The Spring 2022 edition of American Craft Magazine, p. 18 has a review of my new book as shown. The text reads as follows: "Educator and craftsman Doug Stowe has long been exploring what it means to be a maker. In a collection of thoughtful, self-reflective essays, Stowe delves into the important lessons that working with our hands can teach us and the deeper meaning that brings to our lives."
Make, fix and create... Assist others in living likewise.
Yesterday I did an interview with Foreword Reviews that will be posted online near the time of the book's release.
Make, fix and create...
Also yesterday, my Rainbow Group (kindergarten) tested our 16 bit building kits. The sixteen bit building kit is one that our small business studies class will be taking by appointment to demonstrate to big business giant Walmart next week.
While many woodworking kits designed by adults lack the opportunity for child creativity to emerge, the sixteen bit kits each contain 16 blocks of wood, a glue stick and sanding strip that allow the kids to design and make whatever they want. In a test with 7 kindergarten aged students, each came up with their own unique project.
The students in the small business class have been designing the packaging for four project kits. One contains parts for making tops. One contains parts for making flip cars. One contains the parts for building a Soma cube puzzle, and the last is the 16 bit kit. The students are also working on their sales pitches that will be offered to a Walmart product specialist. The point is to get pointers on product sales and design.
Make, fix and create...
As Dr. Kahr described, he took his son to the bus after having spent years in which he had kept his son constantly in sight. He watched his son climb onto the bus and noted that upon delivering his own precious son to the state, he didn't even get a receipt. His comments so perfectly mirror what all parents feel, and perhaps might help us to understand the angst that so many parents feel about education. Are loving parents ever fully ready to simply surrender our children to the arms of the state? We must do a lot more to build trust.
In our conversation Dr. Kahr described what came next after he watched his son climb onto the bus. He was living in Seattle at the time, and feeling confused and out of sorts, he walked to the nearest coffee shop and then to the book store where he found a stack of Norm Brosterman's book Inventing Kindergarten for sale. Had he not just put his son onto the bus for his first day of Kindergarten, he would not have found the book, nor would he likely have been interested in the book, nor would he have discovered in it the intense relationship between Kindergarten and crystallography, his own field of scientific study. https://as.nyu.edu/faculty/bart-kahr.html
Froebel had been an assistant to Christian Samuel Weiss and was influenced by his study of crystals in his development of his gifts and perhaps also in his understanding of how children grow from a pattern inherent from within if provided the right circumstances for their growth. For Dr. Kahr, discovery of Froebel's Kindergarten had an important affect on the direction of his work as a crystallographer, even to the point of growing crystals with kindergarten kids, a thing we can do with kids at the Clear Spring School. Dr. Kahr's work includes growing crystals in color, which he also suggests we can do as shown in this video. https://youtu.be/wBs1LqHZgiw The image shown above is from that video.
Make, fix and create...
https://video.optv.org/video/hands-on-education-p5fsiw/
Today in the Clear Spring School wood shop we'll be working on bird houses and bird feeders.
Kindergarten students will be making boxes.
Make, fix and create...
Yesterday I watched myself on the Ozarks Watch video production, and have decided TV does not put me in my best light. I've gotten a bit too old for that kind of spotlight. The old joke, "you look perfect for radio comes to mind."
In any case, however, I did manage to tell my tale and get some word out about our Eureka Springs School of the Arts and about the need for hands on learning. The crew took some nice video of my boxes and of the school and I thank them sincerely for their interest in my career and their kindness during the production of the show.
Pre-orders of the new book are going well with over 1200 copies being ordered so far.
Make, fix and create...
Today, February 6, 2022, Ozark Public Television's program Ozarks Watch features an interview with me recorded at the Eureka Springs School of the Arts. Locally or on local satellite, look for channel 21. The program airs from 1:30 to 2:30 with my segment being the second half.
News around the country is that being an educator is an endangered profession. Teachers are disrespected and undervalued and are leaving the profession in droves. Teachers with a masters degree in education often leave the profession in their first five years. This is in part due to the unreasonable expectations placed upon teachers—too large class sizes, the rigid expectation of teaching exactly by the book, and the use of standardized testing to measure student and teacher performance, while neglecting the fact that each student and each teacher is unique.
Let's go back to one of the basic principles of educational sloyd, that of moving from the concrete to the abstract. If you want to become a teacher at one of the diminishing number of colleges and universities that offer that course of study, you'll spend hours and hours of class time and reading to prepare for your final year in which you'll do student teacher, in school training under the watchful eye of a licensed professional teacher.
If you recognize the value of moving from the concrete to the abstract, you might notice that teacher training is backwards. To enter the teaching profession the educationally sound manner would be to serve in schools as a teaching aide while concurrently being taught the fundamental theories and history of education in college coursework. A program like I'm proposing should be set up in every neighborhood in the US.
There are some significant values in the reversal I propose. The first is that while teachers are working on their degrees they'd be earning salaries as teacher's aides instead of amounting debt. Secondly they would be given a view of what they were getting into long before having invested years in a career that they so quickly abandon. The third value is that with almost all students and teachers in the US suffering from too large classes and too little classroom help, a massive investment in new teachers aides, each working toward full credentials, would completely re-energized schooling. One of the areas of education needing the most help is in integration of the arts to build science thinking. We need to enlist scores of young artists to help as aides for these reasons:
“The discoveries of science, the works of art are explorations — more, are explosions, of a hidden likeness. The discoverer or the artist presents in them two aspects of nature and fuses them into one. This is the act of creation, in which an original thought is born, and it is the same act in original science and original art.” —Jacob Bronowski
Those are just my thoughts on this sunny February day a it warms in Arkansas and snow melts.
Make, fix and create...
Last night at 9 Ozarks Public Television broadcast an interview with me and I forgot it was being aired. It will be rebroadcast on Sunday February 6 at 1:30 PM in case you missed it as I did. Later it will be made available on the network website. I'll share the address when its available to me.
Make, fix and create...
Today we're out of school due to a serious winter storm watch. Hopefully as the temperature is dropping below freezing we'll avoid the worst effects of ice accumulation that breaks trees and power lines.
I'm working on promotion of my new book by writing op-ed pieces to submit to various newspapers and magazines. It is fun to reflect on the various benefits of woodworking education.
In the wood shop at School this week my students helped me by whittling pens and allowing me to take photos of them as they worked. The photo shows a simple jig for drilling the holes where the nibs fit. The kids were able to drill their own pen making stock.
Make, fix and create...
The article tells that we are celebrating our twentieth year of a program designed to bring the hands to greater focus and attention in schools. Over the years we've had a number of articles about the program in various woodworking magazines, and mention in the New York Times and Boston Globe. This is the second article about our Wisdom of the Hands program in "Independent Schools Magazine."
Yesterday in class we whittled writing pens to allow me to take a few photos for a magazine article. The kids enjoyed it and tested their work using real ink.
Make, fix and create.
I learned this morning that my interview on the Ozark Public Television's program "Ozarks Watch" will be broadcast on next Thursday February 3 at 9:00 PM and again on Sunday February 6 at 1:30 PM. If you receive Ozark Public Television on your cable channel or set, put these dates on your calendar and watch. The program will be offered online at a later date and I'll share that link when it becomes available.
Make, fix and create...
My assistant Dustin suggested the use of glue sticks for gluing blocks of wood together and we found that even though glue sticks are often almost worthless on paper, they do work with blocks of wood. They are far less messy than wet glue and far safer than hot glueguns. Adding glue sticks to assembly kits we hope to develop will make them a more complete kits, less reliant on other things being provided from a household supply.
I've been working on an op ed piece I hope will be useful in promoting my new book and that reminded me of when I was quoted in the New York Times regarding school wood shops. The article was "Kindergarten Shop Class" published on March 30, 2011. I was quoted as follows with regard to a renewed interest in woodworking education for kids:
“There is an awakening going on for sure,” said Doug Stowe, a longtime woodworker and educator in Arkansas, who was named a Living Treasure there in 2009 for his efforts at preserving and teaching the craft. Since he started a blog five years ago called Wisdom of the Hands, named after the program he founded in 2001 at Clear Spring School in Eureka Springs, Mr. Stowe said parents, educators and woodworkers from around the country have been contacting him for advice on starting projects and classes in their communities.
“Up until the early 1900s, there was a widespread understanding that the use of the hands was essential to the development of character and intellect,” said Mr. Stowe, 62. “More recently, we’ve had this idea that every child should go to college and that the preparation for careers in manual arts was no longer required.” "Somewhere along the way," he added, “we have forgotten all the other important things that manual training conveys.”
If you are a subscriber to the New York Times you can find the article online.
Make, fix and create...
So today we did a simple experiment with each student being given 8 blocks. The idea was for them to observe their own creativity. Each came up with something different to made from their 8 blocks. When done with one project the students asked for 8 more to build something else. Of course this experiment was derived from Froebel's Kindergarten.
One of our objectives is to develop a set of project kits that the kids can sell in their study of small business. You can buy kits for children to assemble at Lowe's or Home Depot, and aside from giving the kids a chance to use a hammer they are of less value than a set of 8 blocks if your point is to develop both the skill and imagination we want our children to have.
My new book has received a positive review from Foreword Reviews. The review will go in the March/April edition. I'll not share the whole review here except for one line:
The Wisdom of Our Hands encourages people to engage themselves in crafting, applying their hearts and minds to the art of bringing about a better world.They note that Foreword Reviews only reviews books that they love.
This article: https://www.postandcourier.com/news/aboard-the-schooner-harvey-gamage-students-learn-about-african-american-history/article_7378800e-6fc8-11ec-83bb-f7debfe070ec.html describes going to sea with students from the Met School in Providence, RI and students from New Hampshire's Proctor Academy. The article notes despite the diverse backgrounds of the students, on board all are the same:
Put a bunch of people on a big sailboat and watch what happens.
Differences evaporate like fog on a warm morning. On the water, it matters little where you come from, how you grew up, how much money you have or who your people are.
The moment you step onto the boat, you are a sailor, nothing more, nothing less. You have a job to do, and you have to coordinate your work with all the others. You are a member of the crew, and the crew has a narrow focus: to stay safe and sail well.
For these students going for a sail brings lessons for a lifetime. And this kind of lesson is not only important to kids. They will be our important citizens of tomorrow.
Make, fix and create...
"Doug Stowe's beautifully written book, "The Wisdom of our Hands," grounds us in the power of meaningful, useful, beautiful work and how it provides a path to unleash the potential that lies within each of us." https://mailchi.mp/048529ae046c/ifl-january-2022Julie (Wilson) Jungalwala, director of the organization offers praise for my book as follows:
"Somewhere along the way we seem to have forgotten that the brain and the hands are "intricately intertwined". In "Wisdom of Our Hands," Doug Stowe (re)introduces us to the life giving, shaping and affirming power of working with our hands. A beautifully written book, Doug shares his 45-year journey as a woodworker and weaves the research-based evidence of how handcrafts shape us as we shape them. As an educator, Doug has experienced first hand the atomization and abstraction of content - and the negative impact on student motivation and learning as a result. This book reminds us of the power of meaningful, useful, beautiful work and how it provides a path to unleash the potential that lies within each of us."Julie's own book is called "The Human Side of Changing Education." It is "... centered on the premise that when we ask schools to change, we are asking human beings to change and this requires special tools and a human-centered approach. We cannot change the heart of the system without enabling the hearts and minds of those who give their all every day to making schools work."
Friedrich Froebel had been born the son of a Lutheran minister and his mother had died at a very early age. He was a bright child and cherished by his father's second wife until her own children came along. At that point he was left to fend for himself to obtain the emotional support every child needs. At an early he was apprenticed to an uncle, a forester, and it was there in the Thuringen forest that Froebel discovered a love of botany and the seeds were planted for what would become Kindergarten, a garden of children. In witnessing the wonders of nature he likely gained a first glimpse of the interconnectedness of all things.
In college Froebel had planned to become an architect but had an opportunity to work as an assistant to Christian Samuel Weiss, a leading authority on minerals and crystallography. Helping to organize the collection of minerals for Dr. Weiss, Froebel was to witness how things of great beauty grow from patterns inherent within. Should children, given the right circumstances, not grow in the same manner? You see the impact of his work with Dr. Weiss in Froebel's development of his gifts, one through 6 which were designed to lead the child into an exploration of the structure of the universe and through association with other Kindergarten activities, understand their place within it.
Many of us have seen, even before the internet and before facebook, evidence of our interconnectedness. Living in a small town and knowing a few folks, I'll think of someone as I drive through town and then see them coming in the next car. This is not always the case but happens often enough to make me wonder. Under such circumstances, we don't need facebook to remind us that we are a part of one another and that what we do reflects who we are and may be guided by unseen patterns within.
And so, what are we to make of all this? Froebel had suggested three uses for the Froebel gifts. One was to use blocks to create what he called forms of knowledge. Forms of knowledge were used to represent numbers and mathematical constructs important to the growth of the child. Another use was to create forms of beauty. These were to develop the child's design sense through representations of symmetry and rhythm. The third use was to create what Froebel referred to as forms of life, representing the objects to be found in everyday life, thus connecting with the child's natural inclination to serve others by making useful things. So you take these three things, development of intellect, artistic sense, and inclination to serve and you have the formula for growth.
It's ironic that Froebel did not become an architect of buildings, but instead an architect for a system of education that allowed the child to grow from within, as a crystal or flower might grow. In his autobiography Frank Lloyd Wright said about his play with Froebel blocks and their impact, "I can still feel those maple blocks in my hands to this day."
The illustration from wikipedia shows an experiment demonstrating quantum entanglement.
If you are reading this, we are entangled.
Make, fix and create...
Looking at education in general one might become depressed. But to hear our nation's experts in learning express their ideas and ideals, even when they are ignored by educational policy makers, tells me that with some work, investigation of some old ideas and recognition of the value of teachers, we can make things better.
In Finland, they attribute the success of their educational system to two factors. One is that the profession of "teacher," is a highly respected one. The other is that they train their teachers well to observe closely the needs of each child. In fact, the Finnish folks schools were originally established to follow the model of learning established by Froebel's Kindergarten.
You can a find the path to learning podcast available on all the usual podcast services. For example, I listen on an amazon device. I ask, "Alexa, play path to learning podcast." If I enunciate carefully the podcast comes right up.
I am very sorry to have lost a dear friend over the weekend. Steven Foster was the father of two of my students, a long time friend of the Clear Spring School, a vital trustee of our City Parks, and a world renown authority on medicinal herbs and plants. He will be sorely missed, not only here in Eureka Springs, but in the world at large and I offer my condolences to his family.
Steven was the one who first introduced me to Bill Coperthwaite, a friend in Maine whom I've written about before in my blog. https://wisdomofhands.blogspot.com/search?q=coperthwaite The photo shows Steven's son Colin with Bill Coperthwaite building a yurt with students from the Clear Spring School.
Make, fix and create...
At one point I looked around the room at my students and each was holding their box as though it was a small child to whom they'd just given birth. That's directly a part of the nature of such things.
In selecting woods for lids, the students would take a board and work out with each other which portion would become the lid of their box. If anyone out there needs to find a location for a corporate retreat with built in team building exercise, ESSA might be the place for it, and box making might be an exercise around which various folks might gather.
Friedrich Froebel is remembered most for his invention of instructional materials related to his invention of Kindergarten. He was also intent on the creation of a sense of commonality within children through which they sensed their relationship to others and their place and potentials within community life and beyond.
These days a lot of politicians and policy makers are focusing their attention on devising a sense of common history, by prohibiting teaching about the uglier parts of American history. Slavery for example. That's a strategy that offers no potential for the development of empathy and leaves us divided against one another. But when we seek commonality through the shared process of creating useful beauty, walls come down. We take turns, not only at the saw, but also in listening to each other and building space for each other in each other's lives.
And I again assert that the creation of useful beauty should be a requirement for children in school as it can be instrumental in developing a sense of shared community.
Make, fix and create...
I supplied ash for the box sides, walnut corner keys and a variety of woods that students could select from for making the lids.
It's my belief that no one in the US should be allowed to graduate from high school without having had the opportunity to make something beautiful and useful from wood. A box, lovingly crafted, would hold memories for a lifetime. I thank the staff of the Eureka Springs School of the Arts for joining me in a day of box making. I can train others to share the same experience.
My week of teaching at the Clear Spring School was disrupted by a serious spike in covid cases in Arkansas and the local community. Other schools are also closed. At ESSA we kept each other safe by being fully vaccinated, tested the day before class and masked with KN95s. Please stay safe and keep others safe. We want all to survive this and keep our health care workers safe Please!
Make, fix and create...
Valley is also the home of Valmont Industries, originally Valley Manufacturing, one of the early manufacturers of the circular irrigation systems that are in use throughout the world.
Valmont, with an expanded product line remains a major employer. And so it was with many small towns in America. Small towns would grow from unique ideas that had a significant effect on the world at large. Educational policy makers attempt to standardize education and make all students look at things the same way, and teach all students exactly the same things, and we suffer culturally and economically as a result. We are led to ignore the value of things that grow large from small things. Instead of standardizing education, we'd do better for ourselves and our kids by diversifying. The arts are one of the best ways to do that.
At the Clear Spring School this week with our group studying small business, I mentioned possible sale of woodworking kits, and I provided kits I'd prepared for building Soma Cube Puzzles from wooden blocks for our students to assemble. The students sanded and glued the blocks into the arrangement shown. The Soma puzzle consists of seven pieces, each consisting of 3 or 4 blocks representing the only 7 ways sets of 3 or 4 blocks can be arranged other than being in a straight line.
Concurrently, the core teacher got a 3 D printer for Christmas and is interested in learning its use. I am concerned that 3D printing of things not designed by the students can be a waste of time and talent, and of less educational value so we'll be using Tinkered software for the students to design objects that can be printed, and that reflect their experimenting with objects made of wooden blocks.
The experiment involves some interesting connections with educational sloyd. First start with the interests of the child. The kids love Minecraft, a game that involves pixelate creatures and landscape that appear as through they're made of blocks. In order to go from the easy to the more difficult, and from the concrete to the abstract are two principles from Educational Sloyd. It's easy to build with blocks and thus experiment with pixelated designs. (And it's very easy for me to make lots of uniform wooden blocks).
It can be difficult to learn and used 3D design software, so we'll use Tinkercad on iPads for the students to make designs reflecting their arrangements of blocks. Wooden blocks are concrete in that they have texture, and weight. Tinkercad is abstract. The finished, 3D printed objects will become concrete representations of student thought. And the play with blocks brings Friedrich Froebel back into the 21st century classroom.
Make, fix and create.
Valley Nebraska where my dad's store was located was typical of the situation all across the US as small towns were gradually being gobbled up by the expansion of larger cities. Shopping in Omaha offered a much wider variety of goods than what my father could offer in his store. He did take a lower than normal markup on many things and gave credit to many folks who could not have been afforded credit at the time.
Working in my dad's store put me in touch with people from all walks of life. Louis Siebenaler for example, operated an auto salvage at King Lake, Nebraska, an unincorporated town nearby. He and his son-in-law Coy would come in covered with grease from head to toe. Louis was a large man and Coy small, and it was always apparent in how Louis smiled that they had serious affection for each other.
Ted Reser was the town blacksmith at a time when most folks would rather buy new than fix old. He was rather deaf from the sound of his hammer striking the anvil, smelled of soot and sweat and was very proud of his physique. He told me more than once that the ladies in the bar next door expressed their admiration for his shoulders and strong arms.
There were of course, others that came in throughout the day. farmers in overalls, women hunting through the selection of greeting cards and the like. My dad had a genuine warmth for all. And so, why in the world would any of this be important now? Perhaps because we've let things grow completely out of hand, and no longer matter as much to each other as we once did.
Because of my banking in the local bank and being known there, when a Chevy dealer in Indiana called the Bank of Valley to assure themselves that the hippy with a broken down Chevy van could actually pay for their service to my truck, the dealer was shocked at the glowing credit report offered by the bank on my behalf. "Yes, Mr. Stowe," they said. "We'll get right to work."And so when we live on a smaller scale and make a few friends along the way, and stay put long enough to be known and are kind enough to be respected, there's a very simple formula in that, and it's one that can be repeated even without living in a small town.
Make, fix and create...
In 1963 my father and mother bought a small store in Valley Nebraska. My father, having worked for various corporations and as manager of a large hardware and sporting goods store in Omaha wanted a business of his own and a small inheritance from my great aunt Allene, gave my parents some funds to invest.
Valley was sandwiched between the Union Pacific Railroad on one side and the Platte River on the other and business was gradually being shifted from the town to the larger city to the east. One poet had called Omaha the "Paris of the Pigbelt," and shopping malls being developed on the west side of the city were gradually taking business away from outlying small shops like the one my mom and dad bought in 1963.
The effects of the railroad passing through town, and Valley being a switching yard for trains going east, west and north north, meant that autos passing in and out of town often had to stop and wait for trains, not just passing by, but going slowly back and forth as freight cars were unhooked and rearranged.
My time working in my dad's store had a profound effect on my attitudes about life and about people, and it had some effect on my choosing to live in a small town dedicated to the arts.
Shall, I tell more while we wait for a passing train? Or is it OK that we as a society are consumed and swallowed up in the pigbelt? I have this idea (shared with many others, that small is wonderful as well as beautiful and that our souls call out for less, not more).
In the wood shop I've been finishing boxes that were started as demonstration boxes for teaching. Get them finished well and get them out of here! It's part of my plan to simplify.
Make, fix and create...
Compared to the mac mansions folks build around here now, those smaller homes seem most reasonable and conservative. If people lived in such small homes and at one time raised large families within them we have to wonder where they had put all their stuff. We must also wonder how we've become such willing participants in planetary destruction.
We live in immodest times and if we want to save the planet and ourselves, we must reconsider our reliance on cheap, imported, meaningless stuff and return to a simpler relationship to our planet and to each other. We can try our hands at making a few things.
According to the news folks are leaving the labor market in droves in a movement they call "the Great Resignation." Has work has become increasingly abstract unsatisfying and detached? Can it be because the need for a simpler life has become apparent?
A friend, Mike, sent me the photo of a toy in a museum in Santa Fe. It's a box so naturally interesting to me. It had been part of a model excursion train that traveled from the Niagara Falls to the White Mountains. A banner on the side notes that "no one allowed in this car who uses wicked or vulgar words." Did they have a special car to carry the uncouth?
Make, fix and create...
An article in the New York Times describes those who live their lives surrounded by real books as being "Book-wrapt." https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/24/realestate/why-do-people-keep-books.html Books that have brought changes in our lives can feel like friends and are held close. I had a book that I kept at bedside for years until I recently decided to loan it to a friend. It was about the Battle of the Hurtgen Forest during WWII. I kept it at bedside because my father was there, had described to me how beautiful the forest was, and neglected to tell me of its horrors. His 104th Infantry Division, the fighting Timberwolves, had played an important role there in the attempt to end the Nazi regime.
There are things that happen in wars that reasonable parents choose to shelter from their kids. Keeping that book at bedside reminded me of that aspect of parental love and helped me to hold his memory close.
I have friends who could be called "book-wrapt," and someone looking in my office at my collection of old books could call me by the same term. The books have been important resources for me and may continue to serve. I could also be described as "wood-wrapt," due to my collection of woods intended for use, and as "tool-wrapt," because I have a large collection of tools available to my work. I hope to simplify over the coming years.
Folks these days are "screen wrapt" as we sit around with each other and watch our social media feeds from elsewhere coming in on tiny screens and as we ignore the people in the immediate world around us. As a new year's resolution let us be more wrapt in each other without tiny screens standing between.
We got home yesterday from a road trip from Arkansas to Worcester, MA and home again. The highways were flooded with trucks on our way to Worcester but with reduced holiday and weekend traffic on the way home. If there's a supply chain problem, one would never know it from the big Amazon warehouses along the way or from the Amazon Prime trucks hauling things to us.
The photo shows our dog Rosie, bored by the journey and keeping her nose where she can keep sense of us along the way.
Make, fix and create...
There are times when we take turns at the lead, letting our own voices rise and fall in pitch and in volume, and there are times when we hold back, taking a breath.
I want to introduce you to a branch of the choir, led by soloist Joe Youcha, who in the spirit of a great choir does not sing alone. The organization he founded, Teaching with Small Boats Alliance, is a good one. I made a small donation today because I believe they, by building small wooden boats with kids, offer many students a chance to actually learn hands on.
When you build a boat, it either floats and floats well, or you must be prepared to swim, and so in building a boat, students do a learning task that really matters to them, unlike most of the time they spend being taught abstract stuff. When they ride the waters in something they've crafted themselves, no standardized test is needed to assure them of their accomplishments. The link for making a charitable donation to Teaching with Small Boats Alliance is here:
https://www.teachingwithsmallboats.org/index.php/donate
”A good/kind word : a seed. – In a hundred years – birds shall build their nests – in whistling wide branches. – God’s oaks – grow slowly on earth…”
May these gentle words serve as my season's greetings to you. In a world where whole forests in the Southeastern US are destroyed and marketed as green energy to feed power plants in Europe, and too many of us are consumed and corrupted by the short term, may we think in longer terms (lengre sikt). May we plant seeds that grow into finer things that nourish our families in more meaningful ways. May we think of the days a hundred years hence in which birds nest in our branches.
The image is also from my friend Knud. It is of the same quote in Norwegian, done in calligraphy by one of his friends. It hangs on his wall in Stavanger.
Make, fix and create...
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https://www.booklistonline.com
They say in part, "This book will appeal to readers who wish to learn more about woodworking and crafting, but from a broader perspective, anyone looking for a way to reconnect with the Earth would do well to read Stowe's wisdom."
The full review will go live on their website on January 13, 2022. Foreword Reviews will review the Wisdom of Our Hands in their March/April print magazine. Forewordreviews.com
The brass plaque was intended to be a branding device, setting my own work apart from others on the market and it was engraved by Jim MaGee, whose shop in downtown Eureka Springs has a number of display cases I made.
Make, fix and create...
How you feel about that subject might hinge on what you see the purpose of eduction being. Is it to provide a career, or to provide a sense of your own humanity?
My daughter went to Columbia University mentioned in the article and as a freshman and sophomore was required to take the Core Curriculum as were other liberal arts majors. The idea is that all would be required to read and discuss a number of books considered important to our civilization. The Core Curriculum is considered to be a sacred part of the Columbia experience and was to bring students to a common understanding of human culture.
Otto Salomon, one of the founders of Educational Sloyd discussed two primary purposes of education. One he described as economic, that of preparing students to earn livings upon graduation. The other Salomon described as "formative" in that it did exactly what Columbia University proposes as the outcome of the Core Curriculum... bring the students to a common understanding of their own humanity and place within human culture.
But there is a difference between Educational Sloyd and the Core Curriculum in that Sloyd proposed the education of the hands, a thing not to be found in books alone.
While my daughter was at Columbia University, I tried to contact university president Lee Bolinger proposing to alter the core curriculum to bring students to learn about human culture by doing real work in the real world of craftsmanship. Of course I was unsuccessful. Who would listen to a woodworker from Arkansas. But craftsmanship is the real core of civilization and culture, and Socrates sucks in comparison to what students can learn from the real world.
Right across the street from the university is the unfinished cathedral, St. John the Divine, and the opportunity it presents is obvious. What could be better for college freshmen than to get real world experience chiseling stone?
To do so would fit the basic principles of educational Sloyd, most particularly that of moving from the concrete to the abstract.
Make, fix and create...
For instance, a boy's first bow would be made for him by a loving grandfather who would then coach him in the making of his next bow. The grandmother's hands were busily engaged in making beaded moccasins and clothing for their grandchildren in whom they took great pride and while the children watched.
Children would learn all important things through the tutelage and demonstrations provided by the grandparent's generation.
Compare that to today as grandparents are often thrust aside and cultural indoctrination and support is provided through peer grouping and through connective digital devices. Add to this mix the fact that in schools, children are grouped by age for the sake of control while being offering ineffective transference of knowledge. We are building a culture that lacks depth, in part because we've abandoned the traditional relationship between generations. What's new is now the driving force, and things related to the past, even yesterday's past, are quickly discarded.
We live in a time in which even simple tools are put aside in preference for high tech devices. It's a plague in which natural curiosity has been commandeered and placed in the hands of super-predator high-tech corporations and the traditional role of the grandparent's generation has been usurped.
Reclaim our direct human role in furthering skill, intellect and human culture. Anaxagoras, early Greek philosopher explained that man is the wisest of all animals because he has hands. That's true even to this day. Use hands to teach.
Make, fix and create...
The purpose of my book Making Classic Toys that Teach is to offer instruction to parents and teachers in the making of Froebel's Gifts. Froebel's gifts were designed to lead the child into creative engagement, integrated with an ever expanding understanding of self within the matrix of life.
The book covers both hand-tool and power tool approaches and also covers the three ways in which the gifts were used— To create forms of beauty, to create forms of knowledge, and to create forms representing the objects of daily life.
Some readers may remember that Froebel's Kindergarten played an important role in the development of Educational Sloyd.
This is the right season to expand parental duties and enjoyment into the making of gifts that give expanding wonders to the lives of our kids. Making Classic Toys that Teach also offers skill building exercises to folks wanting to expand their own skills as woodworkers. And how much better is it to make things to give kids, than to buy into the plastic supply chain that feeds directly from the sweat shops of China to the landfills of America.
Make, fix and create. Assist others in learning lifewise.
Yesterday I received a blurb for the promotion of my new book from one of my heroes, David Henry Feldan. His award winning essay, The Child as Craftsman, published many years ago should be read by every educational policy maker in the US.
About my new book, David Henry said the following:
“Out of the hills of northwestern Arkansas comes a woodworker/philosopher with a message that, if heeded, could help heal our fractured country. In humble yet powerful words, Doug Stowe shows us the virtues of good honest work, patience, and humility and their role in creating a life worth living. A landmark work.” — David Henry Feldman, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus of Human Development, Tufts University
I want to thank my students, ESSA, and my editor Barry Dima, for giving me a great 5 days of box making and 5 yet to be finished boxes as tribute to the time we spent together.
Make, fix and create...
Yesterday I finished a two day photo shoot with Barry Dima from Fine Woodworking. We made three boxes under the watchful eye of a Canon camera with huge lens, and flash. The boxes we made and photographed in process will serve as examples for my students as we begin class.
A friend of mine, Ron Hansen, PhD, professor emeritus from Western Ontario University and the founder of the Human Ingenuity Research Group offered the following comment on my new, yet-to-be released book:
Congratulations Doug and Linden. This book is so crucial to our understanding of human development and how the school apparatus that shapes our young fails to address both the need and the learning it requires. Bravo! Let the contrasts between contemplation and practical action evolve.
When we began the Wisdom of the Hands program at the Clear Spring School, it appeared obvious that the fix for American education would be. Engage the hands so that natural learning can commence. Being somewhat simple minded, I thought we would awaken folks to what's clearly in from of all our faces and change would come forthwith. But educators since Comenius have been laying out the same case. Learning needs to begin with the exploration of the senses to build a framework for deeper understanding.
I've come to realize that change does not come easy and it's up to you as well to help build the case.
The photo shows three boxes made during the photo shoot.
Make, fix and create...
We had been scheduled to do this article earlier, but the Covid 19 pandemic brought delays. I was too busy yesterday posing for shots, and forgot to take any myself. I'll try to remember to take photos today. The photo shown is one from an earlier visit from Barry Dima in 2018 in which I demonstrated making a mitered box joint.
Make, fix and create...
In the meantime, my own teaching at the Clear Spring School is over for the holiday season. I'm working on an article for Fine Woodworking with an editor visiting from magazine headquarters in Connecticut and I have a 3-day box making class beginning at ESSA on Friday.
Make, Fix and Create...
https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9wYXRodG9sZWFybmluZy5saWJzeW4uY29tL3Jzcw/episode/NmQ4MjI3YzgtZWQxYS00ZDBiLTkyNTktMzFhZDdlMmQzMWYx
The senses are key. They lure you into learning. If you've wondered about the difference between the concrete and abstract in the principles of Educational Sloyd, the difference is simple. The concrete contains a full range of senses, proving to hand and mind the reality of the educational experience.
I'm reminded of a friend in her eighties who had asked to see my work many years ago. And then when presented with it she asked permission to touch it, claiming that what the eye is drawn to, the hands must explore and confirm. And so that's why the wisdom of our hands is so essential. What we see or hear consists of surface senses, but the hands not only sense the surface of things, they determine shape and weight, and provide the means to manipulate and test. Then when they've done their creative work, others can readily see and measure the results... no standardized tests required.
For the sake of efficiency, policy makers during the start of the industrial age, decided that children could be handled in the same manner as the assembly line managed parts. Students were to be arranged and sorted, by age and intellect without regard for the variations of human development and without regard for individual interests, and the expectation was not that we engage student interests and allow for the variations within the human species, but to force conformity to artificial standards.
And so they've made a great mess of things. It's not that their intentions are bad, but that failing to take the hands into consideration, they've made education overly abstract.
And so the path forward can be recognized in this quote from Anaxagoras, one of the earliest Greek philosophers who said, "Man is the wisest of all animals because he has hands." But then how do we become wise if our hands are purposefully stilled and sequestered from the development of mind?
Make, fix and create...
If we look at how we learn, we'll notice a few things that can be applied also to how other people learn and how education can be designed for greater efficacy. Adults and babies learn the same way. We listen, we watch what goes on around us. When we are able, we test what we see to ascertain the reality of that which surrounds us. Our hands are instrumental in this. Babies tend to learn a bit faster than the rest of us. By the time they're ready for school, they know a lot. And what they have learned provides a framework of experience against which to measure what they are being taught. And all the kids arriving at school at the same time will not know the same things, nor should they.
That is what we are attempting to address through progressive education. There's a long legacy of progress in progressive education. I can describe its progress through a series of pioneers. You had Comenius, Pestalozzi, Froebel, Diesterweg, Dewey and the Clear Spring School, just to name a few in a healthy lineage. But progressive doesn't refer to progress, meaning the newest, "best" thing, but to the progressive and natural growth of the child.
Froebel, having been a mineralogist before becoming a teacher, had noticed how a crystal would grow from a design held within. So it is with a child. The job of a teacher in progressive education is not to force knowledge in, but to call what is inside into play and encourage growth, falling back to the original meaning of the word "education," "to draw forth."
One of the challenges that teachers perpetually face is the question, "what is your curriculum?" The word curriculum refers to a set of plans that are used to convey a sense of legitimacy to the teaching effort. But while it's important to have a plan, the most important part of the plan requires a willingness to abandon the plan when real needs are made clear to the teacher through listening to, observing and learning from actual students.
This is where the principles of Educational Sloyd fit in. They provide a framework for directing and assessing student growth, as well as a means to plan the educational experience. Want to know what comes next? Your observation of the child will be more meaningful than the lesson book.
For babies and adults alike, we start with the interests of the child and proceed from that point.
Make, fix and create...
I created this simple graphic as a reminder of the principles of Educational Sloyd. The sequence of learning described in it can be compared to Bruner's idea of scaffolding, but was first laid out by Diesterweg, a colleague of Friedrich Froebel. So while these principles are associated with the manual arts and Educational Sloyd, they actually fit education at large and describe the way we (even adults) learn.
Woodworking in school is a collaborative exercise and fun for all. It's socialistic in that it fits the formula, "from each according to ability, to each according to need." My own need is to be creatively stimulated and working out a means through which the trees could be safely turned on the lathe was my reward, in addition to seeing the kids so excited in their work.
We all need the opportunity to be creatively engaged making gifts to share with others. The Christmas tree will likely be kept by our student's families for years to come.
In addition to decorating their trees, the students decided to draw presents under each as you can see.
Make, fix and create...
Make, fix and create...
