special delivery...

This morning, I delivered the donations box to the local Carnegie Public Library to replace one that I had made years ago. The original was stolen during the early part of the summer, and my replacement box is a welcomed gift. I felt like an old retired guy, making a delivery of a thing carefully made for a beloved institution.

Over the years, the old box had served as an object of fascination for every small child that had stood waiting with their mothers at the check-out desk. They would try their best to break the code that would allow them to open it and see inside. So we were heartbroken that someone would steal something so special to our library. In the meantime, since the library refuses to charge fines for overdue books, the donations box always gets a lot of use during the day, as "guilty" patrons make voluntary amends.

Speaking of amends, I have a new plan in which AEP/SWEPCO can seek forgiveness for their attempt to destroy the beauty of the Ozarks by their proposed 345 kV power line through our area. The idea is simple. They purchased a 40 acre site near the Kings River to build the substation to serve as one end of the power line. They paid the absurd price of $600,000 for it. I am offering to help them get out of the pickle they've gotten themselves in, by proposing that they use that 40 acres to build a solar farm. It would help with their concerns about growth and reliability, make certain that the damned power line is never built, and give them the opportunity to become environmental stewards in our community.

Yes, I know unicorns can't fly, and pixies are not to be found behind every flower. But forgiveness only comes when sincere action follows awakening. So far they've done nearly everything they can to lose the trust of our community. Some effort to amend would be a good idea. I'm offering to help.

Make, fix and create...

odds and ends, stems and branches...

The Danish oil finish deepens the color of the wood.

I feel compelled to write a thing or two in the blog each day just to keep in practice. Writing is just like anything else. You get better by practice, but if you don't have anything particular to say, you'd best remain silent.

Silence, in fact, is like a nice straight board of curly maple that with right tools and some skill and vision can be made into damn near anything. But once you begin hacking away at it, the possibilities that lie within it are diminished. You can thus learn valuable lessons from doing real things.

With that said, and recognizing that I'm only hacking away at the keyboard, I will tell that my post office box door treasure boxes are complete. I sent off the Governor's Quality Awards yesterday, and spent part of the day beginning to move tools and equipment to my new smaller wood shop at the center of the Clear Spring School campus. I am looking forward to being more in the thick of things, and making woodworking even more central to the learning experience.

I still have a bit of finish work to do on the boxes I brought home from Marc Adams School of Woodworking, and learned last night that in the coming year, I'll be given three opportunities to teach there... two week long classes and one weekend class. Because my classes tend to fill quickly, I hope my readers will be watchful and sign up at the earliest opportunity.

That academicians and policy makers lost their way, failing to understand the interrelationship between the hands-on activities, making useful and beautiful things, and the development of character and intellect is the source of greatest stupidity in modern education. Since it is damned near impossible for educational policy makers to see beyond their own biases into areas of craftsmanship to which they have never been exposed, and thus would never understand, we must rise up and take matters and materials into our own hands.

Make, fix and create...

putting real tools in kids' hands...

Perhaps a few at least are starting to wake up from digitally induced slumber. iPads have been noted as a means making children numb to reality. In fact, iPads are being recommended as a means to desensitize children to harsh realities, and I had long ago noted that boys with gameboys could be distracted and kept happily occupied until the batteries needed replacement. Perhaps hammers will have the opposite effect, that of occupying without desensitizing.

Putting Power Tools in the Hands of 5-Year-Olds is a story told recently on Morning Edition, NPR. Thanks to Don for alerting me to it.

In my own wood shop, I have assembled boxes with post office combination lock doors, and am in the process of making a small tray for one of the boxes I made as a demonstration box at Marc Adams School of Woodworking.

I have been working to finish the boxes I made at Marc Adams to serve as an example to my students. Also, today I am ready to assemble the award bases for the Arkansas Governor's Award for Quality.

Some post office box doors can be screwed in place after the box is assembled, but many of the earlier ones like the one shown first with blue painters tape, must be installed with the box built around it. You can determine the combination by watching the turning of the dial from behind, but once the box is closed, the combination can be lost forever. The combination should be carefully recorded.

The tray is designed with a lift at the center, so that it can be lifted from the box. Click on the image for a closer view.

Today I begin moving my Clear Spring School wood shop to a classroom at the center of the school campus.

In the title above I mention "real tools." So what are real tools? Some tools have virtual effect and no less real impact. For instance, I can share something in the blog and someone on the other side of the world may choose to make use of it (or not). A "real" tool, I consider to be one that has immediate and irreversible effect on present reality. For instance, strike a nail with a hammer, or make a cut with a saw. There is no undo button in the use of real tools, and we are taught by their use to take full responsibility for our actions, and their demand of us in their use is to be fully awake, attentive and responsible.

Make, fix and create...

Doug

projects for kids...

Richard Bazeley, my shop teacher buddy from down under, sent a link to Paul Meisel's woodworking projects for kids on the Wood Magazine website. There are some very good ideas there, that my readers may find useful. Using Local Resources to Teach Wood Carving to Kids. Readers can find a short article about Paul Meisel here.

The greatest and most important local resource would be you, since it is unlikely that most school administrators will come to an understanding of hands-on learning any time soon. Those who make beautiful and useful things bear the responsibility to pass human intellect and character in the form of craftsmanship to future generations.

This week I begin meetings with staff at Clear Spring School, so that we all start off on the same page. In my own shop, I finished installing the inlay for post office banks, and cut the miters and then routed for hidden spline joints as shown in the photo above.

The work piece in the photo is placed inside out on the jig so that I can assess the location of the cut and set the stop blocks to control the length of the groove for the hidden spline to fit. The shop made jig simply holds the stock at the correct angle as it slides back and forth between stops. This again is a simple technique of my own discovery that came from puttering about in my wood shop and attempting to teach others how to do quality work.


Make, fix and create...

puttering about...

Hinge mortises routed in the lid and body of a box.

I have been working in the shop, finishing boxes that I started at Marc Adams School of Woodworking, and starting a couple more.

This coming week, in addition to beginning to move tools and benches from my old school woodworking shop into a classroom on the Clear Spring School campus, I will finish the bases for the Arkansas Governor's Quality Awards.

The wonderful thing about having a wood shop is the opportunity to putter about at doing small things. There's nothing grand when it comes to box making, as a box (unless you're making lots of them) can be made in a day or less time.  My students at Marc Adams demonstrated the truth of that by making a variety of boxes over the course of the  5 day class. The great thing about boxes is that once beautifully made, and if cared for, they can last near forever. So the fun you've had puttering about at box making is a heap different from the time folks spend piddling on their iPads. The photos of puttering are as follows:

Cut the channel, fit the strip and glue.

Above, fitting of hinges can be done on the router table using my story stick technique, even when the lid is slightly over-sized from the dimensions of the body of the box.

I am making a couple inlaid post office box banks, using old post office combination lock doors. One will be for our local Carnegie Public Library to serve as a donations box, and to replace one that I made that had been stolen earlier in the year.

I used strips of inlay that I made years ago, and routed channels for them to fit. It helps to work in pairs at least, so that in gluing, two can be aligned face to face and pressure evenly applied. The challenge in these boxes will be to cut carefully so as to have the inlay travel continuously around the box.

Make, fix, and create...

Sides for boxes, with inlay clamped face to face

uneven

My box making readers will know my use of a flipping story stick technique for installing butt hinges. I've written about the use of this technique in most of my books, and in articles in various magazines including Fine Woodworking.

Without claiming too much, I  introduced and developed this technique for the woodworking community. So, while it is a simple thing, this technique has made box making easier for many woodworkers.

But what happens when the lid is deeper and longer than the base? Can the flipping story stick technique still be used, or must one go back to hand chiseling? Actually, the solution is much simpler than that. I use small blocks of wood to build out the length of one to match the other as shown in the photos above and below.

In the photo above, the box is upside down so that I can check that the blocks used to lengthen the body of the box to match the lid fall flush to a reference surface. In the box below I simply go by feel to see that the lid aligns with the spacer blocks on both sides and along the back.

With these spacer blocks in place, I make the story stick and use it to set up the router table to rout the recesses for butt hinges to fit.

On another subject, not completely unrelated, researchers have noted the effectiveness of iPads as sedatives for kids.

Make, fix and create...

being home...

Like my students I have arrived home with projects to be finished.  Several of my box making students were concerned as to how the base for this box would turn out. I hope it's satisfactory. When experimenting with design, it's a form of play rather than a form of certainty. We learn what works by doing. In this case, making small "L" shaped pieces of wood, mitered at the corners and simply glued to the base makes technical sense. All the grain direction in this case is parallel, so the attachment of the feet requires nothing more than a bead of glue. But are they the right shape? That's an experiment for you to decide the outcome.

This box is not complete, as I still need to add a lift tab to the lid and apply Danish oil.

I have been measuring the foot print of various tools, cabinets and workbenches in the Clear Spring School wood shop and have been laying out a design for how things will fit in my temporary wood shop.

Make, fix and create...

developments...

We are moving the Clear Spring Wood shop into a smaller space on the main Clear Spring School campus which will put the program exactly at the center of school activities. For the past few years, the wood shop has been in our old high school building and that required students to be transported to and from wood shop by van. Being at the exact center of school life will help woodworking to be more integral to all learning, ease transportation problems and help in the exchange of ideas for curriculum correlation at all grade levels.

The move of the wood shop to a smaller space will be only temporary, as we are planning the construction of a new hands-on learning center. The HOC is a new concept and will offer a new model for schooling in which each student's learning will be active rather than passive, and expressed by doing real things and performance measured by real outcomes rather than by artificial constructs like testing.

We know that what we learn hands-on is learned more thoroughly and to greatest lasting effect. All learning that is of any importance should be hands-on. All other forms of learning are wasteful of the child's time and natural curiosity.

So, what is a "hands-on learning center?" It is a building filled with activity centers including a wood shop, book arts center, chemistry laboratory, performance space, centers for the arts, and more. We will be starting a capital campaign to raise money for it, and my readers will be invited to participate in its creation.

The photo above is from last week's class at Marc Adams School of Woodworking. In it, I am demonstrating the routing of hinge mortises using my flipping story stick technique. When doing intricate operations like this, I move to the workbench so that it can be viewed closeup on a video camera and viewed by my students closeup through a  television screen.

Make, fix and create...

one, two three...

First cuts are made sliding work pieces between stops.

With the right tools, box making can be easy as one, two three, as shown in the photos below. This joint is cut on the table saw. It requires a sled and a stop on each side. Raise the height of the blade so that it cuts to a depth equal to the thickness of the box sides plus any extra you want the laps to extend beyond the sides for clean up or visual effect. Then slide the work piece back and forth between the stops to gradually remove the material between the two fingers or laps.

Use sled to craft adjoining parts.

Then use the sled on the table saw to form the additional finger or lap, on the adjoining parts. This requires that you adust the stops carefully on both sides and then turn the stock on edge to make the final cuts. With care, you can get a tight fit. Easy as one, two, three.

These photos were taken by Mario during my box making class at Marc Adams School of Woodworking.

A carefully cut box.

What may not be quite so easy is to remove two powerful rare earth magnets when they become aligned on  each side of your finger or hand. They can attract each other with sufficient force to do damage to skin and bone. KJ Magnetics has devised a tool for removal of magnets from endangered fingers and hands, and a video that shows how. It is explained here.


Fit, fix, make, be careful and create...

back at home...

I am back from teaching at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking, and it was literally amazing that during my full week in class in both box making and building small cabinets, there were very few smart phones in sight. My students had them turned off or on mute, and the fascination with using them every ten minutes to snap photos seems to be diminishing. Perhaps the novelty of the devices is beginning to wear off (among woodworkers at least.)

That may not be good for Apple and the other manufacturers of smart phones and similar devices, but it is a good sign for us. Technology has a way of interfering in our direct perception of things. And it too often stands between people who might be engaged in deeper relationship without the layer of technological distraction.

A report on NPR suggests that parents' addiction to their devices has become detrimental to their relationships with their kids. It is not just that young, dumb parents are leaving their iPhones in their children's hands to entertain them and isolate them from non-digital learning experiences, but that they are so addicted to being distracted themselves that they pay more attention to what they see on youtube than to the living, breathing child that they've been given the responsibility to care for. For the Children's Sake, Put Down that Smartphone!

Just like my students, I have come home with boxes to complete. I am determined that I not let them linger unfinished. I have also purchased some post office box doors so that I can make a donations box for our local library to replace one I had made years ago and that was stolen earlier in the year.

Make fix and create...

cabinets, day 2

I just finished an amazing two day class on cabinet making at Marc Adams School of Woodworking. My seventeen students made seventeen cabinets. Some had a few minor mistakes, but we had a wonderful learning experience and each took home a cabinet to be proud of.

I was nervous at the start, since this is not a project I'd done with students before and I really wasn't certain we would have this level of success.

I will arrive home tomorrow to begin planning for my next school year at the Clear Spring School.

Make, fix and create...

cabinets

Today at Marc Adams School of Woodworking I began my weekend class in making small cabinets. We are making small cabinets from cherry in a design that was featured in my book, Building Small Cabinets.

I was nervous at the beginning of class that the various steps would led to problems. So far the set ups are working well, and students have made great progress. We used a mortiser to drill the dowel holes in the sides, and I demonstrated how to use a story stick technique for setting up the drill press to drill the dowels holes in the top and bottom.

We've completed the carcass, and the joinery for the bridle joint doors. As you can see in the photo below, the cabinets are going together nicely.

Make, fix and create...
 

doubling up on math?

A study of schools in which students were given twice the number of math classes found that the gains were only short term and by the time students reached high school, the gains were negligible. An article in Education Week, Curriculum Matters on this notes:

"Doubling up on math classes for a year may help middle school students in the short term, but the benefits of doing so depreciate over time—and are likely not worth the price of missing out on instruction in other subjects, according to a new study published by Stanford University's Center for Education Policy Analysis."

The article does not suggest a reason for the diminishing returns, but those of us who work with our hands know that we use it or lose it. Both research and experience have shown that what we learn hands-on and by doing real things is learned to greatest lasting effect. Schools would do better by giving students shop classes in which they used math, rather than by restraining children in seats for a double dose of ineffective learning. Academically trained educators without practical experience see no other way to teach than by the boring methods through which they themselves had been trained. Perhaps they are not to blame for the state of American stupidity. How can they see the comparative ineffectiveness of their own methods if they've never been required to do real things? The separation of purely academic training from "vocational training" has gone on for so long that the original purpose of shop classes, that of enhancing academic understanding and interest, has been completely forgotten. I am up early this morning with the various steps in my cabinet making class running through my head. Make, fix and create...

class act

My box making class at Marc Adams School of Woodworking came to a conclusion today with a photo opportunity. These are not all the boxes we made, and a number of them are headed home with my students for more work. The important thing was that each student learned new skills and offered renewed creativity.

We gradually diminish in creativity after leaving Kindergarten, and there should be no surprise that play is an essential part of the creative process.

Otto Salomon had said that the value of the carpenter's work is in the usefulness of the object he or she makes. The value of the student's work is in the student. Each student went home carrying much more than the boxes they made. If any of my students wants a high resolution copy of this image, please email me. I can send.

I had a wonderful week and am now ready for my cabinet making class to commence in the morning.

Make, fix and create...

day 4...

I concluded my fourth day of box making at Marc Adams School of Woodworking and completely forgot to take photos to record our progress. I have about 6 unfinished boxes in the  works, and have had fun, too. When you have students that are interested in everything you teach, it presents a marked contrast with what public school teachers often find in their classes. There is no distinction between how adults and children learn. Both learn best, hands on, doing real things that match the direction of their interests. Children are hard wired to learn, and we install road blocks to learning when we restrain them in boring and unproductive activities in school. The photo is from yesterday. The box joint jig for router is one I made in last year's class and is working perfectly having already made dozens of boxes.

Make, fix and create...

day 3 complete

This was my third day of box making at Marc Adams School of Woodworking. Students are doing well. Today I demonstrated wooden hinges and barbed hinges, making bases and lids, and mitered box joints. I think I covered a few other subjects, but I'm too tired at this point to recall.

Educational Sloyd, as proposed by Otto Salomon, considered class teaching to be ineffective. We learn best when lessons are individualized and geared to our own level of interest, and understanding. When you learn hands-on, individualization is guaranteed, just as when a box is made, lessons are learned, confidence is gained, and each student progresses at his or her own pace.

If you walk up and down the aisle between work benches in my classroom as I did this evening, you will find that each student has made boxes that have involved personal choices, errors, fixes and creative expression. Not all student is doing the same thing, and each is learning things that they will be able to apply in their own woodshops.

It is so much fun to watch so much growth.

Make, fix and create...

end of day two..

I am at Marc Adams School of Woodworking, and have finished my second day of box making class. My students are all doing challenging work and learning. I have demonstrated four kinds of corner joints, and most students are testing each kind of joint in their own boxes. I demonstrated my technique, using the flipping story stick for installing butt hinges, and my students have been pleased with their own success.

Marc Adams School has become a major learning center, and a place where the hands and the relationship between both character and intellect is readily understood. All know that what we experience in this place is special... a place where craftsmanship is appreciated and understood.

Part of what makes my own experience at Marc Adams School a success is having excellent help. Jerry (above at left) is my volunteer assistant for a third year.  I am grateful for his help.

Make, fix and create...

indulgence in the improbable...

I am in Indiana, and have completed day one of box making at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking. I will have 18 students in this week-long class in box making, and then will have an equal number of students the following weekend for a class in making small cabinets.

I also brought David J. Whattaker's book The Impact and Legacy of Educational Sloyd along so that I can write a review of it for British Woodworking Magazine in my spare time. Reviewing this book is a great immersion in the subject, and I hope that my review will help British woodworkers to recall their own history in manual arts education.

Over the course of the coming week, I will have photos to show of adult box makers and cabinet makers in action, but today I was too busy to take any photos.

I am reading a book written in the 1850's by Captain Marryat for the entertainment of his children. He noted that his children and half the civilized world were reading and enjoying the book, Swiss Family Robinson, but as a real sea captain, he could not bring himself to write anything as far fetched as that. He noted,"it is true that it's child's book; but I consider, for that very reason, it is necessary that the author should be particular in what may appear to be trifles, but which really are not, when it is remembered how strong the impressions are upon the juvenile mind. Fiction, when written for young people, should at all events, be based upon truth."

It is true that we treat children as though they are idiots. It is the purposeful indulgence in the improbable. By keeping them safe from real life, we stifle their powers. Instead, we should offer them fictional materials that help them to discover a relationship with and interest in real life. Captain Marryat's book is called Masterman Ready or, The Wreck of the Pacific and it can be found as a free download on Google Books.

Make, fix, get real and create...

attempting to break through silo walls

Richard Bazeley described in an email his successful presentation to his fellow teaching staff of the value of woodworking for teaching math.

"I made a 20 minute presentation to our school Principal and maths faculty as part of a Professional Development day last week. After a brief verbal introduction I took the opportunity to run an activity on measurement. Using tools of the trade such as folding rulers, tape measures, digital calipers and steel rulers I had the Principal and teachers measuring the door and door opening, a length of wood, the diameter of a drill bit and the insides of a pipe. It was brief but I had them thinking about what they are missing out on and the need for more tools in their area.

Looking around the maths room I pointed out that much of the work the students do is theory based learning and 2 dimensional, so I took the opportunity to emphasize the need for the students to have more concrete examples of what they are being taught."

Getting other teachers to understand the value of doing real things can be a particular challenge when you have college educated teachers who may not have ever had the experience of doing real things with their hands or with tools. It has been called the ivory tower, or silo effect... with teachers being  comfortable as masters in their own classrooms and failing to interconnect both the subject matter with other learning and their own work with that of fellow teachers. I wrote about this in an earlier post as follows:

"The silo effect leaves professors or teachers isolated (often comfortably) in their own classrooms where they fail to take the advantages offered by collaboration with colleagues, and neglect to offer interdisciplinary studies to their students. The result is the loss of vigor in education, as studies become irrelevant, mind-numbing, and unadventurous. Studies confined in silos can be quite rigorous and within silos, students can be held to high standards, but not without paying a high price of attrition. Even students diligently present each and every day, will pay little attention to materials presented without vigor or without relevance established in their own lives and by their own interests."

What's rigor without vigor? Boring and irrelevant. And there is yet another challenge to contend with, in the sense of superiority that some academically trained professors feel. They may regard themselves as superior in some way, because their hands have never been dirtied doing real things. But that is just a cover up and distraction from how the world must make them feel when faced by the many things they can't fix without help... helpless. And when they feel helpless in the presence of those who can do real things, you can see that it may take some courage and encouragement for them to break through the silo walls.

The image above is of student initials cut out by Richard Bazeley's 13 year old students in Australia. Nicely done, don't you think?

Today I leave for Marc Adams School of Woodworking where I will teach box making for one week and then small cabinet making for a weekend class.

Make, fix and create...

how I am to teach them.

I did a sketch-up illustration of the steps involved in marking and making a sphere, though when working with hand and knife, actual handwork is not as precise as is shown in the illustration.

Readers frequently ask if I have a set curriculum for them to follow. I wish it could be as simple as that.

There are actually three things that  I try to balance in developing woodworking lessons for kids... what I want the kids to learn to do, what the other teachers want the students to do in support what they teach, and what the kids want to do to support their own interests which are often different from mine, and different as well from the objectives of their classroom teacher.

The interesting thing is that at the start of a program, other teachers won't necessarily know the value of woodworking projects and the value has to be demonstrated to them. In some cases teachers have not been challenged to consider correlating their materials with what is taught in other classes and may not understand the value of it. Even when they do understand the value, they often don't understand the processes well enough to know whether or not what they propose fits with the level of skill and ability at various ages. At the beginning, kids really don't understand what it takes to do various things either, and so while they may want to do their own thing, unrestrained, they will soon learn that there are restraints formed by their own lack of understanding in how tools work, how materials work in response to those tools, and the various steps required and the order in which they must be applied to gain the results they intend. In other words, they often lack the ability and understanding necessary to be successful at at making the objects they intend.

At the start, it's useful to be assertive, with the woodworking teacher coming up with his or her own projects timed to other teachers' coverage of various lesson plans and also geared to be age appropriate and skill appropriate to the kids. Kids will understand the growth of skill, and the fact that new skills can be applied to other things.

I think the most useful information on designing a program comes from Educational Sloyd which in turn came from progressive education and Kindergarten of all things, and actually provides insight into all other things that children should learn in school.

• Start with the interests of the child.
• Move 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.

You can use simple tools used in simple operations as your starting point. Add complex tools and processes sequentially  to direct the development of skill and growth.  Part of a woodworking teacher's job is to expand in an incremental manner the students exposure and skill in the use of tools that will then make them more capable of doing the kinds of correlated exercises that the teachers would like to see as well as those they would choose for themselves.

The following is from the Paradise of Childhood and describes the origins of what for Friedrich Froebel was a great awakening:

"Traveling through the country," says Elizabeth Harrison, 'Froebel listened to the cradle songs and stories which the German housewives told to their children. He noticed how the little children are constantly in motion, how they delight in movement, how they use their senses, how quickly the observe and how they invent and contrive. And he said to himself, "I can convert the children's activities, energies, amusements, occupations, all that goes by the name of play, instrumental for my purpose, and transfer play into work. This work will be education in the true sense of the term. The conception I have gained from the children themselves; they have taught me how I am to teach them.'"

In wondering where Sloyd should go in the future, it is important to remember its roots in the Kindergarten method. Uno Cygnaeus and Salomon and all the early proponents of Educational Sloyd saw it as the best means to carry the Kindergarten methods into the upper grades. Learning was to be fun, driven by the interests of the child, and yet educators seem insistent on making education a dismal experience that must be endured... just as for so many folks, work is a dismal thing. As a woodworker, I have seldom found it to be so.

Make, fix and create...