimination is almost as good as that of our eyes. If we don't use our fingers, if in childhood and youth we become "finger-blind " this rich network of nerves is impoverished - which represents a huge loss to the brain and thwarts the individual's all-around development. Such damage may be likened to blindness itself. Perhaps worse, while a blind person may simply not be able to find this or that object, the finger-blind cannot understand its inner meaning and value.

If we neglect to develop and train our children's fingers and the creative form building capacity of their hand muscles, then we neglect to develop their understanding of the unity of things; we thwart their aesthetic and creative powers.

Those who shaped our age-old traditions always understood this. But today, Western civilization, an information-obsessed society that over values science and undervalues true worth, has forgotten it all. We are "values-damaged."

The philosophy of our upbringing is science-centered, and our schools are programmed toward that end.... These schools have no time for the creative potential of the nimble fingers and hand, and that arrests the all-round development of our children and of the whole community.

Another quote having to do with the values of things comes from Otto Salomon:

“...persons not manually trained, generally regard the products of manual labour at less than their real value. They think it much more difficult to solve a mathematical problem than to make a table. It is not an easy thing to make a parcel-pin or a pen-holder with accuracy, and when students have done these things they will be the better able to estimate comparatively the difficulty of making a table or chair; and what perhaps is of still greater importance, they will become qualified to decide between what is good and what is bad work.”

Salomon also noted that the value of the carpenter's work is in the object, but the value of the student's work is in the student. What great benefit is accrued to the individuals within our civilization through the effortless production of vast quantities of meaningless stuff?

The key to having a greater understanding comes from an old saying quoted by Comenius. "We give form to ourselves and to our materials at the same time." In other words, the maker of beautiful and useful objects busily crafts himself or herself in finer form. It is an alchemy of sorts... lead into gold, and if the character of our objects is so lacking in human difficulty, human feeling and dimension, what will that say about ourselves?

Make, fix and create... meaningful things, meaningful lives.

OWS day 12,251 plus or minus...

2011-11-18T09:37:00.003-06:00

Today I am making boxes again. It is a usual thing for me this time of year. These are being secured at the corners using small dowels, so they have a bit of texture added in the corners for accent. To drill the holes for the dowels I am using my 1948 model Shop Smith as a horizontal borer. This gives me more accurate placement and depth of the holes than I could attain with either a drill press or hand held drill. You can see that I also use a story stick for this operation to exactly position the blocking that holds the box in place for drilling. Without the story stick things could get really mixed up. With it things are still complicated. But this is all about hand and mind. Not one or the other. You can see in the photos above and below, the process of drilling and the story stick used to define where the holes are to be drilled.

And so while my younger OWS brethren are sleeping in tents, or were recently evicted from tents, I have the luxury of wood shop. I started a fire in the wood stove this morning using scrap wood, and it is now toasty and ready for a fine day of work.

At one point, it seems to have been decided that greater wealth would be deserved by those who manipulate markets and values than by those who actually produce real goods and services for others. My point is not that woodworking should be selling for more than it does, but that we need to re-cultivate a society that has its values placed on productivity rather than manipulation.

The OWS movement has been criticized for not clearly expressing what it wants. As one who has spent so many hours and days in the wood shop, I know exactly where they are coming from. Most would like to work at something that offered a sense of dignity and a sense of security about the future. Between American corporations and their paid minions in the US Senate and House of Representatives, American productivity has been held hostage. Few of the demonstrators would know of their own potential as their educations did not include wood shop.

Readers will find value in this blog post by Nicholas Carr, People in glass houses should throw stones.

Make, fix and create...

OWS occupy wood shop day 12,250 plus or minus...

2011-11-17T09:21:00.006-06:00

I have been occupying my wood shop for over 35 years, and have great admiration for the Occupy Wall Street movement. My occupation is a lot more fun, but maybe no less important. But we seem to be on the same page. At some point, in American education, it was decided that all kids would go to college, none of us would need to work with our hands anymore, children would need not be trained in any form of creative art or craft, and the smartest of our children would go to Wall Street where their lack of training in anything practical would allow them to steer our nation's big corporations untouched by common human values as they lay false claim to our nation's wealth. The rest of us would be lulled to complaisance by a vast array of inexpensive imported goods. It is time to bring us all back in touch.

Thirty five years ago, I felt compelled to do something against the flow. I chose to become a craftsman. Malcolm Gladwell, Richard Sennet and others have claimed that there is a 10,000 hour rule on attaining mastery of something. I'm running at over 10,000 days at this point and still learn something new each day... the perfect opportunity for a lifelong learner. I've been lucky enough to get fairly good at a few things and one of those is making boxes.

So today I am making more boxes. One of these days I'll need to sell a few. That is often the hard part, since so few people anymore have a sense of the value of objects that do not have all the bells and whistles associated with the electronic gizmos that inhabit our lives and command our every attention. While humans once lived with objects that had direct provenance, that were made by members of their own family or tribe, or by their own hands, we now live lives filled with objects that are made with no real human concerns but those of a bonus for the CEO and profit for the investors. Where did it come from? Who cares? Who made it? Again who cares? What happens when we are tired of it or it breaks? It goes to the landfill, no sweat.

Ed Miller, from Alliance for Childhood sent this link showing one of the latest toys for girls. Children will no longer need to play as the toy will do all the playing for them. What can be better than a best friend who takes batteries, always says just the right things to maintain your self-esteem, and comes in bright colors? Funny, it has a brief lag time as it responds to your speech, kind of like the robo-dialer that calls your number in an attempt to connect you with an illegal telemarketer. You answer the phone. It seems no one is there at first. Hang up quickly before the marketer comes on or you'll need to get rude. The speech delay in this toy will help children to be more receptive to robo calls. They'll think their best friend made by Mattel is calling. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5c2nxy7Qww

I thought about embedding this video for you, but chose a much better one instead.

I urge you to join me in occupying a wood shop of your own. Get in touch with your own creative spirit, and invite others to join you as well. There is something wonderful about being involved in making things of useful beauty and having the capacity to do so.

Make, fix and create...

Application of the senses...

2011-11-16T07:11:00.004-06:00

Yesterday in the blog post, Why Children Need Wood Shop, I mentioned the ages old notion that children learn best from their senses and activities. Howard Gardner took the basic human senses, and described them as specific intelligences, (adding a few to boot) and then prescribed a model of education in which teachers would devise lessons to make sure the full range of intelligences would be encompassed in the teaching of their kids. His notice that children (and we all) are intelligent in a variety of ways, and his call to educators that a narrow definition of intelligence was short sighted and destructive of societal objectives was a profound moment in educational history. But why have schools done so little to actually implement a multiple intelligences approach? Perhaps we've made it much too hard for ourselves.

Say a teacher notices that he or she has some super-smart kinesthetic learners, some auditory learners, some visual, and a few math whizzes thrown in to boot. How is she or he going to devise a curriculum (most teachers don't get to design curriculum, but if they were) that encompasses all the various learning styles in the classroom?

The simple answer is that only the very best can, most don't and none are given necessary preparation to do so.

But when teachers do real things with their students that involve all the senses, in real learning activities they have created the ideal learning environment for all intelligences. When students study every subject from books, or computers or laptops that all feel the same, smell the same, and sound the same as pages are turned, don't expect that to be a multi-sensory, multiple intelligences approach to learning and do not expect very much real learning to take place. But put a kid in a lab or workshop in which all human senses are put to work and real lasting enthusiasm for learning will follow.

I'm calling for some simplicity here. To set up learning environments in which the teacher must act like a pharmacist administering customized lessons to each individual learning type is not reasonable. So I urge all teachers to make things easier and more effective... In schools (at all levels), do real stuff and allow real learning to follow.

Make, fix and create...

why children need wood shop...

2011-11-15T10:36:00.002-06:00

What follows is a short piece composed for the Clear Spring School newsletter to share with parents, grandparents and supporters, the role the wisdom of the hands program plays at our school.

Most early educators from Comenius in the 17th century to John Dewey in the first part of the 20th, shared an understanding that children learn best through their senses and from their activities. And so, it should come as no surprise that for many of the children at Clear Spring School, woodworking has become a favorite activity. When students walk in the door of the wood shop they are greeted by the smell of fresh sawn wood. When the children take their places at the workbenches, the sounds of sawing and hammering commence. The sight, sound and smell of real wood being formed for new use is exactly what the early educators were talking about-- students learning from their own activities and from their senses rather than from dull lecture notes, or from pre-packaged lessons delivered under contrived circumstances.

While most schools in the US have eliminated woodworking programs, parents might wonder why one of the smallest NAIS accredited schools in the country would have wood shop. Sure, it's a program that almost all students enjoy. It is fun to make things, and if you are a parent, you may have noticed the pride students feel for the objects they have crafted in wood shop. But there are many reasons for wood shop beyond the fun students have, and beyond the pleasure they may feel from the objects they have made.

Otto Salomon, one early advocate of woodworking education said that the value of the carpenter's work is in the objects he makes, but the value of the students' work in making similar objects is in the student. He was suggesting that the real value of the objects the child makes in wood shop can be observed in the child's growth of confidence, her skill in creative problem solving, his close scientific observations as real materials are shaped, her development of skill in the use of tools, and as each child develops his or her self-image as a creator of things that may be of service to others. Schools tend to offer one of two choices to our children... that of being consumers of ideas and products, or that of becoming makers and thinkers prepared to test their own creative notions. An education at Clear Spring School is clearly directed toward the latter.

You may remember from your own school experience, that wood shop was where they placed students who were not going to college. Ironically, the first wood shop/industrial arts programs in the US were created for a completely different reason. They had nothing to do with finding a place in school for those who could not handle academic subjects. Calvin Woodward at Washington University and John Runkle at MIT (where the school motto is Mens et Manus--mind and hand) realized that their engineering students were handicapped by having no experience in the practical arts. Woodward and Runkle started woodworking programs to provide practical experience as a foundation for abstract academic thought. The success of their programs revolutionized American education for a time, helped us win two world wars, and led the US to become the world's center for innovation and quality manufacturing. But the pendulum made a big swing back. If we take a good look at where we are now, we begin to see that a grave error was made in failing to see the full impact of hands-on learning in our nation's schools.

It seems that by now, with all the attention given to education, things should be better. But despite 10 years of No Child Left Behind Legislation, teaching to the standardized test, use of iPads and smart boards in the class rooms and who knows what else, children in record numbers are dropping out. They spend too many hours sitting idle and bored in sensory deprived classrooms, despite the understanding of early educators that children learn best from their senses and from their activities.

Clear Spring School offers a somewhat low-tech solution to education. We don't offer all the latest in high-tech gadgetry to enhance learning. But children have not really changed that much since Comenius. Helping our students develop an inclination toward lifelong learning is our primary goal. We can see from the level of heart felt enthusiasm that our children express each day that hands-on/hearts-engaged learning really works at the Clear Spring School.

You may wonder about the things students make. Our woodworking scholars all love making interesting things from their own imaginations and of their own design. Making those things are important. But we also make things that are intended to encourage greater hands-on investigation in their other classes. For instance, this year, the lower elementary school students have made weather vanes for study of wind, abacuses for study of math, and writing pens to begin writing in cursive with real ink. The idea is that wood shop should not simply be an isolated activity at Clear Spring School, but one that brings extra value and deeper engagement in studies throughout the school.

On a related subject, Frank Wilson, author of the Hand sent me a link to an essay called a Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design. Watch the video showing our glorious intended future and the read the essay which accompanies it.
Make, fix and create...

a warehouse of metaphors...

2011-11-14T08:05:00.001-06:00

We think of metaphors as being literary devices. My love is a rose. No, not exactly. But the use of the expression may say something about what one feels. And then again she may have a scent, have blushing beauty, and THORNS. We know that tools and processes can serve as metaphors to explain things in real life as well. So what is the fine line between metaphor as a literary device, and the use of metaphor as a source of hypothesis and creative physical exploration? If a hammer can do this, can a hammer be used for that, too?

Yesterday in the blog I mentioned Sir William Petty, one of the founders of the London Royal Society and one of the first to describe an educational system reliant on the hands to develop intellect. The following is from Charles A. Bennett's History of Manual and Industrial Arts, volume I.

In addition to his literary work-house for children, Petty proposed a college or society or gild of tradesmen. It was to consist of several expert workmen representing different trades grouped together for the double purpose of the production of fine examples of craftsmanship and the advancement of "mechanical arts and manufactures." In this institution he would have written a book laying open the "mysteries of trades." It would also describe in detail the manual process of each trade.

And so you can see in the writings of Petty, the groundwork laid for Moxon's Book of Trades which was begun 30 years later. It provided a literal warehouse of metaphoric potential for those members of the London Royal Society who wished to expand their own intellectual and physical research capacities.

To fully understand one physical process provides (through the use of the human capacity for metaphor) the ability to extend and expand human capacities. As scientists and philosophers, Sir William Petty and his collaborators in the London Royal Society, knew that the skilled intellectual pursuits of hand and mind were best not left alone to the poor and undereducated. It is a pity we have lost that understanding.

Friday was a very special day at the Clear Spring School. We had a visiting Tibetan Lama on campus, complete with monks and DIY sand mandala making. If anyone had any particular doubts about CSS being one of the most profound educational experiences they would have been dispelled by a visit on Friday.

Today the students at Clear Spring School will begin our annual toy making project to make toys for holiday distribution through our local food bank.

Make, fix and create...

Sir Wiliam Petty's Pamphlet on Education

2011-11-13T10:35:00.002-06:00

The following is from Sir William Petty's pamphlet on education published in 1647:

(1) That literary work-houses be established "where children may be taught as well to do something towards their living, as to read and write."
(2) That all children above seven years of age be given this kind of education, none being excluded by reason of poverty, "for hereby it hath come to pass that many are now holding the plow which might have been made fit to steer the State." Children of poor parents might work longer than others if in need of earning.
(3) "That since few children have need of reading before they know or can be acquainted with the things they read of, or of writing before their thoughts are worth the recording or they are able to put them into any form" that these be deferred awhile and, "in the order of Nature," that children be taught first "to observe and remember all sensible objects and actions, whether they be natural or artificial."
(4) "That they use such exercises, whether in work or for recreation, as tend to the health, agility and strength of their bodies."
(5) "That in no case the art of drawing and designing be omitted, to what course of life soever those children are to be applied, since the use thereof for expressing the conceptions of the mind, seems (at least to us) to be little inferior to that of writing, and in many cases performeth what by words is impossible."
(6) That all children, though they be of the highest rank, be taught "some genteel manufacture in their minority." (Here he lists 15 various occupations including 6 that make use of woodworking).

He then states eight reasons why students would benefit from this education.

1. They will be less liable to be cheated by artificers.
2. They will become more industrious in general.
They will certainly do most excellent work, being gentlemen, ambitious to excel ordinary workmen.
4. They, being able to make experiments themselves, may do it with less cost, and more care than others will do it for them.
5. The arts will be much advanced, when such as are rich and able, are also willing to make enlightening experiments.
6. It may engage them to be Patrons of the Arts.
7. It will keep them from worse occasions of spending their time and estates.
8. As it will be a great ornament in prosperity, so it will be a great refuge and stay in adversity and common calamity.

What more can I say? Before I let Sir Richard Petty have the last word, I will remind my readers that I will be on a radio talk show interview from 2-2:30PM Pacific Standard time. You can listen in through the link at Ed Talk Radio. To ask a question, call 877-211-4525.

"By all which is mostly evident, that children do most naturally delight in things, and are most capable of learning them, having quick sense to receive them and unpreoccupied memories to retain them. As for other things where unto they are now-a-days set, they are altogether unfit, for want of judgment which is but weak in them, and also for want of will, which is sufficiently seen both by what we have said before, by the difficulty in keeping them at school and the punishment they will endure rather than be altogether debarred from the pleasure which they take in things."-- Sir Richard Petty, 1647

Readers who missed my interview can find it recorded here.
Make, fix and create...

How do you spell oops?

2011-11-12T08:51:00.004-06:00

Yesterday a report on the front page of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette noted that nearly 45% of schools in Arkansas are failing to meet achievement goals under the No Child Left Behind Legislation. Some of the schools are in the wealthier parts of the state, and some of the failing schools are charter schools intended as the cutting edge of educational reform. How do you spell oops?

If were to want to more deeply engage children in learning, we would give them real hands-on learning to do. But it seems we do not.

I have been invited to be a guest on a call in radio program in Sacramento, California dedicated to education reform, Ed Talk Radio. You can listen through their website. The radio host, Paul Preston is a long-time supporter of career and technical education. My half-hour interview will be at 2 PM PST. If you are in Central time zone, please tune in at 4 PM. My interview will last for 30 minutes. If you are in the US or Canada, you can call in toll free at (877) 211-4525. International callers should note that Pacific Standard Time is 8 hours behind GMT. I will be taking questions about hands-on learning. If you call, please introduce yourself as a blog reader.

make, fix and create...

theory and practice...

2011-11-11T08:11:00.005-06:00

This morning, I have been contemplating how difficult we have made things in school. It is difficult to sit still. It is difficult to keep one's attention on the subject. For the teacher it is difficult to keep children's attention focused on their lessons without becoming tyrannical. A local public elementary school teacher, commenting on the challenge of her work said, "Each day is like planning a party for 25 kids." And while that might sound like fun, it is also relentless. It is certainly not easy, even for the best. Children these days with all their digital devices and video content, who fall asleep at bedtime with the TV going, are not easy to entertain, let alone teach.

And yet, for children to learn is the most easy and natural of human functions. We are wired for it. When awakened by a fire for learning as Mike Rose describes in his blog post, Full Cognitive Throttle children are voracious learners.

The following is from the Great Didactic of Comenius, the first great text of modern pedagogy, which has been nearly completely ignored in the design of modern education:

1. "Theory," says Vives, "is easy and short, but has no result other than the gratification that it affords. Practice on the other hand, is difficult and prolix, but is of immense utility." Since this is so, we should diligently seek out a method by which the young may be easily led to the practical application of natural forces, which is to be found in the arts.

I was lucky in my youth to have a trained kindergarten teacher as my mother, and she kept my sisters and I busy with paper, scissors, glue, string, paints and clay, and so we learned that learning was not just about what happened in our heads, but what happened in our hands as well.

As one who came to teaching from being a craftsman, I understand the value of practice, and have come to understand that theory itself is not what captures children's fire for learning. At some point, learning needs to connect with their own hands just as it did for mine. Here is just a bit more from the Great Didactic:

7. The use of instruments should be shown in practice and not by words; that is to say, by example rather than by precept. It is many years since Quintilian said: "Through precepts the way is long and difficult, while through examples it is short and practicable." But alas, how little heed the ordinary schools pay to this advice.

That was written by Comenius in 1631, so you can see we've kept education heading in the wrong direction.

Today I'm working in my own wood shop. I started making a series of small jewelry boxes yesterday, and today should get to the point of making drawers. The textured and painted top panels can be seen above. The assembled boxes with drawer fronts can be seen below.

If your child is not catching fire for learning at school, turn off the TV at home and offer some real things that can be learned in his or her own hands. You can register to win a copy of my new book Building Small Cabinets by commenting on this post on the Fine Woodworking website. I would love for one of my regular readers to win.

Make, fix and create...

Crystal Bridges...

2011-11-10T08:11:00.008-06:00

Carved Redwood sculpture by Robyn Horn

My wife and I attended a preview opening of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art yesterday. The official opening will be 11/11/2011, or this Friday. Please don't think you can just show up, even though attendance will be free. For the first month or so the attendance is expected to be huge and you should reserve your tickets on-line through the museum website. A friend of ours got a 5:30 AM time slot, and found it worthwhile, even getting up at 3:30 AM to arrive on time. My wife and I had a lovely day, and will go back again and again.

The work is sublime. The building is exquisite, and will no doubt become regarded as an architectural tour de force. Curving glass walls and glue laminated curved ceiling joists form bridges spanning two lakes and a small watercourse through a natural hollow on land that had been a personal nature preserve owned by Neil Compton, father of the Buffalo National River.
My own small boxes are featured in the museum gift store along with works by other Arkansas artists, including basketry by Leon Niehues.
One of the first pieces we saw as we entered the museum was work by my good friend Robyn Horn. It is carved redwood and shown in the photo at upper left. At above you see curved glass forming the boundary between the interior and exterior space of the museum grounds. The grounds will become even more beautiful now that the major construction is complete.

And then of course within museums we find work of historic significance and emotional effect. At left is the famous Rosie the Riveter.

Readers of this blog will enjoy a piece written by Mike Rose, author of Mind at Work, Cognitive full throttle: When Education for work ignites the mind.

Also, I want to remind my readers that you can enter to win a signed copy of my new book, Building Small Cabinets on theFine Woodworking Website.

Make, fix and create...

how to preserve the arts...

2011-11-09T06:45:00.006-06:00

Today I am going to a preview opening of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. It is a fabulous new museum dedicated to bringing some of the greatest American art to my own state, so we are very excited about it. Some of my small boxes will be sold in the museum gift store, and some of my students had helped me make a walnut bench from wood cut from the site as the initial ground work was done.

According to Charles A. Bennett, author of the Manual Arts published in 1917,

"The two direct results of instruction in the manual arts are, first, power to do, and second, ability to appreciate what is done by others... Froebel tells us that "man only understands thoroughly that which he is able to produce." Accepting this statement as fact, we see that it is only through mastery of processes, tools and materials, color, form and values, laws of construction and harmony, that we can completely understand any masterpiece of art or handicraft. And we know from experience that such mastery is exceedingly difficult to acquire."

In other words, there are two ways that great works in museums are secured. One is with walls and curators, the other is within the hands, minds and hearts of those whom we would hope to attract to those museums. We cannot hope to gain active participation in preservation of great art from those who know so very little about the making of it.

Bennett suggests that because we cannot teach children all the valuable techniques required to appreciate great art, we have taken another track.

"We throw aside the philosophy of Froebel and work to store our minds with facts about the arts, in the hope that by this means we may reach our goal of appreciation. We search the latest books and magazines. We read what Mr. A. says of the opinion expressed by Mr. B. concerning the work of Mr. C. We find that Mr. D. does not agree with either Mr. A. or Mr. B. on several important points, and we take little satisfaction in knowing their combined opinion. When we are honest with ourselves we admit that we do not appreciate the real thing they are writing about... We can talk "arts and crafts style" or we can discuss the report of the latest exhibition, and quote good authorities too, but we are conscious of the fact that this is not appreciation. We know that appreciation involved feeling, and and this newspaper reading has begotten no art feeling in us. We would not only know about art, but we would feel--we would respond to the influence of the art;; we would have the artist's emotions transmitted to us, and this we find does not come about thru the medium of the words merely. We must see and touch and do; we must get our knowledge first-hand; we must learn thru experience. In learning about the art we have avoided the thing itself..."

By teaching art history and art appreciation without actually making anything, we may offer some students a false sense of academic mastery over the arts.

It is my belief that to do something really well, whether it is in the arts or music, offers insight into human culture and creativity, that serves as a platform for the appreciation of other arts (or crafts) as one learns the process through which the person is shaped by the creative process. But to leave students untouched by this process may leave the whole of human creative and cultural legacy at risk. In answer to this dilemma, some art teachers would propose a smorgasbord offering of the arts, for students to dabble within. That is better than no arts at all, but in order for students to fully understand great art, it is important for them to work in the direction of mastering some specific craft or art. Yesterday in cutting dovetails, one of my students asked, "Don't they make a machine for this?" Is that where we would find the most growth?

On another topic, Fine Woodworking ran a contest to win a copy of my book Building Small Cabinets. One hundred ninety six readers competed, and one copy was given away to a lucky winner. I've extended the contest with one more copy, but as a special bonus this one will be signed. If you want to enter to win a signed copy of Building Small Cabinets, go to this Fine Woodworking blog post and and leave a comment.

Make, fix and create...

ordinary teachers vs. artisans

2011-11-08T07:01:00.001-06:00

In the ordinary school environment, language and math have been given the upper hand, while those who have taught manual arts were afforded a status in some cases more or less akin to that of the school janitor. In an ideal world, the janitor would be granted profound respect, though in too many cases we've been taught he should not be.

In the theory of Educational Sloyd, Otto Salomon outlines a number of reasons that Sloyd should be taught by an ordinary trained teacher rather than by a trained craftsman or artisan, but his argument is not that one is better than the other at what they do, but that their objectives differ. The craftsman must look at the economic development of the object, while the teacher must be trained to foster the development of the child.

His most compelling argument however, for the teachers of the common school subjects to be also the teachers of sloyd is as follows: Salomon had noted "the scholars of London and Stockholm were wont to look upon their artisan teachers with indifference and contempt." Even at a young age and in such early times the social divide pitting the mind against the hand had taken its toll.

"From a social point of view... it is of vital importance that the ordinary teacher of the school be employed to teach this subject, for he is looked upon with great respect by his scholars--in many instances with profound respect--and whatever he puts his hand to, the scholars will not only not be ashamed to do, but rather take a pride in doing."

A tragic and disruptive divide between classes is even more true today than it was then. The blue collar/white collar divide has been in place for so long, and children have no longer been trained in simple crafts while in their homes, and would likely have no sense of the value of trained hands, and have no idea of what they and their own intellectual development will have missed.

The important point of reassurance that can come from this, however, is the understanding that one need not be the perfect skilled craftsman to effectively teach woodworking or some other craft to children or to find value in it, or to be of great service in doing so. The teacher wishing to teach the dignity and value of all work, and to convey the intelligence that comes most naturally from working with hands, need not wait for prior development of any particular skill as an artisan to do so. You need to be a good, caring teacher, but you need not be a craftsman yourself.

Make, fix and create...

Hand-Craft - Slöjd

2011-11-07T07:10:00.002-06:00

John D. Sutcliffe writing in his book Hand-Craft which served as a text book in the UK on Sloyd in 1880 said the following:

Hand-Craft in wood is distinguished from carpentry or joinery in many important respects. There is no division of labour.
Everything produced is the entire work of one operator, or the defects of which he is solely responsible.
This directness of responsibility is one of the great merits of Hand-Craft, being calculated to promote wholesome pride in the excellence of complete work; a sentiment that is apt to be very weak, or totally wanting, where division of labour is much relied upon.
The intellectual faculties are brought into unison with the hand, by knowledge and experience developing together with increasing dexterity.
Genuine respect and sympathy are developed for manual toil by familiarity with its application.
Love of work in general is developed, and a taste for it instilled by practical experience of its utility.
Habits of attention, perseverance, industry and discipline are formed, cultivated, and unconsciously grafted upon the pupil, by the application necessary to excel. Independence, order, and cleanliness spontaneously grow and become part of the nature of the operator.
Manual dexterity being thoroughly established, the operator is endowed with the consequent acquired ability for dealing with the practical business of life.
Education being the object that should be constantly kept in view, in the teaching and practice of Hand-Craft, it should be thoroughly appreciated that it is adapted for forming and shaping the entire bent of all the faculties.
The objects recommended to work upon are all small, and are therefore within the capacity of the very young, and of both sexes.
For the same reason, the eye, the hand and the judgement are trained to precise form and finish in the minutest details, This is important, for, though it is generally easier to make something large and rough than small and smooth, no one who is incapable of making a small model well can make a large one any better.
Small objects are invariably the best training to work upon, as being certain to inspire appreciation for neatness, exactness and accuracy.

Today my fall break came to an end. I returned to my classes at Clear Spring School, having had a great week working in my own shop. Some of my high school boys are taken with the lathe, and work to surpass each other in smoothness of finish. Tyler went the other direction today, learning that by turning aggressively, he could create a vibration in the stock which gave a spiral effect.

Make, fix and create.

TMI ? or Sloyd...

2011-11-06T07:18:00.009-06:00

At left,you can see some of my new boxes just after the finish has been applied.

In learning, there needs to be a balance between information and experience self-gained. This was one of the challenges faced by Salomon and others in the development of educational Sloyd. How would they lay out the progression of models to gain the most educational effect? There could have been so many models that each would lead seamlessly into the next, with each informing what to do in the next model, by making only the smallest of changes in each. But what we find in an examination of the various model series is that they did not. The models present plenty of opportunities for head scratching, and for asking the professor of Sloyd, "What do I do now?" or "How can I make this cut?" And there were spaces in learning left to the child's imagination and experimentation, allowing the student to develop his or her own problem solving capacity. And the relationship developed thus between student and professor of Sloyd was so strong that in Sweden today many old Sloyd professors are still remembered by their students with great fondness.

The model shown at left is from John D. Sutcliffe's book Hand-Craft Slöjd published in 1890, and if you can imagine a 13 or 14 year old boy carving this scoop, you can also imagine the amount of intelligence and skill that children had at that time and do not have today. We fill our children's brains with too much information, and their minds with too little challenge in the way of real problem solving, and their hands with too little skill. Sure, they can move their fingers quickly on tiny keypads, but can their hands do anything else?

We present to them a world in which ease of use is the mantra to guide in the acquisition of new stuff.

How about having schools in which the purpose is to do difficult things, to develop the hand and mind for real problem solving and service to others? A finished scoop is shown in the photo below, taken when I was visiting the original school at Nääs, Sweden. Thousands of pounds of original Sloyd models were burned at the school during a clean up years ago. Fortunately a few of the original models were saved at the last minute.

Make, fix and create...

On the limitations of class teaching

2011-11-05T10:35:00.006-05:00

This is from Otto Salomon's Theory of Educational Sloyd:

"...in educational Sloyd the teacher addresses only one pupil at a time, while in class-teaching all children are addressed at the same time. A signal is given for all to stop and listen to what the teacher has to say; hence the train of thought of each individual is broken and attention, instead of being developed, is arrested and destroyed; the child forms a habit of breaking off a train of thought, instead of persisting in its continuance.

Not only so but progress is also retarded; an express train gets over more ground than what is termed a slow train, not so much because of the difference in the highest rate of speed which each engine acquires, but because the slow train has to stop at all stations, and loses so much time in slowing off and making up steam again.

So progress is checked in the individual when a train of thought is broken, and the more frequently it is broken, the slower necessarily will be the progress made."

In Salomon's allegory the fast train is Sloyd, or individual teaching, and the local train represents class teaching, though it may be hard at times to assess which train is which. Surely a teacher using a class teaching method can cover more ground in less time with the passengers seeing fewer sights. The question is whether or not any of the students will actually arrive at the station with any real knowledge after being run through the countryside at such speed and with so little individual attention. The overwhelming evidence proves that far too many will not.

If the subject matter is thought to be important, one would assume that it would be important for all students to understand it, and that each would thus actually receive the attention required to arrive at the station. But what we learn (and children who are no dummies also learn) is that despite the very best intentions of each teacher, the system will not allow each and every student's success.

The following is my opening quote from Chapter one of Matthew Crawford's book, Shop Class as Soulcraft:

“In schools we create artificial learning environments for our children that they know to be contrived and undeserving of their full attention and engagement… Without the opportunity to learn through the hands, the world remains abstract, and distant, and the passions for learning will not be engaged.”

And so I return to Salomon,

"From a purely practical, i.e. a utilitarian and economical point of view, it is said that class-teaching is necessary to get any appreciable quantity of work done."

But the current state of American education offers conclusive evidence that it does not work. One thing that students do learn is that the content of learning is not important. Offering evidence of ability to learn is the only thing that matters. Some will gladly play that game, but others for a variety of reasons will not.

But with individual teaching two important messages are conveyed. The subject matters, and each child matters. Those two principles are built into the approach. But once classroom teaching leaves the station, it will stop for no child.

On a converging topic, the state of Arkansas is having to beg off from key provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act, according to a front page article in today's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Arkansas just can't make it with 400 of our 1100 schools failing to meet goals. It frustrates me that the answers to today's problems in education were offered in the 1880's and still not understood today, and are so very far from current educational thought.

Today I am occupying my wood shop. I cut lids from bases. I spent some time sanding. I'll put keeper strips on the insides of boxes so the lift lids will fit on in the exact place. If it doesn't rain, I'll spend some time in the yard raking leaves.

Make, fix and create...

day 3 -- class vs. individualized learning

2011-11-04T08:48:00.004-05:00

Before I get into the meat of the subject, I want to share two videos that came to me this morning. The first is from a rasp maker in France, Noël Liogier and it shows the interesting relationship between hand and mind. I think you will enjoy seeing how the patterns of the rasp are derived from the geometry of the hand and body.

Richard Burman is a Canadian hand/mind entrepreneur/film maker who has developed the Working Hands Project to further an interest in hands on learning.

You can help his project become further developed by voting for its support at Cuban Hat, where several Canadian documentary film makers are in the running for support. Register and vote for the hands.

The following is more from Otto Salomon's Theory of Educational Sloyd on the advantages of individual teaching.

"Teachers have said they have learned far more from an educational point of view through the teaching of Sloyd, than through the teaching of any other subject. They have, through individual teaching, enjoyed to watch the gradual development of the individual...

In class teaching the rate of progression is fixed according to the estimate of the average capacity of the children, and, as a consequence, the more capable children are told too much and the less capable too little. Instruction in class teaching doesn't accord with the capabilities of individuals who are above or below the average ability of the whole class. Those who are told too much are not trained in forethought, reflection, and self-reliance, their tendency to voluntary exertion and action is thwarted, and where there is no exertion there can be no true development.

Those who, being below the average capacity, are told too little, are either overstrained and get to dislike the work, or are discouraged and disheartened and give up hope of success; and if they do this they may as well for all practical good give the subject up entirely.

It would be far better to do so, as the continuance of it can only have a pernicious effect on the character of the child.

Further, we must recognize the fact that as children have not the same ability in understanding, neither have they in execution. In their manual work children are very unlike. In the execution of the work it is impossible to keep them together in a natural way."

This may seem very abstract to most readers. How can relatively large numbers of students be taught as individuals? Salomon discovered what he called his "Columbus egg." Otto Salomon's Columbus egg was the idea of arranging student projects in sloyd sequentially according to difficulty, complexity, tools used, and skills developed so that the teacher's job would be that of giving individualized instruction when required. Believe it or not, that model can be used in every subject toward the individual learning needs of each child.

As you can see in the photo at left, I have been continuing with my OWS, occupy woodshop movement. It is better than having to be on the streets and it is better than being under the corporate thumb that has done so little for the American people during this time of economic crisis. these boxes are for a customer who buys my boxes for his staff each year at Christmas time. Each has a collection of my boxes.

Make, fix and create...

Class teaching vs. Individual teaching 2

2011-11-03T07:28:00.009-05:00

Otto Salomon saw individual teaching as being essential for Sloyd and for all other subjects, and this excerpt from The Theory of Educational Sloyd will help to explain why:

"A number of children who are being instructed and addressed at the same time by the teacher may be regarded as being individually taught, when the intellects *(and interests) of all those under instruction are at the same stage of progress, and this is the limitation we must add to the definition with which we started. If, for instance, a new subject is going to be taught to a number of children simultaneously, and none of the children know anything of it, the teaching is individual teaching, because there is equality of mind, which results from uniformity of ignorance about the new subject.

But after the first lesson has been given, this equality of mind no longer exists; for, of all the members of the class, some understood more and some less, while some retain more and others less." *(and some were not interested in the first place!)
*(Notes within parentheses mine.)

Salomon suggests that this can be partially remedied by next arranging the students into smaller groups each at the same level of understanding, but that these again must be next divided into smaller groups, and ever smaller groups down to the individual if teaching is to be effective. Salomon believed that Educational Sloyd was not a school subject, but rather a means of education that could be applied as a model to every subject.

"All good education must be based on the nature of the child... In nature there are no two things exactly alike--no two trees, flowers, human forms or faces. No one will assert that the natures--physical, moral, or mental--of any two children are the same. If this be granted, it readily follows that class teaching, as a means of education, is not good either in Sloyd or any other school subject... Class teaching may be good economically, but it is bad educationally."

Given the inefficiencies of class instruction, it would seem that if the subject really mattered, (and the lesson drawn by so many kids is that it does not) we would teach it in a manner in which we knew it to be understood by all children in the class. There are some important interpersonal connections made during individualized instruction. The student is made to feel that someone actually cares both about the subject and about his or her success in mastering it. There is a big movement to use computers to create individualized learning opportunities in schools. This may be a way to eliminate caring staff. One must truly hope not, for to be taught individually by someone who truly cares, whether in art, music, history or math seems to have become a luxury in American education.

For an earlier post on a similar subject I refer you to Children are not clockwork.

I want to share an exquisite essay by David Brittan, who had written an earlier piece I had shared with my blog readers, Mr. Mens meet Mr. Manus. David is the editor of Tufts Magazine, a reader of this blog, and one who understands the significance of the hands in the making of both civilization and self. His essay With Hands Like These can be found here.

Make, fix and create.

Class teaching versus Individual teaching

2011-11-02T07:41:00.001-05:00

In Otto Salomon's book The Theory of Educational Sloyd, he discusses the advantages and disadvantages of class teaching versus individualized instruction. He notes: "Class teaching may be good economically, but it is bad educationally." Here in the US, we have almost no education based on individual instruction, so the idea that individualized instruction might take place in a classroom would be revolutionary, and so far off the radar we might not have ever suspected that there might be better options. We are used to sitting bored and disinterested or with the sense that what is being presented is nearly incomprehensible and unrelated to our own lives. Salomon notes:

"Class teaching comprises the teaching of two or more children. Individual teaching comprises the teaching of one or more children. The aims of the teacher are not the same in the two cases. They differ materially. In class teaching the teacher is apt to regard the class as a unit. It is not the development of the individual scholar, but of the individual class that is aimed at. The minds of the scholars composing it are at various stages of intelligence; they differ also in ability (and interest). The efforts of the teacher are directed to assimilating these differences and to securing a uniform rate of progress among all the members of the class. On the other hand, individual teaching, the development of each child is the aim kept prominently in view. No effort is made to harmonise differences in ability, nor to advance the children with equal paces. The best teachers will make their methods approximate as much as possible to those employed in individual teaching."

This section of Otto Salomon's book, gathered and edited from lecture notes given to his students at Nääs is one of his most profound contributions of Education. So I may stick with it a few days. If it bores you, do other things.

Make, fix and create...

bring it on?

2011-11-01T08:23:00.003-05:00

Sir Ken Robinson is a spokesman for education revolution, and it seems that as bad as so many things have gotten, revolution may actually be more relevant than reform. One of my students from last week is a science teacher at the high school level, and he said that the current system forces teachers to "teach to the test" even though they are told explicitly not to. Teacher salaries are tied to student test scores, and so in order for a teacher to do well, both as recognixed by administration and in economic terms, he or she must make certain that students know the materials on which they will be tested. They have no time or resources for anything more. But the real problems that students will face in life will be those which have not arisen yet. And so, how can we test for that? You will find that what Sir Ken is looking for is education that fosters creativity like what you would find at the Clear Spring School.

Sir Ken Robinson suggests that students need to be placed in situations that encourage creative problem solving. Lessons need to be individualized and personalized. Give kids real things to do, and you will watch their interests rise. Give them real things upon which to be tested (not bubble tests) and they will learn more deeply, and retain learning much longer. I can tell you this, but you will know the truth by looking backwards and seeing what things you remember most from your own experience. If you don't have much to remember, you must have already been in a pretty crappy school experience.

Many educators believe that the educational revolution will best be a digital one, in which iPads and other devices are used in the classroom by children of all ages. I am thinking the revolution may best be the simpler one that was proposed by Charles H. Ham in the late 1800s. He said that schools should become workshops, humming with real work. Saws, hammers and even knives present creative technologies that allow children to take an active rather than passive role in their own learning. Saws, hammers and real tools of all kinds also present the opportunity for learning to progress naturally and most effectively in the manner that early educators prescribed... 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.

Blog reader Randall sent me this link to an excellent article by Mike Rose, UCLA professor and author of Mind at Work. Blue Collar Brilliance: Questioning assumptions about intelligence, work, and social class

Make, fix and create...