a small bridge

Yesterday we installed the small bridge we'd made with students at the Clear Spring School, before getting back to making products for their pay what you want shop. The students added small toy boats, miniature Christmas trees and dreidels to their product line.

Make, fix and create...

Axle pins and connectors

You can create simple connector building sets by using axle pins. They are designed for use with two sizes of drill bit and are normally used to connect wooden wheels to toy cars and trucks. The tenon will fit tightly into a 7/32 in. hole, or rotate freely in a hole drilled 1/4 in.  diameter.

At the Clear Spring School we use these as axle pins for making toy cars and also for pins to secure pivoting lids on boxes.

Drill 1/4 in. holes in pieces you want to pivot freely, and 7/32 in. holes where you want the pin to fit tight. 

I'll not show you anything further about this, as you can use your own imaginations or rely on the imaginations of your own kids. The point of course is that with a drill, some scraps of wood, and two sizes of drill bit you can build interesting things that move.

Kids love playing with blocks. The pins provide two additional things. Permanency to their creations, and the ability to have the things they've made move into new configurations. It's relatively cheap play, and so much more flexible and unrestrained in its outcome than builder kits less inviting of parental collaboration. The axle pins can be purchased here. 

https://smile.amazon.com/Wheel-Axle-Hole-Dia-Tenon/dp/B000P9YCH8/ Through Amazon smile you have the opportunity to support the Clear Spring School.

A small drill press is useful in making various parts. A workbench with vise is important for keeping hands safe.

Make, fix and create.

Build our own building Sets.

I got an advertisement via email this morning for this Brio Builder Set shown it the photo. It reminded me that many parents want their kids to be doing stuff. It also reminded me that a some parents out there have the capacity to make building sets that are far more interesting and at a much lower cost, and that offer a much higher level of collaborative fun. 

Threaded inserts are a fabulous way of making jigs and fixtures for woodworking, but they are also great for building things that can be taken apart, and put back together in new configurations. https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07QQQFZQW

To build a builder set for your child, make a few long joining strips with 1/4 in. holes in them, buy some 10 x 20 steel screws of various lengths and drill random holes in blocks of wood sized for the threaded inserts to fit. Start with a simple set and allow your child to describe what he or she needs for next steps.

The fun of collaboration will far surpass the joy of watching your child open a gift that consists of plastic parts and fake tools. Tomorrow I'll suggest another simple building set using wooden axle pegs.

The point of course, is that it's far better and much more fun to be a maker than a consumer, and time spent working with your kids will offer far greater rewards to all.

Make, fix and create...

Black Friday

Here we are at Black Friday again, and it seems that enough container ships coming from China made it to port and were unloaded in time to make most consumers happy with things that will fill our landfills in no time flat. The goods delivered to us from foreign manufacturers amount to trillions of dollars in cost with a balance of trade deficit that would quickly cripple a smaller nation. But few questions are asked.

Some while back, economists and policy makers decided that we'd have a service economy rather than one that relied on making the things we need. Then we entered an "information age," in which exchange of information over the television and computer screens would earn our keep. It's time a few of us call BS.

The opportunity cost of spending so much on foreign made stuff is that we've lost the character and intelligence that's derived from making things for ourselves.

Most folks just want the things we buy cheap to actually work. A news host on the radio yesterday complained that she'd bought 4 baby monitors, each one too soon after the other. What she wanted was just one that worked. She described her dismay at seeing each failed unit and its packaging going into the trash. And she complained that none could be fixed. And that is the dreadful state we're in except for a few additional effects.

Making all this stuff uses the world's resources in a wanton manner. 
Having human beings making things of poor quality is a waste of human resources wherever.
The cost of international shipping places a huge toll on our oceans and resources.
We spend a huge amount of time shopping for the same old stuff.
We learn and grow too little in the process.
We isolate our own citizenry from the natural creative processes and the feelings of empowerment they provide. 
Landfills are a scar upon our planet that will last forever, and our lives are filled with meaningless stuff.

"Not so many things, but better, must be the cry of the consumer, and things good enough to be a joy in the making must be the demand of the worker, and until these demands become peremptory we shall hope in vain for a civilization that shall be worth while." —Architect Will Price, founder of the Rose ValleyArt Colony in suburban Philadelphia.

Make, fix and create. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

This is Thanksgiving day and as folks gather to celebrate the holiday let's remember to stay safe and not infect those we love with a disease that may keep them from being with us in years to come.

Ironically, the celebration of Thanksgiving as a national holiday began during the Civil War in the United States as the North was fighting to abolish human slavery and the South was fighting to retain the right to hold human beings in bondage. And yet, now North and South, we celebrate and give thanks.

One of the points that I make in my new book, The Wisdom of Our Hands has to do with the small things of useful beauty that occupy our lives. 

Shopping small and avoiding the big box stores this holiday season, starting tomorrow with Black Friday, gives us a better handle on things. When we buy things that are made in our own communities and by people we know, we are not just buying stuff, we are also investing in the development of character and intelligence on a local level. Things mass produced in China, and transported in huge container ships, may have a certain beauty and cheapness, but if we are looking for true beauty, that which exists on the inside, we may find greater beauty in simple things.

Otto Salomon co-inventor of Educational Sloyd said that the value of the carpenter's work is in the object that the carpenter makes. The value of the student's work is in the student.

If you are local to Eureka Springs, we have a Pay What You Want Shop set up by the Clear Springs School parking lot. There you will find things that students made, evidence of learning and you can pay what you want. The students decided that they'll split the money they make between our local food bank, and buying play equipment for the school campus. 

We also have a free library on the other side of the parking lot that's jammed to overflowing with free books. Take lots. Please! If you are an adult, leave kid's books, please, unless you have kids. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Make, fix and create. 

a bridge

We've finished an arched bridge with student help at the Clear Spring School, and with help from my tractor and some straps we'll carry it for installation on the school campus, giving our students a clear path over a creek between buildings.

On projects like this, that are adult in nature, not every child will be involved with the same level of enthusiasm, but each can help and learn, and too few kids these days are drawn in as participants in adult labor.

In my home woodshop I'm finishing some boxes that had accumulated unfinished. Each is different, so they'll give me a way to provide boxes to a few galleries that handle my work.

When I have quiet times in the wood shop I've been listening to the Path to Learning Podcast. It is readily available through most podcast streaming services and each episode is one that I feel compelled to recommend. I'm currently listening to one with Nancy Carlson-Paige about the essential nature of play as learning. Every parent and every teacher should make use of this valuable podcast.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Make, fix and create...

Humbleized. Is there a better word?

Yesterday I learned that a friend, Joe Youcha, director of Building to Teach, will write a review of my new book for Wooden Boat Magazine. Publication of the review has been approved by magazine editor, Matt Murphy. You may remember Joe as the designer of the wooden boats we made at the Clear Spring School a few years back. In his Building to Teach program schools build boats to learn math. It's based on the understanding that we learn best when we're doing real things.

Joe, having read an advanced review copy of the book, told me that he intends to buy the book for his students, his own kids, and would buy copies of the book for his own teacher if he was able, as some of those are now gone. Those teachers left profound marks on his life. And so it goes with us. We tend to think of ourselves as distinct individuals and disconnected from each other, but that's not the lesson delivered to us through our hands.

Along my own path, I've found many friends who share our understanding of things, that the hands are central to learning and growth. Unfortunately these folks tend not to be the ones who make educational policy. The hands tend to humanize and humbleize (is that a word?) It is certainly not the same thing as being humiliated.

Last week in the Clear Spring School woodshop we made color wheels with Rainbow Group, more toys in Mr. Chris's class and we installed the bat houses with Ms. Juanita's class. This week as we prepare for Thanksgiving I hope to shift attention toward building a bridge over a ditch that divides our school campus. For help in hanging the bat houses I want to thank Clear Spring alum and former student Kyle Hunnicutt and Clear Spring School father of Charlotte, Blake Durr.

Make, fix and create...

a student box

One of my students, Ray Taylor, sent me this photo of a box made by one of his students, making it obvious that we live on in the things we've taught others.

Ray teaches woodworking at the Northwest Arkansas Community College.

The following is from Felix Adler's address to the National Conference of Charities and Correction, Buffalo, July 1888 discussing the value of making a simple wooden box:

"By manual training we cultivate the intellect in close connection with action. Manual training consists of a series of actions which are controlled by the mind, and which react on it. Let the task assigned be, for instance, the making of a wooden box. The first point to be gained is to attract the attention of the pupil to the task. A wooden box is interesting to a child, hence this first point will be gained. Lethargy is overcome, attention is aroused. Next, it is important to keep the attention fixed on the task: thus only can tenacity of purpose be cultivated. Manual training enables us to keep the attention of the child fixed upon the object of study, because the latter is concrete. Furthermore, the variety of occupations which enter into the- making of the box constantly refreshes this interest after it has once been started. The wood must be sawed to line. The boards must be carefully planed and smoothed. The joints must be accurately worked out and fitted. The lid must be attached with hinges. The box must be painted or varnished. Here is a sequence of means leading to an end, a series of operations all pointing to a final object to be gained, to be created. Again, each of these means becomes in turn and for the time being a secondary end; and the pupil thus learns, in an elementary way, the lesson of subordinating minor ends to a major end. And, when finally the task is done, when the box stands before the boy's eyes a complete whole, a serviceable thing, sightly to the eyes, well adapted to its uses, with what a glow of triumph does he contemplate his work! The pleasure of achievement now comes in to crown his labor; and this sense of achievement, in connection with the work done, leaves in his mind a pleasant after-taste, which will stimulate him to similar work in the future. The child that has once acquired, in connection with the making of a box, the habits just described, has begun to master the secret of a strong will, and will be able to apply the same habits in other directions and on other occasions."

Make, fix and create... 

National Apprenticeship week

This week, November 15-21 is National Apprenticeship Week in which students are encouraged to take responsibility for their own lives and learning.

Otto Salomon, based on the teaching of Diesterweg and Froebel, had suggested that schools start with the interests of the child, then bridge from the known to the unknown, from the easy to more difficult, from the simple to the complex and from the concrete to the abstract. Apprenticeship builds in these essential areas for the development of the child as well as the economy and culture at large. I use the term bridge, rather than the way I've stated the theory in the past, because a bridge goes both ways, and we never outgrow our need to connect in both directions. For example, we never outgrow the need to connect and test our abstract learning with concrete reality. 

An unfortunate thing about education is that as a child grows through school, even at the earliest age, education becomes increasingly abstract. This is even more true today than before due to the early introduction of digital devices as means to entertain, educate and distract. For instance, while children once entertained themselves through play with scissors, hammers, nails and string, this is now rarely the case.

Imagine how well prepared our student population would be for Apprenticeships and for life if we were to pay greater attention at the outset to their need to engage in concrete reality.

If you were someone who thought schooling was a terrible waste of your time and of you were one who sat in class, bored out of your mind, please know that there are some in the world working to bring change. You'll find some of those folks at the Clear Spring School. We work to provide meaningful education for our kids, and also to serve as a roll model for what education could be for all kids, pre-k through 12th grade.

Did you know that there's a government program to support apprenticeships and a national registry where apprentices can sign up? https://www.apprenticeship.gov/employers/registered-apprenticeship-program

Make, fix and create...

Walmart has assured us...

Walmart has assured us that despite delays in shipping from overseas they will have plenty of stuff to unload in our landfills following the Christmas season holidays in which we feel compelled to give things we know are not needed or wanted and that have no real meaning either to ourselves or to those in whom we hope to induce joy. 

You might consider cutting out the middleman. And in this case, we are the middleman as we buy stuff and direct it into the landfills shortly thereafter. Most of the stuff sold during the holiday season will be discarded without having made us rich in the same ways that making items of useful beauty can, and so that should become our goal. 

I had an interesting idea this last week that crypto currency should be based on something real and that is of benefit to man, all men, and the planet itself. What you need to establish a currency is something to measure and a means of exchange. We've learned from the American dollar that currency needs not be based on something real. But the damage being done by greenhouse gasses including CO2 is enormous, affecting the rich and poor alike, even the defenseless critters and plants that inhabit our planet.

So following this line of thought, I proposed to friends that we develop a crypto currency that would aid in the sequester of carbon dioxide and preserve forests and wetlands and aid in the removal and sequester of CO2 like they are doing in Iceland. Like all good or great ideas there are others who have thought of it before me.

Mark Cuban has been investing in carbon offsets through a blockchain dedicated to exactly what I have in mind. It promises an international currency that actually benefits man, involving not the hoarding of precious resources, but by the removal and sequester of what's killing us all. This page provides some interesting links.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/klima-dao-accumulates-100m-of-carbon-offsets-aims-to-drive-up-price

Will Walmart provide us a carbon neutral Christmas season? I hope they can plan that for next year.

Make, fix and create...

Nishioka, the temple carpenter

Azby Brown, a friend in Japan offered the following comment after reading through most of my new book. 

"What I get from your book is that creative craft work gives us the opportunity to live a life worth living, and to become better than we are. This really resonates with something I’ve been thinking about and sharing with people lately. 

"The temple carpenter Nishioka was Buddhist to his bones. He didn’t talk a lot about it necessarily, unless you asked him, in which case he revealed himself as an erudite scholar. More importantly he lived it and it shaped everything he did. 

"In his tradition, the best thing a master carpenter can do is help provide a path to enlightenment for his apprentices, through devoted and meaningful work in which they can become selfless. But they never say directly that that's what they’re doing. I think the reason is connected to something you alluded to, about “spiritual competitiveness,” which is just another kind of attachment. 

"Better to just live the work."

Azby is the author of "Just Enough: Lessons from Japan for Sustainable Living, Architecture and Design" 

Make, fix and  create... 

color wheels, scissors and bat houses.

Today at the Clear Spring School we have been hanging the bat houses we made, and with the Rainbow group (kindergarten) we made color wheels. The Clear Spring School  color wheels are not the same thing as what you'd find in college art classes. They are simply a disk of wood mounted on a stand that you can color and spin, blending the colors you applied. 

It is more interesting to kids than a conventional color wheel because it's active. You can spin it and find pleasure in doing so.

A friend of mine who was teaching design at the university level was surprised when she asked her students to use scissors. She learned that both hammers and scissors were foreign tools to her kids. And so when did that happen?

In the olden days, kids entertained themselves, developing dexterity of mind and hand by making things. That seems to no longer be the case.

Make, fix and create...

wanting less and doing more

An editorial in Bloomberg  notes that Americans need to learn to live more like Europeans, wanting less and saving more. 

"It's become the conventional wisdom that the U.S. economy is built on Americans' endless appetite to buy lots and lots of stuff. Household consumption makes up about 67% of GDP. When the economy falters, we're told spending is our patriotic duty... But suddenly, Americans can’t spend like they used to. Store shelves are emptying, and it can take months to find a car, refrigerator or sofa. If this continues, we may need to learn to do without — and, horrors, live more like the Europeans. That actually might not be a bad thing, because the U.S. economy could be healthier if it were less reliant on consumption.We've entered an age of overabundance. We consume much more than we used to and more than other countries. Consumption per capita grew about 65% from 1990 to 2015, compared with about 35% growth in Europe."—Allison Schrager

A simple note about all that stuff. It comes in the door and then out with the trash a short time later, and we could cease being middlemen in the degradation of planetary resources if we were to change our ways. 

We may not want the economy to come to a complete instantaneous collapse, but we need to make a gradual shift in which we're doing much more for ourselves and spending less time waiting for the shelves to be restocked.

Perhaps we should learn to simply want less and learn to do more. We could save money and the planet in the same simple exercise. To start work on a new more vibrant and wholesome economy consider shopping at our student Pay What You Want Shop at the Clear Spring School. 

Our students have been learning about small business by making and marketing things made from wood. The products do not arrive on our shores in container ships. They are not made in China, contributing to our enormous balance of payments deficit. They are made from renewable materials. You can pay what you want, and if they end up in the landfill at some point just as all the other things you buy this Christmas season will, at least they were made along with the growth of character and intelligence of each child who made it.

Make, fix and create.

an early review of my new book

I'm starting to accumulate blurbs and reviews for my new book, Wisdom of Our Hands, from various colleagues in a variety of sectors. Pete Moorhouse is an educator and artist in the UK and also the author of the book shown, Learning Through Woodwork. 

Is it rudely self-promoting for me to share what he and others have said? Which is:

"Not hard to be positive!... Wisdom of Our Hands is an exceptional book CONGRATULATIONS!!"

Review/ blurb: "This is a book full of wisdom clearly built upon a lifetime’s experience of working with wood and sharing this generously with students of all ages.

Like his woodwork this book is beautifully crafted. The book shares a secret - the wonder of working with the hands is within our grasp - it is a call to action. Doug conveys the importance and value of working with our hands for holistic learning and nurturing the soul. He hits the nail on the head while challenging the reader to hammer it home.

Doug’s breath of knowledge is vast, drawing upon historical educational pioneers and well as current thinkers. This is an illuminating book, taking us on a journey embracing both the concrete and the abstract with many beautiful observations along the way.

Highly recommended." —Pete Moorhouse Education Consultant, Author and Researcher, UK https://irresistible-learning.co.uk

Make, fix and create... 

forgive me this is long.

Last night I went to a 10th anniversary celebration and talk at Crystal Bridges Museum held by Alice Walton, museum founder, Rod Bigelow, museum director and Moshe Safdie, architect. Only original members of the museum were invited. The event reminded me of having met Alice Walton and the original museum director Bob Workman years ago just as construction of the museum had been launched. 

I was exhibiting my work at a craft show in downtown Bentonville. I was set up with my work in a building owned by friends Tom and Becky McCoy and Alice came by to see my work. Tom and Becky being neighbors and friends with Alice made a point of introducing us. I asked her whether she planned to have crafts in her museum of fine American art, and I suggested the work of John Townsend, Newport, RI cabinet maker that renown art critic Robert Hughes had called the very finest American Art ever produced.

Alice, having witnessed the chain sawing and bulldozing required in the preparation of the museum site asked me, noting that I was a woodworker, what they should do with the trees that had been cut. Her museum director and I were left to exchange contact information and we met in the following weeks. I connected them with a sawyer to begin milling the logs and gave instructions as to how they should be sawn to be of use to the museum and to be treasured in their use.

Being of some small use to the project gave me the opportunity to tour the site during construction. Later I received a delivery of walnut lumber to use in building a bench for the museum commemorating the roles of Sam Walton and Dr. Neal Compton in preserving the Buffalo River as a national park. Much of the land upon which the museum was built had belonged to Dr. Compton before his death. That bench is shown in the image attached.

When the museum was preparing to celebrate its first anniversary, I was asked to use some of the wood harvested from the site to make boxes for each of the museum’s original staff members. When Alice Walton saw the boxes I’d made for first year staff she asked that I also make boxes for each of their first year’s volunteers. That was one of the larger commissions of my career as a woodworker, the making of 870 wooden boxes, each from wood harvested on the Crystal Bridges museum site.

Last night was a very special night in which Alice Walton described plans for the museum’s future, as it involves crafts. With the generosity of Robyn and John Horn, the Hutchinson family and the Windgate Foundation, a major expansion of the museum is planned with a focus on crafts. Alice described crafts as the art of the people and told how she was strongly influenced in her own collecting by Eureka Springs and a small pottery here, which is of course the Spring St. Pottery in downtown Eureka Springs, founded by Gary Eagan, who was also a long-time supporter of the Clear Spring School.

All in all, it was a very pleasant night.

Make, fix and create…

Pay what you want 2

This morning I went to add a padlock and hinges to the cash box on the kid's pay what you want shop. I found the box cleared of all student made merchandise and even some of our shop fixtures were gone. 

Not suspecting theft, I opened the cash box and found money inside. The students counted 8 dollars, seventy six pennies and 50 pesos in Mexican currency. We're counting the first day of business as a success. And in wood shop today the students made more products to sell.

make, fix and create...

Pay what you want....

During the worst of the covid pandemic when all our classes were being taught online, I made a box to allow teaching materials to be passed back and forth between home and school. 

We've repurposed that box as a temporary pay what you want shop for students to sell things they've made in woodshop and gain some insight into the world of small business. 

Today the kids moved inventory into the box. You can drive by and shop. It is unmanned but open 24 hours. At night you'll need to bring a flashlight. The kids are very excited about this project and I hope you'll join in to make it a success.  Select objects you want and put money in the box. 

The Pay what you want shop is mounted to the railing in front of the Clear Spring School office, 374 Dairy Hollow Road. To provide feedback or to request items you would like to see our students make, feel free to contact us.

Make, fix and create...

Rex Nelson

Rex Nelson is one of Arkansas' most highly respected journalists. There is a great editorial in today's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, resulting from the day Rex and I spent in Eureka Springs, with me having the honor of serving as his guide to the Clear Spring School and our Eureka Springs School of the Arts. The article can be found here: 

https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2021/nov/07/city-of-the-arts/

Next week's paper will likely have a column about the Clear Spring School. Watch for it.

Make, fix and create...

Studio open house

I invite you to join us on Saturday November 6 for a Open House at the glass and iron studio of Suzanne Reed. I'll be selling books and boxes. The address is 1242 CR 102 and the time from 1 to 4 PM.

Make, fix and create...

OzarksWatch

Yesterday I had an interview with Ozark Public Broadcasting for their program OzarksWatch. It was great to be able to share our wonderful Eureka Springs School of the Arts as the location for the broadcast which will air in February or March. Shown in the photo are host Dr. Jim Baker, and producers Jason Ferber and Brent Slane. Either Jason or Brent will return in December to take video of my box making class in action.

I hope this increases awareness of our great school. ESSA-art.org

Make, fix and create...

what are we willing to fix?

We know what's wrong with education in America, but what are we willing to fix? The answer, of course, is "Not much."

“The division into subjects and periods encourages a segmented rather than an integrated view of knowledge. Consequently, what students are asked to relate to in schooling becomes increasingly artificial, cut off from the human experiences subject matter is supposed to reflect.” (John Goodlad, A Place Called School, McGraw-Hill, 1984, p.266)

It should  be noted that kids are not as dumb as typical schooling assumes they might be. They are not empty vessels ready to fill with whatever beliefs and facts we can pour into them. Instead, because they are smart, they realize the differences between what we try to cram in and what they've already learned about life and reality. The artificiality that they see while sitting at desks, does not compare favorably with the real world outside the classroom walls. In other words, they know when facts and beliefs have been contrived to suit their conditions of containment and knowing that schooling is unworthy of their full attentions, they tune out.

The simple answer of course is to use the real world and projects within it to provide opportunitiies for concrete (rather than abstract) learning.

On Tuesday our outdoors study class came to my home to hang one of the bat houses we made on my barn. The installation involved my having to climb a 16 ft. ladder sliding the bat house up as I climbed to mount it on a French cleat. With the house mounted, I'll observe to see if we get bats nesting within. I'll mount a board below so I can observe the accumulation of guano and report back to the kids.

Yesterday I had my Kindergarten students in the wood shop to practice hammering nails. I provided blocks of 2 x 4 lumber and sheetrock nails for them to practice with. They asked, of course, "Can we take these home?" To carry home actual solid evidence of student learning (bent nails and all) is an important thing, and each of the students was proud of what they'd done.

Yesterday, also, we began making a bat mobile. Not the kind that Batman drives, but one that hangs from the ceiling and celebrates bats.

Today I'm meeting with  video crew and producer from Ozark Public Television to do an interview at ESSA.

Make, fix and create. We live in a real world. Let's learn like it.

Guidonian hand

A friend sent me an interesting link to Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guidonian_hand on the Guidonian Hand. Used in Medieval music, the Guidonian hand was a mnemonic device used to assist singers in learning to sight-sing. From Wikipedia:

"Some form of the device may have been used by Guido of Arezzo, a medieval music theorist who wrote a number of treatises, including one instructing singers in sightreading. The hand occurs in some manuscripts before Guido's time as a tool to find the semitone; it does not have the depicted form until the 12th century."

Most of us have heard of the idea of tying a string around a finger to help us to remember something we might forget. The Guidonian Hand suggests the potential for our hands to be used to remember important things. It would be interesting to see a demonstration of how it was used. Perhaps by touching with the fingers of the other hand.

Our own hands may be the most underutilized parts of our anatomy as well as the most underutilized resource in American education. The Guidonian hand is certainly an example of the Wisdom of our hands.

Make, fix and create...

Hammers for kids

Maslow had said, "If the only tool you have is a hammer, all problems look like nails." But does it make a difference what kind of hammer you have?

These are two different hammers offered by Home Depot online and one might assume the one on the right is for kids. In fact, I've seen similar hammers recommended for children's use. 

One thing you'll notice is that the one the right is shaped for an adult grip and the one on the left is a lighter weight but with the proportions of a full-sized adult hammer. The diameter of the neck is an easy grip for a child.

Which one would be better to give as gifts during the holidays while the usual Christmas paraphernalia is tied up in transit due to shipping and distribution delays?

Of course the hammer on the left is the one I advise, not just because it is hardly more than half the cost but because with a real wooden handle of appropriate length, it's a better hammer to further the child's growth. 

When kids (and inexperienced adults, for that matter) start out using a hammer they grip it close to the head as they learn better control. As their control develops and they see a hammer properly used by adults, their hand moves down the length of the hammer giving them greater strength and effectiveness in its use. 

The stubby hammer on the right is designed for adults who never had the opportunity to mature in the hammer's use. It also results in more bent nails due to its shortened arc. So even for inexperienced adults, I say, "Avoid the stubby hammer and allow for your own growth."

Due to supply problems with the traditional Christmas junk, you might consider tools for this year's holiday giving, most particularly for kids. You will have the opportunity to participate in your child's growth, and your own at the same time. 

I have two books in particular to recommend. One is my "Guide to Woodworking With Kids," and the other is "Making Classic Toys that Teach." Both can be found on Amazon.com.

Make, fix and create...

The start of Rainbow Group

 Yesterday we began classes for our Kindergarten students at the Clear Spring School. Our "Rainbow Group" made tops and the small hand crank drills mounted in vises allow the students to decorate them with colored pencils. In addition to the Rainbow Group class in which each student made two tops ("Do we get to keep them? They asked) the outdoors study science class made bat bats. Since my link between my blog and facebook will only load one photo or video, I've posted additional photos to my instagram account which you can find under the user name douglasstowe. To make the bat bats, magic wands through which the blessings of bats may be conferred, the kids cut out pictures of bats, glued them onto wood, and then cut them out with scroll saws before adding a stick and painting the back sides.

Path to Learning Podcast has presented an excellent interview with ballet artist and choreographer Lincoln Jones describing his use of the Froebel Blocks and gifts to stimulate his own creative path. Ballet with Blocks. As I was listening to him describing the use of the blocks to expand his own understanding of design and hearing him tell of slowing down motions to develop the greatest meaning, I learned to view our own experiment with supersized Froebel blocks as a form of ballet. If you watch the motions of the student coordinating the use of his hands to crank with one and pencil with the other you see building blocks being formed in the child's body mind. As we watch children designing collaboratively with the big blocks on the playground, we see the same thing. The link to the Lincoln Jones Path to Learning podcast should be of interest to anyone interested in design.

https://www.froebelusa.com/podcasts/the-path-to-learning-podcast/episodes/2147570216

In my own shop I'm doing the usual, making boxes.

Make, fix and create...

 

box makers...

I am one of six box makers featured on this offering from Fine Woodworking Project Guides 

https://www.finewoodworking.com/project-guides/boxes

Boxes remain one of the best ways to learn overall woodworking techniques. My next box making article for Fine Woodworking will be photographed in the ESSA woodshop in December.

In the meantime, my new book, The Wisdom of Our Hands has made it through the copy editing process and will be headed to the printer on November 7. Hopefully, the paper supply problems will not delay the 2/22/2022 publication date.

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

A reminder

With kids present, things do not go as planned. Yesterday we painted our bat houses made in the Clear Spring School woodshop and I failed to make clear what my intentions were, that they decorate, rather than paint the whole things. And so with milk paints in hand, they got carried away. 

It was also a reminder that I can lower my own stress level by having them paint outside rather than inside the wood shop where stray splatters of pain fall on our beautiful floor.

Note to self... Kids and paint need to be mixed in a carefully  controlled environment. In any case, the bat houses (four of them) are decorated and ready for installation and occupation by bats.

Make, fix and create...

Unhook from the supply chain...

This year supply chain problems will severely impact the delivery of mountains of Christmas time toys and stuff. That will likely impact for additional months to come, the volume of broken stuff delivered to landfills. 

Naturally President Biden will be blamed as children are deprived of meaningless stuff that would have been intended to generate Christmas time delight but that then would have been thrown out as meaningless in the months to come.

How about taking matters into our own hands. We and our kids can make the things we need and my book, Guide to Woodworking with Kids can help. It is currently scheduled to be reprinted and I'm hoping that the shortage of paper doesn't interfere with a timely delivery. 

If supply chain issues affect my Guide to Woodworking with Kids, https://smile.amazon.com/Guide-Woodworking-Kids-Projects-Lifelong/dp/1951217233/ I've been assured other books of mine are in sufficient supply. Making Classic Toys that Teach https://smile.amazon.com/Making-Classic-Teach-Step-Step/dp/1940611334/ provides instructions for making Froebel's gifts and explores his philosophy for teaching kids. While Froebel is known as the inventor of Kindergarten, his methodology of learning through play applies to us all. And even adults will love working their way through this book.

And then there's box making. I have a variety of books about that.

If you want to make the coming holiday season far more meaningful than others where crap was in abundant supply, try spending time with your kids in advance of Christmas. Make gifts and toys for each other. A few tools will help, and a new hammer under the tree will bring delight. 

The photo shows a plane made by Veritas that I reviewed for Quercus magazine this last year. Sized for a child's hands and unlike the toys that go in the trash, this tool will perform for a century or more as your children grow up and share it with their kids.

Unhook from the supply chain. This is the year for it.

Make, fix and create.

five or six Ds.

When a student in Pestalozzi's school was told to look at a picture of a ladder, the child asked, "why should I look at a picture when there's a real ladder in the shed?" "We don't have time to go out to the shed," the student was told. Later when the child was presented with the picture of a window, the child asked, why do we have to look at a picture when there's a real window right there? We don't even have to go outside to look at it." The teacher complained to Pestalozzi and was told that the student was right. Whenever possible, lessons should be based on the real world. But we confine our students to classrooms and isolate them from deeper engagement. 

 “The sensational curiosity of childhood is appealed to more particularly by certain determinate kinds of objects. Material things, things that move, living things, human actions and accounts of human action, will win the attention better than anything that is more abstract. Here again comes in the advantage of the object-teaching and manual training methods. The pupil's attention is spontaneously held by any problem that involves the presentation of a new material object or of an activity on any one's part. The teacher's earliest appeals, therefore, must be through objects shown or acts performed or described. Theoretic curiosity, curiosity about the rational relations between things, can hardly be said to awake at all until adolescence is reached.” -- William James. Talks To Teachers On Psychology: And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals. 

Much of what troubles post modern education is its artificiality. Even the pretense that it is all engineered as a benefit for our children is a distortion of the facts. The simple message should be clear. The things that most ail American education can be described as the 5 D's. We've got disinterest, distraction, disappointment, disillusionment and disruption. Some students go though 13 years of schooling without ever being disruptive, but most suffer at least from the first 4. We can add another D, for depression. It's how we all feel when recess is deprived us.

Make, fix and create...

concrete and abstract

One of the principles of Educational Sloyd was  that of moving from the concrete to the abstract. The idea was that by building and doing real things, rather than just engaging abstract material, students would develop both skill and deeper sustained interest. Back in about 2009 I was quoted by Matthew Crawford in his best selling book Shop Class as Soulcraft used a quote from my blog as the epigraph of chapter one. 

“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.” 

He used the quote noting that in just a few words I'd summarized the dreadful situation we're in. It's the artificiality of it all that drives kids nuts. Some are able to sit bored for hours. Some rebel. Crawford did a later exploration of the same quote in a subsequent book, The World Beyond Your Head in his final chapter. So I'll go a bit deeper into it myself. 

The first thing to note is that kids are smart and they know the difference between the artificiality of schooling and real life. They know that the teachers are presenting the things that the administration cares about, the students' own personal interests be damned. And since they know the curriculum has been manipulated and controlled based on things that are not real to them they need not pay serious heed. 

For some schooling is made barely bearable by having goals that lie beyond graduation. But just because some manage to make it through schooling seemingly unscathed and find some degree of success beyond it does not make it right for any and certainly not for all.

So what's a guy or gal to do? Julie Wilson, in her Path to Learning Podcast episode laid things our pretty clear. You change things, bringing your own unique passions into the school environment. Julie said, 

If school sucked for you, we really need you (to teach). Because you have a lens that we typically don’t have. The vast majority of people in the education system, people like myself, they did school well; therefore, I think we need more of the people who were not served by that traditional model. The more they can rally around this work and bring their different and innovative thinking to it, I think that will really help to turn things."

Yes, this will take time. But there are examples to examine like  our own Clear Spring School and a very long tradition of progressive pedagogy to inspire us to move forward. 

Make, fix and create.

willing suspension of belief.

Religion is a confusing subject as it is based on what we believe or hope to believe or profess belief in. And in that realm we are welcomed to believe what we want, whether true or not, as that is proposed as our right.

It would be far better if we were able to suspend belief rather than disbelief and simply observe, learn to trust science as a process, develop critical thinking skills rather than being required by schooling and religion to suspend disbelief and to take on faith what we've been taught. 

In the schools which we've all endured, we've been planted in seats and measured by our compliance and complaisance. It's the same in church. And not having been encouraged to directly challenge what we've been taught, we fall into the trap of thinking that the reality we've chosen for ourselves is right and the others wrong, and then line up along factional lines against each other and in denial of science which has become overly complex to unskilled minds. And some people are willing to die or cause others they love to die to score marks on the other side.

In the early days of manual training in the US and around the world, Educational Sloyd as practiced in the Nordic countries and as introduced in the US in the 1880s noted the necessity of educating all, absolutely all, in the manual arts. The idea was that working with the hands, developed the mind and also the social fabric, as it helped people in the upper classes develop a greater sense of the value of the contributions to society made by others, regardless of class. Another value was that the manual arts being practiced in schools made schools active rather than passive. Passivity practiced in schooling was destructive of society at large and meant the death of critical thinking skills.

And so here we are now. A huge mess. Factions aligned against each other.

The knife was one of the introductory tools in educational sloyd. They idea was that it was the first tool a Swedish child would use, even before formal education began and every Swedish child knew how to use a knife safely. It was not regarded as a weapon to be used against others. It was a useful tool that gave the student power to shape, and observe. You cannot whittle a stick without making simple hypotheses as to how the edge of the knife will address the wood and how the grain of the stick will impact the result. And so from such humble observations the full powers of science gradually emerge.

We’re a very long ways from reforming education to make schools active rather than passive places. Education today is obsessed with classroom management because classes are too large for teachers to address the varied needs and interests of their kids. By having kids unnaturally forced to sit at desks when their whole bodies are itching to do real things causes them to rebel, not only by becoming disruptive but on the inside, meeting what they are taught with a sense of disdain. Without being granted the opportunity to test what they are being taught and measure it against the real world, lessons are just more crap that they are expected to believe, and even the science upon which all of modern life depends is met with derision and distrust.

Fortunately there is a real world out there. Stupidity will meet its own measure against the realities the world presents, so I find a bit of hope in that. But we could be making things easier for future generations by helping them to do real things in school, allowing them to measure what they've been taught against the realities of the real world that they've been trained to observe for themselves. 

I started out talking about belief, and it seems that folks are all challenged to believe something or are regarded as naked. And yet, to see and see well, without the blinders of belief to distort the reality we live within, would serve us best.

On the home front, I've been finalizing the reading list that will be added to my new book.

Make, fix and create...

19th Mad Hatter Ball Auction

Our annual fund-raiser for the Eureka Springs School of the Arts went online last night and it's worth your time to browse the offerings and witness the variety of arts practiced here. 

https://one.bidpal.net/steampunkwonderland/browse/all

Some of the work was produced by teachers, some by students and some by members of our community. who have learned and grown through participation in classes. The proceeds of the auction will advance the school and its role in making Eureka Springs one of the most fabulous places to live in the US.

When we started ESSA, it was with the recognition that having an art school in such an arts-infused place, with a high concentration of amateur and professional artists would be inevitable. And so, choosing to apply some effort to the inevitable, we soon found many friends who shared our sense of its inevitability. Many hands make light work.

One of the great things about ESSA is that it's so easy to be involved. And it's easy to support ESSA by bringing the works of some of our wonderful artists into your own home.

The arts have an interesting effect. They develop the character of those who participate in them, providing us closer relations with each other. If you have money, and lots of it, you can choose to hide behind walls, and when life is done with you, you'll be forgotten. Participation in the arts assures that will not be the case. As you share in creative processes, you have effect that will linger and transform in fluid fashion and through the hands of others for far longer than we can imagine.

Make, fix and  create.

Bat houses.

Our Clear Spring School bat houses are complete except for screwing down the roofs making French cleats on the backs so that they can be easily hung.

The students now want to decorate them, naturally.

Make, fix and create... 

manual arts and the upper crust.

I seldom address the economic value of manual and industrial arts in the blog because that's a given. You'd have to be dead-on plumb bob stupid to not know that when you put tools and the power of understanding in the hands of a man or woman, that he or she can become a contributing member of an economy.  Settlement schools like North Bennet St. in Boston and Hull House in Chicago were intended at first to accommodate the huge number of unskilled immigrants who required acculturation and skill in order to make their way in the American political, economic and social landscape.

 I've been concerned more about the benefits of manual arts training to all, as its general value as a tool in the development of character and intellect is the value most ignored. There's been a persistent conceptual divide in American education, with an upper crust or intellectual elite intended to receive academic training, while the rest were to get trained and acculturated for manual labor. And that great divide left the upper crust stupid and unskilled. Along with that divide came disparagement of skill, and the unreasonable elevation of academics as superior to all. But what is the value of knowledge if we can actually do nothing but twiddle thumbs. Fortunately, the American people have means to rise up despite our educational institutions. The persistent inclination to do and to make whether music or objects of useful beauty is endemic. Academics are not.

I got an inquiry from a person in India who is trying to establish programs for their poor, and wanted me to point out my own essays in the blog that best address the value of manual arts training for the poor. Some of the best writing on this subject was by Felix Adler, founder of the Workingman's School in New York City. Here in the blog you can find excerpts of Adler's writings on the subject having to do with both social classes, the rich and poor if you use the search block at upper left. Type in Adler and see what comes up. One of my essays concerning Adler is on the subject of Will. Adler believed that morality was less a matter of religious precept than one of action. He was an advocate of "unsectarian" education. The more modern term would be "non-sectarian". Many still believe that religion and religious dictate are our only sources of human morality.

Non-sectarian education has been important in the US, helping folks from nearly all cultures to find common ground. On the other hand, non-sectarian education is often viewed as lacking in moral content. Kids are often left on their own for moral guidance, as teachers feel constrained to keep out of the moral arena. And so we have schools in which bullying is commonplace and pop-culture is the primary guide to student behavior. According to Dr. Thomas Gordon in Teacher Effectiveness Training, many teachers are reluctant to enter the values or morals arena with their students. They may even be frightened to address moral concerns that may be related to sectarian values. "They prefer to leave these teachings to families, churches and other agencies".

Adler and others in the early days of manual arts education, recognized the value of craftsmanship as a moral force in education. You either do a job well, or not. If you perform carelessly, the results are obvious for all to see. Through craftsmanship a student is pushed toward caring and the expression of care. In academic subjects the results of work are abstract, often disconnected from direct relationship to the child's environment. Assessment of academic labor is vague, often discriminatory, and lacks clarity. What students may learn in academic pursuits is that they can lie and often get away with it. In any case, I urge those interested to read more of Adler, a bit of which follows: 

"All that has been said thus far converges upon the point that has been in view from the beginning—the importance of manual training as an element in disciplining the will. Manual training fulfills the conditions I have just alluded to. It is interesting to the young, as history, geography, and arithmetic often are not. Precisely those pupils who take the least interest or show the least aptitude for literary study are often the most proficient in the workshop and the modeling-room. Nature has not left these neglected children without beautiful compensations. If they are deficient in intellectual power, they are all the more capable of being developed on their active side. Thus, manual training fulfills the one essential condition—it is interesting. It also fulfills the second."

"By manual training we cultivate the intellect in close connection with action. Manual training consists of a series of actions which are controlled by the mind, and which react on it. Let the task assigned be, for instance, the making of a wooden box. The first point to be gained is to attract the attention of the pupil to the task. A wooden box is interesting to a child, hence this first point will be gained. Lethargy is overcome, attention is aroused. Next, it is important to keep the attention fixed on the task: thus only can tenacity of purpose be cultivated. Manual training enables us to keep the attention of the child fixed upon the object of study, because the latter is concrete. Furthermore, the variety of occupations which enter into the- making of the box constantly refreshes this interest after it has once been started. The wood must be sawed to line. The boards must be carefully planed and smoothed. The joints must be accurately worked out and fitted. The lid must be attached with hinges. The box must be painted or varnished. Here is a sequence of means leading to an end, a series of operations all pointing to a final object to be gained, to be created. Again, each of these means becomes in turn and for the time being a secondary end; and the pupil thus learns, in an elementary way, the lesson of subordinating minor ends to a major end. And, when finally the task is done, when the box stands before the boy's eyes a complete whole, a serviceable thing, sightly to the eyes, well adapted to its uses, with what a glow of triumph does he contemplate his work! The pleasure of achievement now comes in to crown his labor; and this sense of achievement, in connection with the work done, leaves in his mind a pleasant after-taste, which will stimulate him to similar work in the future. The child that has once acquired, in connection with the making of a box, the habits just described, has begun to master the secret of a strong will, and will be able to apply the same habits in other directions and on other occasions."

The notion of cultivating a strong will  in students might not appeal to educators whose objective is to make students complaisant, and who think that some purpose might be achieved by making school boring and as much a test of the nerves as a test for the intellect. 

You may notice the gentlemanly clothes of the Sloyd teacher in the drawing above. Otto Salomon was very careful to use drawings and photos showing that Educational Sloyd was for all students, not just those from the working class.

Make, fix and create...

Indigenous People's Day

Old Chris Columbus was sitting at a bar with friends after "discovering" the Americas. His pals were teasing him, that anyone who happened to have sailed that far would have simply bumped into this place. No big deal they insisted. 

Chris then challenged his buddies to try to balance a hard boiled egg on its end and after they tried and failed, he tapped the egg on its end, making a slight flat spot and proceeded to balance it on its tip. "Anyone could do that," his  friends roared. "Yes, now that I've shown you how," Chris replied.

And that's the story of the Columbus egg. Otto Salomon, in his development of Educational Sloyd referred to his systematic introduction of tools and techniques following a natural pattern of growth within the child as his Columbus egg. A thing as simple as tapping an egg on its end, but of enormous value.

Whether or not the story of Chris and his hardboiled egg is true, the consequences of his "discovery" of America were enormous. And here we are today. The conquistadors  brought deadly diseases that preceded their conquests on both continents. And the indigenous peoples who had lived thousands of years in some degree of harmony with the land were pushed aside, their cultures nearly destroyed.

What was once celebrated as Columbus day, we now celebrate as Indigenous People's Day in the hopes that we can once again live with greater sensitivity to the earth and the plants and animals that share this lovely clouded blue dot in space circling around our sun.

Make, fix and create...

How the forest changes lives

Daycares in Finland, choosing to emulate forest kindergartens, took matters into their own hands by creating forest environments for their children to navigate and learn from. 

https://www.sciencealert.com/daycares-in-finland-built-their-own-forests-and-it-changed-kids-immune-systems

What researchers found surprising was that engagement in reality actually altered and strengthened the children's immune systems.

So the benefits of engagement in forests are not just intellectual and spiritual, they're physical as well, and every school in the world, even those in cities, should have their own forests.

In my wood shop I'm at work building walnut bases for Arkansas Quality Awards and inlaid boxes for an order.

Make, fix and create...

stumbling along

Today I'm sitting on the front porch with golden doodle daughter Rosie at my feet. She's chewing a long branch into short pieces and I'm attempting to compose my thoughts. 

A friend, Elliot asked me if I'd studied Viktor Frankl and his book, "Man's Search for Meaning." Sometimes you get much of what you need from the name of the book, taken as an invitation to explore your own mind and your own experiences. As I explain in the introduction to my new book, some will get everything they need from the title alone as it invites them to explore the workings of their own hands and minds in the shaping of the world around us.

Yesterday as Rosie and I sat on the porch, a doe walked out of the woods to present herself not 30 feet away. Of course Rosie jumped up and chased the deer into the woods. When she came back her face was covered in burrs to the point that she could barely open her eyes. That forced me to cancel my classes for the day as Rosie was in dire distress. There were tight clusters of burrs distributed over her whole body. Jean and I spent hours grooming her and took her to another groomer for a bath and clip. The experience was stressful for us and for her. So chewing a good stick on the front porch is a good therapy. I cut the offending weeds in the woods and vow to keep them short forever more.

My dad had a favorite poem that I recited at his funeral service and that I found later in a collection of poems for teachers of manual and industrial arts. It goes: 

Isn’t it strange that princes and kings
And clowns that caper in sawdust rings
All share this common destiny:
Each is given a set of rules,
A lump of stone
And bag of tools,
That each may carve as life as flown,
A stumbling block or stepping stone.

Man’s search for meaning is what drives everything, isn’t it? Money, power, and the attention of others. Having the right car or the right home or the right look of the dog. Then there's corresponding impulse to fit in, to be part of the in crowd, not sticking up to the point where someone else feels the urge to hammer you down. Within that matrix is the urge to build a legacy upon which others can build… a greater sense of purpose that gives life meaning beyond the mundane.

There are two aspects of self that can easily be mistaken for each other: A sense of purpose that connects us with the carving of stepping stones to lift others up, and a sense of self-importance that ultimately leaves us humbled and forgotten. What will your path be? You may choose, stumbling along as we all do.

Make, fix and create...

a tangle of hands

In response to sharing the new cover design for my new book, Frank Wilson, author of the Hand sent this image of a young Christ among the doctors by Albrecht Dürer.

It shows much more than a tangle of hands, old and young. It shows the passing of mind from one generation to the next. One pair of hands finds passages in the book. One pair marks a spot in his. One pair holds the book closed as the doctor looks on in wonder. One pair is attempting to instruct. The young Christ is using hands to reflect within. And there at the center, the entanglement of minds.

Make, fix and create...

Sloyd trivets and Paper Sloyd

Yesterday student in my class made sloyd trivets. In the meantime, one of the members of the New England Association of Woodworking Teachers (NEAWT) noted that he'll be out of his classroom for 10 days after becoming exposed to Covid-19 by a close encounter with an infected student. 

Asking the members of NEAWT about projects he could have his students do while he's out, I suggested paper sloyd. You can view and download the book free from this site: https://diyhomeschooler.com/2011/06/06/paper-sloyd-free-e-book/

His students may argue about being required to learn what students had once learned in Kindergarten and first grade, but they would benefit from it none-the-less, gaining skills they'll need for other things.

It is no longer surprising for teachers of design at the university level to learn that many of their students no longer have skills in the use of rulers, scissors and paper folding. Paper Sloyd, intended as a precursor to Educational Sloyd and originally intended for the younger set, can fix that. It also helps develop skills in utilizing instructions and plans. 

Today my students will be making tiny house letter holders. If you are reading this on the blog and not on Facebook, you can use the search function at the upper left to learn more about Paper Sloyd. There are a number of reasons I want to encourage readers to go to the blog rather than facebook. The blog allows me to use more photos and offer richer content. So if you find facebook down or want to avoid it because it's eating away at our lives, go to http://wisdomofhands.blogspot.com

Make, fix and create...

vaccine policy

Things are opening up and as more folks become vaccinated we are beginning to feel safe returning to normal activities. The Eureka Springs School of the Arts is returning to live classes and I'm grateful for that. Vaccinations are required for participation.

Getting vaccinated is a reasonable way of helping each other be safe and the most practical way of assuring that life returns to normal.

This week the Guild of Oregon Woodworkers explained their board's decision to require vaccination of all those using their shop as follows:

"We are aware that not everyone will elect to be vaccinated, however the board approval of this measure demonstrates our commitment to maintaining safety measures protecting our membership. This measure will certainly have a negative effect on a few members, but we believe it will allow a larger number of members to, after 20 months of staying away, finally have enough confidence to take part in and contribute to valuable teaching and mentoring commitments, as well as ability to work on their own projects in the Guild Shop. It is not fair or logical for these constructive folks to be discouraged at risk of their lives from contributing to our Guild, in consequence of our hosting unvaccinated members.

Unvaccinated population is propagating continued spread of the virus, endangering lives by overpowering hospitals and healthcare workers, to the exclusion of life-saving treatment for other medical conditions."

I think that's rather well put. This week, also in their newsletter  https://guildoforegonwoodworkers.org/resources/Documents/newsletters/2021/Sept%202021%20Newsletter.pdf is a review of my "Guide to Woodworking with Kids," written by a friend, Bob Sokolow.

Make, fix and create... 

180 years old and fresh as the day it was born.

https://www.froebelusa.com The kindergarten model of education launched by Froebel in the 19th century should be the model of all schooling from pre-K through university. The ideal is that we learn through play within the realm of real life.

Artificiality and contrivance are the bane of effective learning. They kill it dead. 

Students who want to be teachers should be launched into classrooms their first term at the university so that they are provided a means to test and utilize and be energized and awakened by what they are learning in class. 

Froebel offered an understanding that what was taken into the mind needed to be tested through the outcome of the hands and in real life. Student testing of what is taught is the foundation for the development of critical thinking. That our nation has devolved toward idiocy is the consequence of our failure to develop critical thinking skills. Those are derived from scaffolding developed within the child through the following pathway. Start with the interests of the child. Build from the known toward the unknown, from the easy toward the more difficult, from the simple to the complex, utilizing the concrete to form the foundation for an understanding of abstract principles.

This is not rocket science, but  is built upon observations from the 18th and 19th centuries on how children and adults learn best.

You can participate in a renewal of education by paying attention to the Kindergarten documentary film series, and by attending to the path to learning podcasts created by my friends Scott Bultman, Jay Irwin and John Pottinger. Path to learning can be found here: https://www.froebelusa.com/podcasts/the-path-to-learning-podcast

Make, fix and create...