construction

During the housing crisis from 2008 that lasted well into the next decade, around 10 million families were evicted from their homes due to foreclosure. So what happened to those homes?
A story in the New York Times tells how those homes were snapped up by newly formed companies owned by investors seeking to win big money at rapid rates by taking advantage of the crisis in home values. They were able to buy houses at a fraction of their value and then rent them out at high market rates. The great recession was one of the largest transfers of wealth from the middle class to the wealthy elite in American history.

That transfer of wealth continues as middle class folks pay high rents to wealthy investors who snapped up foreclosed homes. You can read about it here: 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/magazine/wall-street-landlords.html

My fifth and sixth grade students have been helping finish the outdoor classroom that has been in the works since fall when cold weather began to intrude. They took turns driving screws and hammering nails. The blackboards are now up and ready for paint. We plan to add small tool cabinets at each end where simple hand tools can be kept for student use.

Make, fix, create and assist others in learning lifewise

wash your hands...

When my mother was a young woman there were three choices for a career. My mom chose to become a teacher and an older sister Marge became a public health nurse. And so as we face a potentially catastrophic Covid-19 pandemic I need to make mention of nursing as one of the important hands-on activities essential to society and to every small community in America. We pray that the pandemic is not as severe as it threatens to become.

Warmer weather offers some hope to delay the spread of the disease, but if things proceed as they did during the flu pandemic of 1918-1920 in which between 40 to 100 million died, there will be a lull in the summer months and a dramatic reappearance of the spread of the disease when the weather turns cold.

This brings me to my point. Nursing is one of the underrated professions. In this blog I've failed in the past to make this important point. Craftsmen make. Nurses make well. We can make their job easier by washing up and wiping down. We are facing a time in which the bravery and intelligence of the nursing profession will need special recognition. Let's start now.

Make, fix, create, make well, and assist others in learning lifewise.

Seymour Sarason

Seymour Sarason compared teaching to a performance art. In the classroom, the teacher stands in front of class and engages the students attention, or at least makes the attempt to do so. But unlike a musician, or a theatrical performer, the teacher gets little or no direction to improve performances, and no rehearsal time.

He or she is judged from outside the classroom based on whether or not order is maintained. The teacher's power over his or her students is the basis upon which administrators and fellow teaching staff judge the teacher's effectiveness, and yet when it comes to kids, intellectual engagement is more often expressed by an enthusiasm that would be adjudged intolerable in many schools. So one can see that administrators and policy makers would like to find some way to measure teacher performance without having to put directors and stage managers in every class.

Seymour Sarason had maintained a rather dark but realistic view that every attempt at reform of public education would fail and so far he's been proven 100% right.

The charter school movement takes a spitwad approach. Throw a bunch of new ideas (that are really old ideas) in the form of charter schools (most of which follow a single not so new formula and most of which are intended to turn a profit) against a wall, and see which sticks best. Sarason, on the other hand, suggests that the secret to effective schools may have more to do with how we train our teachers for collaboration within and between classes, training them to draw forth from students their deepest engagement.

His thoughts are a deep well, and should be read by all who might take an interest in the subject of school reform. With between 40 books and 60 articles, getting to know Sarason would be a monumental task, but for the book I'm reading, the Skeptical Visionary, edited by Robert L. Fried

Make, fix, create, and extend to others the likelihood of learning likewise.

planters

My first through 4th grade students finished their planter boxes this week as you can see in this photo of student work lining a classroom window.

On the home front, we've reached the end of an era. About 5 years ago our yard and gardens began being overrun and destroyed by feral hogs. With the help of a friend, and having been offered no help from the state, we began the process of trapping, killing and removing them ourselves.

We are grateful that the State Fish and Wildlife Commission has finally become involved. Today I took down our trap, knowing that we are no longer alone. Fish and Game's high tech traps are far more effective.

Make, fix, create, and adjust schooling so that all children learn lifewise.

a new favorite

I take photos of the Clear Spring Students at work in the woodshop, and occasionally a new one shows up that serves particularly well to illustrate a particular value of woodworking. This is one, showing intense concentration. It also shows the development of skill. The idea of a child with a sharp knife might frighten some. But the boy is proud of his work.

Make, fix, create, and adjust education so that others learn lifewise.

Beginning to make foot stools

Yesterday my high school class began making foot stools from white oak. Two inch thick white oak will be used to make the legs. To get familiar with the wood and the processes of traditional woodworking I passed out hands planes so the students and their teacher could get their muscles and minds into the work.

My lower middle school students glued up blanks  from cherry and walnut to begin turning plates on the lathe, and my elementary school students finished planters to used for starting a garden.

My assistant Curtis took a scrap of white oak home from making legs for the footstools. He and his sons counted over 100 annual rings.

Make, fix and create. Assist others in learning likewise.

if we were...

If we were to build a new school from scratch to resemble the way children actually learn, it would bear little resemblance to the public schools of today with 30 same age kids put in sterile manageable classrooms. Instead, it would resemble the Clear Spring School where we have over 40 years practicing and refining our educational model.

If we were to build a new school or university to teach adults the way adults learn best, it would not look much like the universities of today. Instead, it would resemble the Clear Spring School, for certainly, we all learn alike, and learn best and to greatest lasting effect from doing real things. My quote in Matthew Crawford's books Shop Class as Soulcraft, and the World Beyond your Head makes that point.

“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.”

The photo shows our students joyfully crossing the small bridge my students and I built last year to connect the school with our new hands-on learning center where my new woodshop is located.

This next week I have an editor coming from Fine Woodworking Magazine to photograph an article we've been working on about box making. I'll also have him briefly in the Clear Spring woodshop to  take pictures of our kids, learning in the manner they (and we) love best.

Make, fix, create, and assist others in learning lifewise.

take a break, do something

I was contacted by a writer wanting to contribute to this blog on the subject of safe things to allow your child to do with digital devices while you take a slight, necessary break from the demands of parenting. Children take and need a lot of attention. Parents do need some time for themselves. And so, many parents use their digital devices to alleviate parenting concerns.

There are serious concerns with toddlers and screen time, also, in that research has proven a number of undesirable and even damaging results. The following report is only one bit of research among many. https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/28/health/screen-time-child-development-study/index.html

Screen time is linked to poor social adjustment, childhood obesity and other unwanted effects, and while we have these delusions that digital technology is making our children smart, perhaps we should not allow ourselves to be deceived. Google makes us feel smart also, as we race from one site to another retaining very little in actual mind.

There are reasons to stay engaged in the real world and for us to use tools to help our children remain engaged in reality. I told the writer that as the author of Making Classic Toys that Teach, I had other ideas beyond iPhones and iPads for occupying children while their parents take a break.

Making Classic Toys that Teach https://www.amazon.com/Making-Classic-Teach-Step-Step/dp/1940611334/ is about a lot more than just making toys. It is also about the life and contributions of Kindergarten inventor Friedrich Froebel and his philosophy of learning, that applies to toddlers and even to their parents or grandparents. We all learn best when we are doing real things.

Make, fix, create, and assist others in learning lifewise

measuring stuff

A friend asked, "How do I teach kids to measure stuff?" The assistance I have is that our elementary school students are taught the use of rulers in their regular classes. Their teachers ask them to measure stuff.  It's part of math, and to have children running around the classroom with rulers observing and measuring the length, breadth and thickness of things is a good thing. Similar exercises should be common in every school. In our case, students also have the opportunity to see that measuring things is important in wood shop, sewing and in the arts. Measuring is important in math comprehension and student confidence.

Yesterday one of my 8th grade students was measuring the inside dimensions of a frame and stated confidently, "Nineteen and five-eighths inches." I felt joy. Her measurement was exact.

I also felt joy with our Kindergarten class as they made "flag poles."

Make, fix, create, and assist others in learning lifewise.

super heroes

On Wednesday my kindergarten students finished their super heroes. Today I'm packing a shipment of props to send to my publisher, Blue Hills Press for my Guide to Woodworking With Kids. It will go to press next month and be available in May.

In my at home wood shop, I'm assembling boxes.

What more can I say? We learn best and to greatest lasting effect when we learn hand-on and by doing real things. Through woodworking children can be of service to family, community and self and gain in intelligence and character by doing so.

Make, fix, create and assist others in learning lifewise.

in comparison

My wife, Jean alerted me to this furniture company, Palettes by Winesberg that might serve as an example of American industry at its best. They have zero waste, and source all their fine hardwoods from their own forest. This would not be found to be the case under most circumstances.

When you invest in quality American products, you invest also in the quality of our nation. Is that so difficult to grasp? The screenshot from their website shows the entire operation except the forest from which their furniture is made.

Make, fix and create... assist others in learning lifewise.

Gertrude

Johan Heinrich Pestalozzi was kind of an "absent-minded professor" of education. He had written a novel, Leonard and Gertrude about a poor mother and her stone mason husband in a small village dominated by a bailiff who used his tavern to keep the citizens drunk, indebted to him and subject to his control. Gertrude was a righteous woman, who despite her poverty, used her creative resources to keep her family fed, clean and clothed while her husband suffered from drunkenness under the malicious influence of the Bailiff. Gertrude managed to get her husband's attention, and thence commenced the story of how a whole community was restored to prosperity and righteousness.

In real life Pestalozzi had been brought up by his mother in relative poverty after the death of his father. So when he devised his method of schooling his intent was primarily to serve the poor. His books, Leonard and Gertrude and How Gertrude Teaches Her Children are both available from Google books for free, so with a bit of free reading you can become as much an expert on his life as I am. His schools were one failed attempt after another from a financial point of view. His book How Gertrude Teaches Her Children was his attempt in the form of letters to explain his educational method. Pestalozzi had a profound effect on the rise of progressive education through his books and through visits by important folks to the various schools he founded.

Much of modern educational policy is driven from the top down rather than from the bottom up. Pestalozzi recognized the power of the simple individual to take matters into his or her own hands and bring profound changes in their own lives and in their communities. How Gertrude conducted herself in relation to her children, husband and community offered a profound example that influenced Froebel in his development of Kindergarten, then Cygnaeus in the founding of the Finnish Folk Schools, and then Salomon in the development of educational Sloyd. Pestalozzi's approach was from a radically different angle from the current efforts at educational reform in the US. We all know that things are broken. Most expect others to fix things.

Both Pestalozzi and Froebel (who had visited Pestalozzi) recognized the value of young mothers as being their child's first teacher. One of the things that poverty tends to do is to extract young mothers and fathers from this important role. Fix the problems associated with poverty and you'll go a long way toward fixing American education by giving young mothers and fathers more time to fulfill their traditional roles.

Pestalozzi was known for his enormous compassion for the poor. So his books can be an inspiration, even today.

Make, fix and create. Assist others in learning lifewise.

4 things

Diane Ravitch, an educator whose writings I follow has an editorial in this week's Time Magazine, https://time.com/5775795/educat/ offering her prescription for  improving American schools. The prescription is simple, fix our nation's poverty, and reduce class sizes. Abolish our fixation with standardized testing... a fixation that's never fixed anything despite pouring billions into the standardized testing industry and despite disrupting children's learning by testing and teaching to the test.

The fourth thing I'll offer on my own. When education is abstract, unrelated and irrelevant to the lives of children, they sit numbly through lessons. That may be what some educators want. Numb children are more
manageable. Of course the down side is that they're numb.

The alternative that we practice at the Clear Spring School is to use education to offer a grounding in doing real things. In the woodshop we are engaged in the use of real tools, using real materials, making real things. And that can serve as a model for transformation.The following quote from this blog served as the opening line for Matthew Crawford's Book Shop Class as Soulcraft and to frame his discussion in the closing chapter in one of his more recent books.

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. --Wisdom of the Hands blog post of October 16, 2006

Children deserve to become fully engaged in their educations. Others might try it and will see that it works.

Make, fix and create. Assist others in learning lifewise

standing on shoulders broader than our own

A very dear reader suggested that in my last post I was bragging while I thought I was making a point that not all that needs to be taught in schools will be something measurable by degrees or academic attainment. I do not want to disparage those who work hard to attain academic credentials, but do suggest that they are made richer by engagement in the real world, a thing often ignored in the halls of university training. There's the abstract and the concrete, and we know that learning must, in order to be most effective, move from the concrete to the abstract and not the other way around.

Yesterday I took part in a panel at the Arkansas Arts Council to select the next Arkansas Living Treasure from a field of 8 or nine nominees. Taking part in such panels is part of the responsibility I have for having received the award in in 2009.

The award is for excellence in the practice of traditional crafts, and for pushing those traditions into the future. It's not enough to be good at what you do. You must also demonstrate your commitment to education. As I told a friend, no craftsman is an island unto himself. We most often stand upon shoulders broader than our own, and have a responsibility after being lifted, to lift those around us.

Last Wednesday we were missing some students due to bad weather, and so with a reduced class size, I invited our 4th and 5th grade teacher to assist a third grade student as he made his first efforts to turn on the lathe. Chris had been one of my students years ago, and it felt special to have him re-engaged at the lathe. We do stand on the shoulders of others, and while we may brag on occasion, it is truly best to acknowledge that whatever we do or have done there are certain things we must not forget.

Make, fix, create, and assist others in learning lifewise.

qualifications

I was asked kindly for my qualifications to teach a 5 day class in making small cabinets for a community college. They wanted to know whether I had a degree which would have been useful in meeting their accreditation standards. I told them:

 I have a degree in political science, a BA in 1970. I've been a professional woodworker since 1975. I'm nationally known for having published over 100 articles in national publications on the subjects of woodworking (for adults) and k-12 education. I've published 13 books for nationally known publishers in the woodwork field, two of which were translated into German. I was named an Arkansas Living Treasure in 2009 and have served on a furniture design critique panel for the University of Arkansas School of Architecture. I've taught woodworking in major craft schools like Arrowmont and the Marc Adams School of Woodworking and for 19 years have directed the Wisdom of the Hands Program at the Clear Spring School with students from pre-K through 12th grades. I'm the author of the Taunton Press book Building Small Cabinets and have taught Building Small Cabinets at ESSA, at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking, the Guild of Oregon Woodworkers, the Diablo Woodworkers in the SF Bay area, and at the Kansas City Woodworking Guild. I also did a Building Small Cabinets DVD for Taunton Press. An MFA in the Arts would not make me better qualified to teach this course.

Yesterday my students worked excited in wood shop. One of my younger students struggled to glue two pieces of wood together end on, thinking that if a bit of glue didn't do the job, more might. In wood working we learn about the real world and real constraints within our material environment. There is a difference between real life learning and the conceptualized and artificialized environment of typical education. And typical education at all learning levels would benefit from being held to the standard of doing real things.

The lovely piece of furniture shown was just completed by my good friend Bob Rokeby.

Make, fix and create... assist others in learning lifewise.

the process

Each day, I push things forward just a bit. I spent a good bit of time yesterday reviewing the first draft of my Guide to Woodworking with Kids. It promises to be a good book, giving greater confidence to parents, grandparents and teachers to help their children get started in woodworking.

In the new wood studio at the Clear Spring School, I continue organizing in the new space, as we hold classes for grades K through 12.

I got an email from a fellow box maker saying this:

I have been making boxes for some time now and have never been terribly happy with them now I have purchased the Box Making video and cannot believe how well done it is, I have been building sleds and jigs for days now getting ready to start. Thank you very very much.

All I can say is "you're welcome." I am also grateful that I've been able to help. Isn't that what we're here for?

Make, fix, create and assist others in learning lifewise.

a simple tip for speedy boxes

By sanding and finishing one side of a piece of wood prepared for box making before it's cut into parts, you ease and expedite the process of finishing at the tail end. I thank my retired box making friend Don for the tip.

In the photo are over a dozen future boxes. The woods are cherry, walnut and ash. The outsides of the boxes will be sanded and finished after being assembled. The application of the oil finish before the parts are mitered will not interfere with effective gluing, because fresh unfinished wood will be uncovered when the miters are cut and when the grooves for the top panel and bottom are cut.

I have an editor from Fine Woodworking coming at the end of February to take pictures of the process, and today my book editors and I will go over the next steps in completion of my Guide to Woodworking with Kids.

There are wonderful things that happen in wood shop. We learn to look around us and to assess reality in our search for truth.

Make, fix, create, and assist others in learning lifewise.

super heroes

Yesterday in wood shop my Kindergarten students began making super heroes. I asked them to consider the super heroes in their own lives... Like Mom, like dad, like a teacher or their librarian.

The Kindergarten students are the real joy of my woodworking week. They embrace everything in the wood shop without reservation.

The new woodworking studio remains in a slight degree of chaos as we find places to move additional tools and projects from the old shop. I asked my 5th and 6th grade students to help in the process of organizing, by playing a game. Find something, look for other things that look just like it, learn what it is, and put things together.

Yesterday I received a pdf of my new book on woodworking with kids. I'll review this first draft with an open mind and the editors and I will talk on Friday.

Make, fix and create. Assist others in learning lifewise.

among friends

I never seem to get done all that I want to accomplish, so I hope to begin spending at least one hour each night in my shop. It will be better than TV. Last night laminated eight top panels for boxes using a variety of Arkansas veneers to cover 5 in. by 7 in. Baltic birch panels. These will be used with ash sides, and if I add just a few shop hours each day the boxes will be finished next week. The photo shows some panels glued up, and another stack of four in the vacuum press.

I reordered hinges from Craft Inc. In my early years I kept track of the number of boxes I'd made by counting the number of hinges I'd bought from Craft. Two thousand hinges meant 1000 boxes, and I always ordered from two to four thousand at time. Now I use a variety of other hinges as well and made some lift lid boxes, so keeping track of hinges no longer gives a clear count.

I have been thinking about the importance of staying put. We live in an age of constant motion, with people moving from place to place and seldom realizing the full value of where they are and with whom they live. You can glue yourself to the TV watching the nature channel and know more about distant places than you'll know about your own back yard. And so it makes sense for us to allow ourselves to become rooted in one place, to care deeply for it and for the people who surround us. For me to have lived here for so long, means that wherever I go I find myself among friends.

Make, fix, create, and assist others in learning lifewise.

today in the wood shop

I've begun a whole bunch of boxes in my shop as it's important to connect with my own inner drive to create. Yesterday I resawed inch-thick ash lumber to form the sides, and today I'll begin vacuum laminating veneers to 1/8 in. Baltic birch plywood to form the top panels. The combination of veneers and solid woods give a box that's strong and light. Beautiful, too.

In the Clear Spring School wood design studio, I'm still in the design mode myself. Yesterday we put up more pegboard for hanging tools, installed a French cleat along one wall and began adding shelves that will also provide for coat hooks at differing heights to meet the needs of our full age and size range of our kids.

In my January beginning box making class at ESSA, one of my students brought in a box that he'd bought at our local thrift store for $20 bucks. Normally that would be a lot to pay for such a thing, but he'd recognized it as being one that I'd made and that had originally sold for several times the price.

The hinges were bent but I bent them back. It was a one-of-a-kind box, done as a demonstration of techniques in an earlier class. You can read a bit about that specific box in an earlier blog post here: https://wisdomofhands.blogspot.com/2014/08/piddle-about.html The box has a number of interesting features intended to illustrate a variety of techniques.

Make, fix and create... Assist others in learning lifewise.

simple progress

We're making progress in organizing the new Clear Spring School woodworking studio and clearing out the old space for it to be assigned to other use. We hope to be out of the old shop next week.

We had a very pleasant book signing this week for Not Dead Yet. Despite it being a rainy, cold night, a number of copies were sold and signed by the authors attending. https://smile.amazon.com/Not-Dead-Yet-Reflections-Aging-ebook/dp/B081Y8WMH4/

I showed some of my students this video: https://youtu.be/A64c8XjceUo and now they all want to be youtube stars. They want me to do some more brief videos. Perhaps that can happen if they can work quietly while the camera is at work. In the meantime, some of my younger students are excited to learn how to use various tools for the first time, and to be trusted to do so.

My new to unreleased guide to woodworking with kids is now in layout and the first draft is nearly complete.

Make, fix and create.

huddling

Yesterday as we were finishing up our box making class at ESSA, students gathered tightly around my workbench to assist, encourage, and share tools. I was reminded of my first, second and third grade students doing exactly the same thing.

Schools regiment learning. Learning at its best is not regimented. It is responsive to the needs and interests of the individual. That's what public school administrators could learn if they were to attend one of my adult woodworking classes.

I was worried at the beginning of the day that my students would not arrive at the point of putting hinges on their boxes. But they did. Each had hinges, and check chains installed and a bit of finish applied. It was a great class with each student learning, applying personal creativity and helping each other.

I'd walk into the room and hear them laughing with each other. All schooling could be like that, and the expression of joy should be one of the most important measures of educational success.

Make, fix, create, and assist others in learning lifewise.

day 3

We are ready for day 3 of an adult box making class at the Eureka Springs School of the Arts. We've made small lift lid boxes, larger lift lid boxes, and today will make hinged boxes with floating panel tops.

The photo shows play with pulls.

On Jan 22 the local contributors to Not Dead Yet will gather at Brews for a 6 PM book signing and to offer readings from the book. Like most of my writing, I offer some how-to. In this particular case, the how-to is not about making things, but about making a better life.

What we learn in life is more meaningful, more effective and more fun than being "schooled." And that raises the important question, "how can we make education more meaningful, more effective and fun?" Real life offers the solution. At the new Phyllis Poe Hands-On Learning Center at the Clear Spring School, we have cooking, sewing, woodworking, dance and art, each of which engage our students in real life.

Make, fix, create, and assist others in learning lifewise.

at work in the new studio

Yesterday we began woodworking classes in the new Clear Spring School woodworking studio. The larger space gives us better organization with will lead to greater learning. It is a very happy place, complete with an elf door made from clay by a friend, Karen Overgaard. The elf door is to assist entry of creative spirit into the wood shop. Will it work? Of course.

I thank assistant Curtis and maintenance supervisor Jeremy, for helping with the move.

Better organization will also make things easier for me. Today I'll have Kindergarten students and upper and lower middle school classes.

I'm grieving the loss of a very good friend Michael, to pancreatic cancer. I'm thankful to have had time this summer to visit with him, share and express our love for each other, and to have had the opportunity to make a box to hold his ashes. Michael's plan, worked out with his grandsons and granddaughters is that when his ashes are buried, the box will become the place where dad jokes are kept. I hope that some of my love will be held there as well. Whether open or closed, a box we make with our hands, can express things.

I'm preparing for a three day box making class at ESSA that starts this Friday. Seven students are enrolled and due to last minute cancellations, there's room for two more. Join us. You can register at ESSA-Art.org

Make, fix, and create.

the relevance of sloyd

Yesterday I met with staff at the Clear Spring School and mentioned Sloyd, the system of woodworking education from which I draw inspiration. I also received notice concerning a paper published in Sweden by Marcus Samuelson on following and leading in a Sloyd Classroom. https://www.academia.edu/11406017/Followership_and_leadership_in_different_sorts_of_sloyd_practices

When Educational Sloyd was first developed in Sweden and Finland, children were generally homogeneous in their prior experiences. For instance, children growing up on small farms all had the experience of whittling with a knife, even as young as 4 or 5 years old, and all came from common backgrounds and domestic situations with all mothers working in the home.

So it was relatively easy to set up a course of training in which all the kids in a class and of the same age would go through the same exercises at the same time and share a common interest in the work. That's not exactly the situation today. Some parents fill their children's lives with technology. Some fill their children's lives with rich experiences. Some parents may face such challenges of family survival that they have no resources for either.

These days, children starting out in any field of subject will be all over the place in level of prior experience upon which to base further study, and all over the place in terms of interest, also based in large part upon prior experience. And so the first principle of educational Sloyd, that of starting with the interests of the child takes on even greater relevance and importance today.

It would seem improbable today for academic educators to arrive at the conclusion that there would be anything of importance that they might learn from manual arts. That was also the case in the early days when school administrators insisted that there was no time for concrete learning, that hands on work took too much time away from necessary academic pursuits. The truth is that when a proper foundation in reality is secured, academic subjects are made easier, their relevance is better established and the kids are refreshed and energized to actually learn in short order.

We now have the new woodworking studio at the Clear Spring School, in our new Phyllis Poe Hands on Learning Center, ready to classes to begin in the new semester starting next week.

In the meantime, educators would sere themselves well by learning the basic philosophy of Educational Sloyd. Start with the interests of the child. Move in close increments from the easy to the more difficult, from the known to the unknown, from the simple to the complex and from the concrete to the abstract.

Make, fix, create, and allow for all children to learn lifewise.

to witness joy

Just as our dog Rosie exudes and exhibits joy when running with a friend, Patrick in our local dog park, joy can be observed. And the same witnessing of joy in schooling could be established as a routine priority. It should supplant other forms of assessment, for without joy in learning, what the heck have we done to schools or to kids.

Suicide is now the second leading cause of death among teens. Joy is one of the ways to fix that.

Today in the new Clear Spring School wood studio we've begun hanging pegboard for storage of tools. We aim to simplify by putting less used tools into deeper storage, while pegboard will hold more commonly used tools more readily at hand.

Make, fix and create. Joy follows forthwith.

Season's greetings.

My wife and I received a lovely card from friends like one we receive from them each year at New Years. Like the others from years past, the message, always the same on the front though each time in a different lovely hand set font is simple and printed in old style letterpress on a near ancient printing press. It says, Peace.

The message inside this year is a bit more complex. On the upper fold hand set type says, "If you cannot find peace in yourself, you will never find it anywhere else." — Marvin Gaye

On the lower fold, it reads, "Our wish to you and your family is for great art in your home and well printed books in your book shelves. Please support your local artists and craftspeople in the coming year."

May I offer the same wish and request for you, please?

There is no better formula for building community and culture than what's offered here.

The photo shows the new Clear Spring School wood studio as it begins the process from chaos to creativity.

We can build a culture in which people find purpose in service to each other and the attainment of higher standards. You can call it artistry or craftsmanship.

Make, fix and create.

thrift and thrive

Etymology of Thrift

From Middle English thrift, thryfte, þrift, from Old Norse þrift (“thriving condition, prosperity”). Equivalent to thrive +‎ -t.[1]

"His thrift can be seen in how little the trashman takes from his house."

A friend of ours brought our dog Rosie a Christmas gift of two new balls. Rosie already has a dozen or so, but even dogs respond to the glory of new things. Her old balls lose interest in comparison to the new. And so when it comes to our human worship of new things, perhaps we can see it as something normal, even for animals. Rosie will glory in finding a new stick. We and the whole world would be better off being modest in our consumption of things. Thrift, and thrive. There's a connection between the two.

We are at great odds with the former Soviet Union, as Russia attempts to rekindle its old glory through alliances with some pretty mean folks. Those who mis-remember the past are destined to repeat it. The US and Russia had an opportunity to get things right back during the time of Gorbachev. But we saw the events of Glasnost from irreconcilable angles. Reagan claimed that we had defeated the evil empire and offered Americans the glory in being the "only remaining super power." Russia, on the other hand, chose for a time to see the break up of the Soviet Union through a more noble lens while Americans were content to watch Russians fall into abject poverty. It was like the situation at the end of WWI when the Allies withheld support for the German people preferring to watch them suffer. Hitler and Putin are woven from the same cloth as are others in the various "evil empires."

Aren't we having fun now?

Tensions with Iran will divert attention from the impeachment of Donald J. Trump. But in the meantime, I continue to set up the new wood studio at the Clear Spring School. The benches are in place, and we have new shelving for student work. We'll begin moving cabinets today from the old shop to the new.

Make, fix and create.

Happy new decade.

A line from an earlier presidential debate was, "it's the economy, stupid."  As we enter a new decade let's remember that the real economy is not something you can measure in dollars and cents. As we enter an election year and a new decade, we'll hear a lot about the economy — how it's doing. The more important question is "How are we doing?" The stock market seems OK these days. The lives of the common folk maybe not so good.

In the meantime, I spent parts of the last three days clearing hog wire and barbed wire from our woods. The wire had been there for generations and had become broken and trampled into the soil. Parts were covered by leaves and downed trees. I chose to remove it because it was well within our property lines, and presented a hazard to dogs and wildlife and to my own enjoyment walking in the woods.

Making my local world a better place by removing old wire from the forest is not something that the powers that be would consider a contribution to the economy.

I live in a small town that thrives due to the number of persons who volunteer and do things for each other without payment changing hands. Just like pulling wire from the woods, volunteers make things better for all even though none of their labors would be measured in "the economy."

Let's get this straight. Thrift is a good thing, as is conservation, as is volunteerism, as is caring for each other. Obsession with "the economy" is dumb.

A friend Larry sent me this photo of a gift he made for one of his great grandchildren. He told me that he has seven grandsons and great grandsons ages ages 3 months to 8 years, and being retired at last, he plans to spend time with each of them in the wood shop. What can be more joyful than that? The photo shows a "busy board, one of 4 that Larry made as Christmas gifts for great grandsons.

Make, fix and create. Assist others in learning lifewise.

a family class

Yesterday my wife and daughter and I took a family class at ESSA with Julie Hop, a noted watercolorist from the ESSA staff. It was a delightful time. My daughter Lucy excelled. Her's is the work shown. I struggled, knowing that free expression is not as easy for me as is the use of jigs and fixtures of my own design for crafting wood.

Fortunately we started with the basics. By the end of the day we had paintings ready to frame and enough basic skill to get better at it. (knowing that it can take years to get good).

When we think of the word "economy," we tend to think large and complex. We ought to instead think of Thoreau, of Shakers, of parsimony, of thrift and of great grandparents who wasted not a single thing. I mention the Shakers in reference not only to thrift but to the quality of design that is reduced to utter simplicity. I mention Thoreau because he suggested a path toward a more meaningful life. Economy of thought can lead to an uncluttered state of mind, allowing us to live more simply, and to reveal and release something greater in ourselves toward building the value of community.

We need to think much more about real economy. Not the one discussed among the world's financial elite, but is instead shared at the community level. The economy where members of families and volunteers make an effort to be of service to each other. A new round of Republican tax cuts raises the nation's deficit by 50% and is poised to make the rich richer by 25% or more. They need the money to fill hollow lives. In the real economy, the one that's not tracked or measured, or even measurable in "economic" terms, people find may find real joy.

We need to redirect families and communities toward simple service. The economy so important to the sustenance of the economic elite is killing the planet. We have the opportunity to save it by becoming advocates of a more simple life.

reduce, conserve, simplify, make, fix and create.

Forest School

A lovely video sent to me by the department of education at the University of Helsinki shows a laboratory school in Finland in which children spend every Friday out of doors in the surrounding forest. Use this link: https://youtu.be/Jsqcvhdg-Dw

Children learn best from real life. One of the things most lacking in education is the means to bring us into greater harmony with nature.

Woodworking draws a straight line from the forest toward creative empowerment. As you can see in the photo we are moving equipment into the new Clear Spring School wood studio.

Make, fix, and create.

Merry Christmas...

It's been a great season for online merchants as folks have been obsessed with buying meaningless stuff. That stuff may bring short term joy, and then become a burden of distribution or disposal. There are costs at both ends...When its made and we spend money for it, and then again when we have it hauled off and buried with massive quantities of stuff. In addition to the monetary costs, there's a large cost to the environment, again, at both ends.

My wife and I settled on a single gift to buy for each other. It is an original water color painting by a friend, Glenn Gant, who passed away in 1999. While Glenn was alive he never cared to sell his work. A good friend of mine would buy it by visiting Glenn in his home, making clear his admiration for a painting, and then lay a couple hundred dollar bills on the bed. You can learn just a bit about Glenn here: https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/glenn-rowlett-gant-11978/ But no encyclopedia entry can touch upon the whole man. Glenn is also featured in the long video by Betty and Tony Maffei on my youtube channel. Building a Legacy of the Arts  https://youtu.be/oOnmWiLs5YA

The Eureka Art Gallery on North Main St. here in Eureka Springs is offering over 100 pieces of Glenn's work for sale that had been held in a private collection. The sale offers the opportunity to acquire a lovely piece of Eureka Springs Art from one of the founding members of our art community.

So, what do we make when we make something beautiful and useful? Certainly, and with some degree of certainty, a machine can make things faster and in some ways better than can we. But when we make something, we have the opportunity to escape mediocrity in the making of ourselves as artists. While the machine is in the process of wearing itself out making meaningless stuff, the artists on the other hand, hone and polish their own souls.

May the season bring joy. Make fix and create.

a simple note on Chritmas Eve

Some days I have to sit back and attempt to make sense of things.
Black Elk described the wholeness to be found in nature as follows:

Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle. The sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours. The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle. The moon does the same, and both are round. Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves. Our tepees were round like the nests of birds and these were always set in a circle, the nation's hoop, a nest of many nests, where the Great Spirit meant for us to hatch our children. -- Black Elk

Again, along the same lines, the following is from Dr. Matti Bergström's book, Hjarnans resurser — en bok om ideernas ursprung "The Brain's Resources — a Book about the Origin of Ideas."

...We evolve in order to unite the world we live in into a wholeness. ...This is why the unifying force, the collective principle ... assumes ever greater importance in our lives. It becomes apparent in our thirst for peace, accord, and harmony, goodness, a social and religious paradise, love of our fellow humans and nature and an ensouling of nature. ...Even in our science we wish more and more to be rid of one-sided analysis, divisiveness and disjointed knowledge to create instead a method of research that tends toward synthesis and holism, wholeness and cohesion, where values can coexist without battling each other. — pp. 147-8

It seems the human condition requires great effort to make sense of. While our training and relentless activity is to discern one thing from another, the understanding of wholeness, a thing Froebel called Gliedganzes, requires us to put things together and to find the common thread. An ancient  Chinese text called the Hsin Hsin Ming describes the process and the solution. "The great way," it says is, "is not difficult for those who have no preferences, but make the slightest distinction, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart." The solution it proposes is that whenever doubts or dissensions arise they must be met with the firm assertion, "not two," that there are no real boundaries between us.

The following is from Froebel and Education through Self-Activity by H. Courthope Bowen describing a conversation between Adolph Diesterweg and Froebel:

The night was clear, bright, and starry, as they drove home from Inselsberg to Liebenstein, and the beauty of the heavens had set them talking. "No one of the heavenly bodies is isolated; every planet has its centre in the sun of its system. All the solar systems are in relation and continual interaction with one another. This is the condition of all life — everywhere mutual relation of parts. As there above, in great things, unbroken connection and harmony rule, so also here below, even in the smallest thing; everywhere there are the same order and harmony, because the same law rules everywhere, the one law of God, which expresses itself in thousand-fold many-sidedness, but in the last analysis is one, for God is himself the law." "That is what people call pantheism," remarked Diesterweg. "And very unjustly," rejoined Froebel; "I do not say, like the pantheists, that the world is God's body, that God dwells in it, as in a house, but that the spirit of God dwells and lives in nature, produces, fosters, and unfolds everything, as the common life principle. As the spirit of the artist is found again in his masterpieces, so must we find God's spirit (Geist) in his works."

Have you not yourself, walked with friends along a pathway in a starry night and wondered at the billions of stars and the interrelationship between all things? You need not be religious to do so.



The illustration is of Anaxagoras who said simply, that man is the wisest of all animals because he has hands.

Make, fix, and create. Use the powers of mind that you have been given to transcend the fractures that divide us and that leave us lonely and afraid.

cultural affairs...

The first time I met Louis and Elsie Freund was at an art show sponsored by the Cultural Affairs Committee. I had a couple pieces of my pottery on display, and was gratified that senior artists of their stature took an interest in me. The show was held in the Eureka Springs Historical Museum and that must have been in the winter of 1976. I later became close to Louis and Elsie as we formed the Eureka Springs Guild of Artists and Craftspeople in the summer of 1977.

I had invited artists to join together at Lake Leatherwood to form an arts guild. I was proclaimed the first president due to my being the only one there with a piece of paper on which to take notes. Louis and Elsie joined the group at our next meeting which was held on the Balcony of the Crescent Hotel. It was there that we discussed the name of the organization, settling on the "Guild of Artists and Craftspeople" due to the word "craftsman" being too sexist for some.

I write this in remembrance of the need for senior artists to foster and bring forth the young. I can still feel what it felt like to be nurtured and encouraged by artists whose stature had been earned at an earlier time.

Today I continue moving into the new woodworking studio in the newly developing Hands on Learning Center at the Clear Spring School. The floor is completed in the classroom area and the table saw will be he next major tool to move in the front loader of my Kubota.

In the meantime, I'm convinced that the story of the arts in Eureka Springs and how the arts affect the development of community is important, and that it must be told as it would be useful to every small town in the world. The relationships formed between artists through which we nourish and encourage each other in our growth can be the basis of cultural renewal. A few moments with Louis and Elsie there in 1976 within the walls of the Eureka Springs Historical Museum, standing by a Raku pot I'd thrown, and receiving their acknowledgment, helped me to make clear to myself, that I'm an artist.

You can meet Louis and Elsie in this video taken in 1996 by friends Betty and Tony Maffei. https://youtu.be/oOnmWiLs5YA

Make, fix, create, and assist others in learning lifewise.

finally it's time?

In the Saturday edition of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, columnist Rex Nelson, in writing about development in Northwest Arkansas, noted the following about my town of Eureka Springs.

"Finally, it's time for those with wealth in Benton and Washington Counties to fully adopt the quirky old Arkansas town of Eureka Springs in nearby Carroll County. That will be a subject of a future column."

The local Eureka Springs City Advertising and Promotion Commission just approved and expenditure of $25,000 to launch a branding development scheme. We'll see where that goes.

Years ago, Eureka Springs Artists Don Kennett and Louis Freund worked very hard to get the local chamber of commerce to understand the importance of the arts. Earlier, Louis had been a staunch protector of our historic architecture. In speaking on behalf of establishing a historic district and the laws governing the protection of historic resources, Louis noted the millions of dollars being poured into the development of Colonial Williamsburg and contrasted that with Eureka Springs. He said that while they were spending millions to rebuild something from scratch, all we had to do was protect what we already have.

The same can be said of the arts. While Benton and Washington Counties are spending many millions to develop an arts community, all we really need to do is recognize who we are and what we have and protect it. A bit of recognition from those who have the big bucks would go a long way in helping Eureka Springs remain a pinnacle of the arts. The first step could be to get the local chamber of commerce and the City Advertising and Promotion Commission (CAPC) to recognize what should be as clear as the nose on our face.

As a younger man, I would travel around the country to sell my work and wherever I'd go, the reputation of Eureka Springs as an arts community preceded me. My customers had met others from this small town, artists and craftspeople who had established their own credentials as artists and the identity of Eureka Springs as a home for the arts.

I hope to have a brief conversation with Rex Nelson. When Arkansas poet John Gould Fletcher wrote to Louis and Elsie Freund back in the forties, he said, "not much happening in Eureka, but it sure is laid out pretty." That remains true to this day. That beauty brings to our town those who are particularly sensitive to the beauty of our natural landscape, and architecture. Those folks of course tend to be artists. And so the bedrock of this community, as strong as the limestone under this town, is in four parts, beauty, outdoor recreation, historic preservation, and the arts.

My thanks to Dr. Dan Bell for alerting me to the need for this post.

Make, fix, and create...

moving beyond the days of 360° 24/7 self-aggrandizement

I mention again an interesting book by Catherine S. Barker. It was first published in 1941 and was republished this year with fresh notes and introductory materials by the University of Arkansas Press. Yesterday Today  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082RVXZVG/ is a factual account of life in the Ozark Mountains and of the challenges faced by the rural poor. The book is lovingly written, and I celebrate the University of Arkansas Press for bringing it back to life.

The book presents an interesting contrast with life in the Ozarks today. Now we have multi-national corporations and companies that specialize in making things from plastic.

There's an interesting Zen saying, that, "Poverty is your greatest treasure. Never trade it for an easy life." A song lyric that interests me is from Joni Mitchel. She sang about "the thumb and the satchel or the rented Rolls Royce, and the crazy you get from too much choice."

We are in the times of 360 degree 24/7 self-aggrandizement. Did you know that the big gold letters on the top of Trump Hotels and towers are not gold and that they are actually made of plastic? You can make plastic look like virtually anything. But there's a difference between virtual and virtue. One is the denial of the other. Not enough is said these days about simplicity. Another favorite suggestion is to live simply so that others may simply live.

The eight year old youtube star is making 26 million bucks a year reviewing and thereby promoting toys. Can you guess what they're made of? In the meantime, the maker of Lego blocks is offering to take back legos from the hoards of unsorted legos that are out there, and to resort them and send them to the poor. That's better than having them floating in the great Pacific garbage gyre. Perhaps we could consider a similar effort in the collection and renewal of old barbies. Gather them up, take them apart and reassemble them into new creative forms.

I'll compare legos to homemade wooden Froebel blocks. Does the world have enough? Being made  from wood, most have been burned or composted with no harm to the environment. My book, Making Classic Toys that Teach https://www.amazon.com/Making-Classic-Teach-Step-Step/dp/1940611334/ might send my readers in the right direction.

Yesterday we began moving tools and work benches from the old Clear Spring School wood shop to our new studio in the hands on learning center. I felt extremely grateful to have had a tractor for some of the heaviest lifting and to have had great help.

Make, fix, create, and assist others in learning lifewise.

a thought about wood.

The highest paid youtube star is 8 years old and earned 26 million dollars. 500 hours of youtube video are uploaded every minute. The way someone gets paid is by attracting viewers and receiving advertising revenue. Corporations get paid additionally by gathering information on us, where we are, what we buy, what we're likely to buy next, to thereby make certain they're the ones to sell it to us.

Eighty to 90% of what's sold in the US is destined for the landfill or disposal within 2-3 years. We have a relentless appetite to have fresh stuff put at our disposal. The costs are enormous, both on the personal level and for the planet. We have a huge balance of trade deficit that puts our future ever more securely in the hands of the Chinese and other investors in American "prosperity."

And so the question arises, "what if we were each empowered to make beautiful, useful, and lasting things for ourselves?"

Yesterday I helped the staff of the Eureka Springs School of the Arts make boxes. While the boxes we made in a short period of time were not perfect, (Perfection can only come through time and repetition) each box made is a symbol of growth that will find a useful place in each maker's life.

While environmentalists race to remove the great Pacific garbage patch of swirling plastic and as it grinds its way into smaller micro-plastic bits that will be impossible to remove from the marine ecosystem or from intrusion into all life, wood's not like that at all. It is a natural, renewable component to the planet. It can be composted or burned without deleterious effect. Wood has always been an important part of the natural environment. Plastic has not.

Today I'll begin moving the benches, tools and cabinetry of the Clear Spring School woodworking studio into its new space.

Make, fix and create.

the character of wood

This week my Kindergarten students finished their toy trains and were excited to take them home.

Today I have a special adult box making class for the staff of the Eureka Springs School of the Arts. Tomorrow we begin moving the Clear Spring School wood studio to its new location.

Woodworking is a bit different from other means of artistic expression. If you cut a piece of steel too short, you can heat it, and hammer it, extending its length. Lacking a forge, you can widen your weld, simply filling in the unsightly gap.  If clay is too long or too short, it can be squished or stretched to fit.

Wood's not like that. Precision is required. Woodworkers have joked about a board stretcher. No such invention has been made. Then there's the other joke. "I cut this board twice, and it's still too short."

And so there are certain characteristics inherent in the wood. Those characteristics make it challenging. They also make it lovely. Its beauty. What more need I say?

Well, I might mention its usefulness. Today my students will be making boxes that I can assure you will find a useful place in life.

And is there yet one more thing I might say about the character of wood? Yes indeed. Like human beings, wood is narrative. It tells its own story. The life of the tree is written in the grain, along with its strength and its loveliness. As we work with wood, using it to tell our own stories, we are blending in a larger world of creation.

And is there yet one more thing I might say about the character of wood? I can tell you about the diverse properties of various species. They are hard or soft. They are weak or strong (comparatively). Woods come in diverse colors and are suited to a wide variety of best uses. To enter the world of wood can be to fall into a wonderful entrapment in which one may discover love for the natural world.

Make, fix, create, and adjust education so that others learn lifewise.

I want to make that.

My younger students see the things that the older students are making and they tell me, "I want to make that." The opportunities in wood shop are endless.

Wood lends itself to being transformed into useful, lasting beauty. It also offers enough resistance to its transformation that it alters the character and temperament of the maker.
Alteration of character is a necessary mission for education. At the Clear Spring School students become makers and doers and live lives richer, more resilient and more in touch.

Yesterday one of my classes of elementary school students asked if they could make canes. And in a weakened state, I allowed them to use materials I'd prepared for older students to make canes for the elderly and disabled.

The handles came from scrap stock that I pick up at a handle factory, and the shafts are cut from hardwood stock into an octagonal shape using the table saw. The handles are drilled at center using a 5/8 in. Forstner bit. The tenons on the ends of the shafts are formed using a Veritas tenon cutter. The work can be quickly done because we have tools and I supply materials for such projects.

I have been reading an interesting book by Catherine S. Barker. It was first published in 1941 and was republished this year with fresh notes and introductory materials by the University of Arkansas Press. Yesterday Today is a factual account of life in the Ozark Mountains and of the challenges faced by the rural poor. The book is lovingly written, and I celebrate the U of A Press for bringing it back to life.

Make, fix and create... Assist all others in learning likewise.

finishing up...

We have one more week in the current Clear Spring School wood shop before we begin moving into the new hands on learning center. That means many student projects must be finished and taken home, or taken apart if they are abandoned.

Our Kindergarten students are finishing their toy trains. The engines and cars will be assembled in strings next week.

Other students are making boxes, canes and walking sticks.

Part of the value of woodworking is that in order to do it, students must think and observe closely, just as they must do in science. In fact, many early scientists were craftsmen as well in making the laboratory equipment required.

One of the challenges I have is that students come up with elaborate ideas about things they want to make. For instance, one student wanted to make a chicken house and came up with a design requiring what I estimated to be three sheets of plywood. I asked, "Do you see any wood around here that would enable you to do that?" He settled on a much smaller design.

In the digital world where many children and adults spend their time, all things are made easy. In fact, each new version of each program has been made successively more and more "user friendly" meaning easy to use. If it's easy to use, it can be done any anyone, no special skills required, and no student growth required. And yet, if you study kids you learn that they want to learn new and challenging things that allow them to demonstrate expertise and set themselves apart from each other. I refer you back to David Henry Feldman's essay that can be found by searching this blog http://wisdomofhands.blogspot.com for "The Child as Craftsman."

Kids have long been set apart from each other by having parents who buy them stuff. But there's a shallowness and artificiality to that when you compare it with the opportunities found in craftsmanship which requires students to do real things and develop real skill in the real world.

I received copies of Not Dead Yet, Reflections on Life, Aging and Death, yesterday to share with family and friends. My sister Mary needs not receive a copy as she's one of the contributors to the book. https://smile.amazon.com/Not-Dead-Yet-Reflections-Aging-ebook/dp/B081Y8WMH4/ The Kindle edition is cheap, but it's nice to hold a real book. I thank the editor Dan Krotz for including our essays in it.

Make, fix and create...

building readers

An OpEd in the New York Times  tells about success in Mississippi in teaching children to read. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/05/opinion/mississippi-schools-naep.html The idea Mississippi legislators came up with was that if teachers were taught the scientific basis for success in reading, their students would have greater success. The simple formula is this.

  decoding ability x language comprehension = reading comprehension 

You'll note in this formula that if decoding ability is zero, the reading comprehension is also zero. Or if language comprehension is zero, then reading comprehension will also be zero. So teachers in Mississippi are taught to emphasize both the use of words and the decoding and sounding out strings of letters. What they fail to mention is a third factor, readiness to read. Not all children mature to be ready to read at the same time. When they're not ready, frustration ensues, and school districts spend hundreds of millions of dollars attempting fix something that should never have been broken in the first place.

When I visited the University of Helsinki wood shop in 2008, I found Kindergarten teachers learning to teach woodworking to their kids. Each teacher was excitedly engaged. Woodworking builds language comprehension, as does doing other real things. By delaying the start of school reading until age 8 and by doing other real things in school, beyond reading and math, the Finns build better readers in 30% less time.

In my own shop, I've been attending to orphaned boxes, those left unfinished after using them to demonstrate techniques. The photo shows installing hinges and one finished box.

Make, fix and create...

canes and ornaments

Yesterday my students worked on canes and ornaments. The canes are made for the elderly and infirm at our local medical clinic, and the ornaments are being made for a Christmas Tree at the Crescent Hotel. Beginning on December 7, you can vote on your favorite tree by giving a dollar or more.

Those trees that get the most votes receive additional money from the hotel. On or after December 7, take money, go to the hotel and vote big. We hope the hands and toys will capture the hearts of those visiting the forest of trees representing charitable organizations in our community.

My students will be finishing more ornaments in the wood shop today.

Make, fix and create.

toys

My students and I have now made about 30 toys to use as ornaments on a Clear Spring School Christmas tree for the Crescent Hotel to be displayed starting Dec. 7. Most of them have now been painted. I'll take a photo of some of the finished cars today.

Today my Kindergarten students will begin making toy trains, and I have a new way to hold the train cars connected in a string. By cutting a groove in the underside of each one, a simple string can be hot melt glued in place connecting them. It does not offer the option of coupling and uncoupling cars, but is a simple way to make a train to capture the love of  the youngest kids.

Part of the fun of woodworking with kids is that the teacher gets to be creative and learn new things.

Last night I packaged 20 boxes to ship to a customer in Little Rock.

I had correspondence with a publisher who told me that they were going to place greater emphasis on publishing scholarly works, making it less likely that they would publish my book Wisdom of the Hands: Crafting Self, Community and Human Culture. The perception that "scholarly" precludes personal experience in reshaping and restoring the role of the hands in learning and in life, is a dangerous thing. In the German language they recognize two kinds of knowledge, Wissennshaft that comes second hand from reading about stuff, and Kentniss that comes from doing real things. The perception that "scholarly" is about one and not the other is a sad notion in academia. The wisdom of the hands is likely a threat to the academic status quo.

Make, fix, create, and assist others in learning lifewise.

figets

Three recent studies suggests that instead of fidget spinners being useful in helping some students toward classroom learning success, they have the opposite effect. https://hechingerreport.org/3-studies-argue-against-fidget-spinners-in-the-classroom/ It has been argued that fidget spinners help kids adapt to the stress of the modern classroom, having particular effect on those students suffering from ADHD. Claims for the value of fidget spinners were made by the marketers on pure speculation and without evidence.

On the other hand, fidget spinners may be useful in helping kids to cope with boring lessons... not in helping to manage to learn those lessons but helping them to manage sitting still without disrupting others. So let's be clear. Children don't fit well in classrooms that are one size supposed-to-fit all.

On Thursday I talked with my great nephew Knox about his schooling. As a very bright boy he would find school to be very boring but for being recognized as "gifted" and being assigned a mentor who listens to his interests and helps design lessons specific to what he wants most to learn. But then, this raises the question, are not all children "gifted" and talented in one way or another? Perhaps with individually assigned mentors or smaller class sizes we'd find out.

On the other hand, there are two things standing in the way of greater educational success, each of these well proven by research. Poverty is the greatest obstacle standing in the way of student success, and it should come as no surprise that my great nephew Knox, comes from a family that gives him full support and total love. Gifted kids come from families like his that offer attention and support.

The other obstacle is class size. Teachers with 25 to 30 kids in a class are incapable of knowing their students' interests or exact level of development and thus must force engagement through other means.  They command, "Sit still kids." When sitting still is not what their minds, and bodies need. Don't you remember the figits from when you were a kid?

So these are two things to fix. Poverty and class size. Shouldn't we be talking about these two things? And of course the third point is the hands. Students should be engaged in project based learning through which their hands are engaged in doing real things. The value of doing real things is far greater than cramming useless information into the brain that will be quickly forgotten

Today my elementary students will be making toy cars and trucks. My middle school students will be making canes for the elderly. My high school students will be working on their longboards.

The photo is for my friend Bob whose shop I visited last week, and for whom I tried to explain my method for attaching the ESSA compound miter saw to dust collection. A picture is worth far more than a thousand words. It is great fun to visit other woodworker's shops and seeing how they've solved problems common to us all.

Make, fix and create...