why so many kids can't sit still in school...

There is an epidemic of ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) diagnosed among children in school. You can read about it in this article in the Washington Post. Why So Many Kids Can't Sit Still in School Today. The number of children affected by this "disorder" according to statistics published by the center for disease control has grown from 7.8 percent in 2003 to 9.5 percent in 2007 and to 11 percent in 2011. That amounts to a growth rate of 15 percent per year in the number of children diagnosed with ADHD.

Comenius had simply observed children in action, as anyone in his or her right mind might do and said,

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

He also described the ideal school, which is a far cry from what American education has become. Comenius said the following about schools:

"Artisans do not detain their apprentices with theories, but set them to do practical work at an early stage; thus they learn to forge by forging, to carve by carving, to paint by painting, and to dance by dancing. In schools, therefore, let the students learn to write by writing, to talk by talking, to sing by singing, and to reason by reasoning. In this way schools will become workshops humming with work, and students whose efforts prove successful will experience the truth of the proverb; "We give form to ourselves and to our materials at the same time."

In other words, having children sit still in school is a shameful waste of their natural inclination to learn by doing. We make schools boring and waste precious time and attention.

 Make, fix and create...

OACC

Yesterday I attended the Ozark Area Community Congress, a meeting of bioregionalists that has been held annually for the last 35 years. The Ozarks is a distinct bioregion, of which my own area of Northwest Arkansas is part. Attending the conference to make a presentation on our AEP/SWEPCO debacle required 6 1/2 hours on the road, driving to and from the meeting. It might have been much less stressful to stay home and make boxes, but I am always grateful to connect with others who have less selfish concerns.

Some of the features of the Ozarks bioregion includes similar flora and fauna, forested karst terrain, clear streams (that appear clean and may not be), and poverty. In fact there is an interesting connection between karst topography and poverty. When nationally known geologist Tom Aley, began his lifelong interest in the peculiarities of karst, he looked for a map of the US that would identify areas of karst terrain. He found no such map, but did find a map of poverty, and soon discovered that there is a strong connection between poverty and karst. Maps of karst and maps of poverty are a near perfect overlay. Tom's article The Karst Environment and Rural Poverty will help my readers better understand both.

In the meantime, Parade Magazine published a short article on the loss of cursive writing in schools. We've known for some time that cursive is going away as kids poke iPads, iPhones, and other digital devices instead of writing with pencil or pen, and that kids are being left unable to even read handwriting. The article points out that "adults write better and longer prose when they are faster at writing by hand, and we may process what we write by hand more deeply." In conclusion, the article notes that students may be better off with a composition pad than a keyboard.

Make, fix and create...

the industrious child...

We know that one of the desirable traits of character that should be imparted to children that will be useful to them and society is that they be industrious. Our present course in education tends to make them passive rather than industrious. An industrious child is a self starting child. He or she asks, what can I do next, and receiving no answer, starts learning on his or her own, with an eye toward action. Sitting still in classrooms appears to be the desirable trait of modern education.

A friend of mine told of being called to a conference by her son's teacher. She was told that her son in first grade kept falling from his chair and that she wanted to investigate to see if medication would be required to keep him in it. Can you see the horrors of what we have done?

Industriousness, in its beginnings is anathematic to sitting under constraint of the teacher's commands, and it's fiercest enemy is the administration of drugs to maintain discipline and restrain the child's natural inclination toward activity.

This morning I am going to the 35th annual Ozark Area Community Congress as a guest speaker to talk about the SWEPCO extra high voltage power line that threatens our area.

Make, fix and create...

being replaced by a machine...

This morning I am doing work in which my own efforts could be replaced by that of a machine. I am making small parts from walnut and linden that will become boxes after they are all properly fitted and prepared. But as the choice is mine, I have chosen to continue making my small boxes just as I have for over 30 years. I could spend weeks making a dedicated machine of some sort, shaving minutes from the time and effort that it takes to make a box, and if I were a machinist whose sole pleasure came from making machines to do what skilled hands on their own might do and thence claim satisfaction from, I would be plotting my own liberation from effort. But I am a craftsman, after all, not a machinist.

Last night I participated in a woodworking chat with the North Carolina Woodworkers. It was easy and awkward. I found it difficult to imagine what it would be like on the other end of things, waiting patiently for me to arrange my thoughts and present them over the keyboard.

I had done a cheat sheet of posed questions and answers that was to help me keep up the pace, but I learned that the cut and paste function, moving from a word document to the chat forum did not work. So that left me on my own to punch in responses from the keyboard. Much of the interest involved my woodworking program at Clear Spring School and how we might extend our interest in wood working to subsequent generations.

Here is a bit of my prepared response:

Q. What do you see in the future as potentially having an impact on the craft?

A. I am concerned that the digital age has some negative impact in the short term. Kids are engaged in investing their energies in digital devices at such an early age, doing things that have been made easy for them by the intelligence invested in chips and software. As human beings, we have always discovered our senses of self by doing difficult and challenging things. We are hardwired for discovery, and expenditure of effort. We feel better when we have worked ourselves full out towards some noble goal. We feel pride when we can demonstrate craftsmanship and at some point, perhaps we will make a distinction between demonstrations of artificial prowess in which we demonstrate the power of our machines, and that prowess that comes through concerted effort and practice. One thing you will notice about the world of digital devices and software development is that every new development is to make things easier and more powerful, so that everyone (with the device) can do whatever it is with as little effort, as little skill and as little practice as possible.

If people don’t rediscover their hands (and feet), human culture will be made worse by it. On the other hand, if we find a balance with our digital devices and override the inclination to allow our senses and creativity to be stolen from us, the hands will always offer the potential of doing incredible, mind boggling things. You can’t simply erase the 10 million years of human development in which the hands played such a major part, in one digital age.

Make, fix and create...

the dovetailedness of things...

Today in the wood shop at Clear Spring School my students from 5th grade and up began working on sketchup. My object is to get them designing. The program itself is fun and engaging. But when they have to work a bit harder at their play, I'll know that they are learning. Meanwhile in the science lab across the hall, we had a visit from the chicken lady, Alice McKee. Hands-on learning with real chickens is so  much more fun than learing from books.

The development of everyday virtues and the dovetailedness of all things. It is nice to see woodworking talk infused in an understanding of educational philosophy. From the Kindergarten by Kate Douglas Wiggins, 1893

The student of political economy sees clearly enough the need of greater thrift and frugality in the nation; but where and when do we propose to develop these virtues? Precious little time is given to them in most schools, for their cultivation does not yet seem to be insisted upon as an integral part of the scheme. Here and there an inspired human being seizes on the thought that the child should really be taught how to live at some time between the ages of six and sixteen, or he may not learn so easily afterwards. Accordingly, the pupils under the guidance of that particular person catch a glimpse of eternal verities between the printed lines of their geographies and grammars. The kindergarten makes the growth of every-day virtues so simple, so gradual, even so easy, that you are almost beguiled into thinking them commonplace. They seem to come in, just by-the-way, as it were, so that at the end of the day you have seen thought and word and deed so sweetly mingled that you marvel at the "universal dovetailedness of things," as Dickens puts it.

In American education, policy makers have seemingly forgotten that school is not just about standardized test scores, but also about learning to manage life and do real things. Our classrooms are lacking in reality, and the children are thus led to believe that schooling is of no greater meaning. Dickens' quote about dovetailedness comes from the following:

"The unities, sir,' he said, "are a completeness—a kind of universal dovetailedness with regard to place and time—a sort of general oneness, if I may be allowed to use so strong an expression. I take those to be the dramatic unities, so far as I have been enabled to bestow attention upon them, and I have read much upon the subject, and thought much." Charles Dickens (1812-1870), British novelist. Mr. Curdle in Nicholas Nickleby, ch. 24, pp. 311-312 (1839).

Today in my wood shop, I am making boxes. At school, I am making racks for lathe tools in my quest to organize the new shop space. I have been loading Sketchup Make 2014 to the school's laptops, and plan to have the students in middle and high school at work with sketchup for the first time this afternoon.

Make, fix and create...

feathers...

Using a coping saw to make wooden feathers

This morning my first through 4th grade students will attempt to carve wooden feathers. Almost the whole school from 1st through 9th grades are engaged in the study of Ornithology, as part of our 4 year rotation, Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, symbolizing the 4 Greek elements. We are in the air year of rotation. We know of course that all things are interconnected, and that the divisions between such things are tenuous at best. But the important thing is to know that not only can things be taken apart into basic components, they can reassembled into a discovery of the fabric of real life.

We are concerned with the whole child.

Kate Douglas Wiggen, 1893, expressed the idea of Kindergarten and its relationship to the manual arts as follows:

To Froebel, life, action, and knowledge were the three notes of one harmonious chord; but he did not advocate manual training merely that children might be kept busy, nor even that technical skill might be acquired. The piece of finished kindergarten work is only a symbol of something more valuable which the child has acquired in doing it. It is always the creative instinct that is to be reached and vivified; everything else is secondary. By reproduction from memory of a dictated form, by taking from or adding to it, by changing its center, corners, or sides—by a dozen ingenious preliminary steps—the child's inventive faculty is developed; and he soon reaches a point in drawing, building, modelling, or what not, where his greatest delight is to put his individual ideas into visible shape. Instead of twenty hackneyed and slavish copies of one pattern, we have twenty free, individual productions, each the expression of the child's inmost personal thought. This invests labor with a beauty and power, and confers upon it a dignity to be gained in no other way. It makes every task, however lowly, a joy, because all the higher faculties are brought into action. Much so-called "busy work," where pupils of the "A class" are allowed to stick a thousand pegs in a thousand holes while the "B class" is reciting arithmetic, is quite fruitless, because it has so little thought behind it.

Make, fix and create...

Two things in Little Rock

Last night my wife and I attended the banquet in Little Rock at which the Governor's Awards for Quality were presented to Arkansas corporations. One of the Governor's Award winners is a name that woodworkers will recognize as being the maker of the best electric motors in the US. Baldor.

Baldor motors have a reputation for quality and reliability, so it is no surprise that they could earn this prestigious award. Many of their best motors are made in Arkansas.

The Arkansas Quality Awards, presented by the Arkansas Institute for Performance Excellence has grown into a pretty big deal since I was first involved in designing the award base 20 years ago. I was pleased to see photos and short videos showing corporate CEOs in their offices with their quality awards proudly displayed, and last night 3 companies received the top award. I felt awkward in such a large crowd, but it was nice to look up at the stage and see three award bases I had made lined up in a row to be presented by Arkansas Governor Beebe.

We also went to the Clinton Museum Store, and I was reminded of when then Governor Bill Clinton bought some of my inlaid boxes to carry as gifts of state on a trade mission to Asia. It seemed to me that selling those boxes through the museum store would be an obvious hit. One of the best business decisions I made as a craftsman was that of working with woods from my home state, and emphasizing their beauty and value. Ironically, the small inlaid boxes and my making the Arkansas Governor's Award for Quality are connected.

Twenty years ago, I got a call from Barbara Harvel, then director of the Arkansas Quality Awards program just starting in Arkansas. She told me that my name had been given her as a possible designer of the Award base. She wanted to see a sample of my work, I told her that I had made small boxes for Governor Clinton that were for sale in Little Rock. She looked down on her desk, and said, "Oh, like this?" She turned over the Doug Stowe box on her desk that had been given to her by her husband Paul and discovered my signature underneath. That coincidence clinched the deal.

I know this blog post has all been rather chatty. My point is simple. We tend to take things apart in our minds, noting the differences between two things. The truth is far less complex.

Make, fix and create...

book giveaway...

You can enter to win a copy of my new book on the Fine Woodworking website.

in the midst of an uncontrolled experiment...

Today my wife and I go to Little Rock for the Arkansas Quality Awards banquet, in which the Governor's Quality Awards will be presented. This is the 20th year of Arkansas Quality Awards. I was designer of the award base, and each year make one or two as required.

In celebration of the 20th year, my wife and I were invited to attend.

This article from Columbia University sheds light on the development of the brain in relation to  our uncontrolled experiment in digital technologies. The first two years of a child's life are spent growing neurons and connecting dendrites, and from there the pruning of dendrites begins to make the brain more efficient later in life. You may have noticed that some things are easier for young people to learn than for older folks. For instance the introduction of languages is easier for very young children to grasp.

I spent nearly two years trying to learn Swedish, when a toddler would have grasped as much of the the language I was able to absorb in a few days. Sir James Crichton-Browne was called the last of the great Victorians. His views on the relationship between hand, brain and body are described in Gustaf Larsson's book Sloyd, 1902 as follows:

The eminent English scholar and scientist, Sir James Chrichton Browne, tells us that certain portions of the brain are developed between the ages of four and fourteen years by manual exercises alone. He also says, "It is plain that the highest functional activity of these motor centres is a thing to be aimed at with a view to general mental power as well as with a view to muscular expertness; and as the hand centres hold a prominent place among the motor centres, and are in relation with an organ which in prehension, in touch, and in a thousand different combinations of movement, adds enormously to our intellectual resources, thoughts, and sentiments, it is plain that the highest possible functional activity of these hand centres is of paramount importance not less to mental grasp than to industrial success." Again he says,"Depend upon it that much of the confusion of thought, awkwardness, bashfulness, stutterings, stupidity, and irresolution which we encounter in the world, and even in highly educated men and women, is dependent on defective or misdirected muscular training, and that the thoughtful and diligent cultivation of this is conducive to breadth of mind as well as to breadth of shoulders."

"The nascent period of the hand centres has not been accurately measured ... but its most active epoch being from the fourth to the fifteenth year, after which these centres in the large majority of persons become somewhat fixed and stubborn. Hence it can be understood that boys and girls whose hands have been altogether untrained up to the fifteenth year are practically incapable of high manual efficiency ever afterwards.

"The small muscles of the eye, ear, larynx, tongue, and hand have much higher and more extensive intellectual relations than the large muscles of the trunk and limbs. If you would attain to the full intellectual stature of which you are capable, do not, I would say, neglect the physical education of the hand."--Sir James Crichton-Browne

According to the article on the Columbia University website, How is digital technology changing the way kids' brains learn?

"The average American kid between 8 and 18-years-old spends eight-and-a-half hours a day on a computer, listening to an iPod, watching TV, or paying attention to some form of digital technology. To put that another way, over half of an American child's waking hours are spent plugged-in. To YouTube. To Facebook. To their cell phones, you name it. As they get older, they begin to spend even more time online."

If they are online, they are not learning the things that children have always learned in the past, how to observe directly their environment, and to make from it beautiful and useful things. And so our uncontrolled experiment in the relentless distribution of digital technologies involves the pruning of dendrites, the steady decline of human faculties, and offers profound implications for the future of human culture. I you want to know more about fixed and stubborn, pick up a chisel, and if you are unused to the muscularity of its use, give it try and see what you can do with it. Most adults in the US have become trained in the disuse of their muscular faculties. Is that what we want to give to our kids? Or shall we offer them the full range of human expression?

To reverse things with our kids, we must, as early as possible teach them to:

Make, fix and create...

Making T-squares... "what do I do next?"

Prepared stock

 Last Thursday I guided my students, 5th through 11th grades in making "T" squares, they each came up to me, one at a time, asking "what do I do next?" Making T-squares was their idea and was a way that I hope they can carry some of their interest in mechanical drawing home with them for further exploration.

There are three important standards in making a T-square.

1. The blade  must be straight. I took care of that standard by carefully jointing each one and ripping it to width on the table saw. I advised the students to avoid sanding the edges so that they would remain crisp and straight. 
2. The head of the square must be designed in such a way that there is sufficient space for the blade to be attached. We met this standard by my checking their designs to make certain that they not cut into the space required. 
3. The head be attached square to the blade. For this, I had each student attach the head of the square with a single nail and glue, so that it could be clamped in a square position while the glue dried, and that it's squareness could be checked before the glue set. Additional nails can be driven in place after the glue sets, but to put in additional nails while the glue is still wet will likely force the head of the T-square out of square. So to meet this standard, I had to get the students to deliberately restrain themselves, when their natural inclination was to simply drive 4 nails and be done with it.

 If these three standards are met, the T-square should be useful. If not, not.

There are other standards that have to do with the appearance of the T-square that the child can select.

1. The head of the square can be symmetrical on both sides, or can be deliberately asymmetrical. That would be a standard chosen by the child. 
2. The arrangement of the nails attaching the blade to the head should be made to appear intentional rather than random. Evenly spaced and symmetrically arranged implies the presence of an attentive and caring human being in the making of it. We call that "craftsmanship." To meet this standard I encourage the students to carefully measure and mark the location of the holes prior to drilling.
3. How smooth should it be? This is a tool. It will be handled, and tools that are sanded smooth to the touch invite more frequent use.

Kid designed t-squares

One thing I'm wrestling with at school is that my kids are extremely creative to the point that anything goes. They enjoy messing with materials and tools and they are a long way from being able to stand back as a craftsman must and assess their own work from the standpoint of useful beauty.

Another challenge I face is that of getting them to look at their surroundings for the answer, "what do I do next?" Kids have been conditioned to have either teachers or the screens of their devices between themselves and reality when they would be bettter served by simply looking directly at reality and attempting to assess its qualities for themselves.

A new charter high school in Springdale, Arkansas, called "the School of Innovation," is attempting to escape the notion of graduation being based on "seat time." The idea that students can graduate high school based on spending x number of hours sitting at desks during a set range of courses, is archaic and destructive. I've hardly a clue as to how well the new school will do, and whether or not it will perform well enough to overcome the policy maker's objections to such things. Most schools are based on units of seat time called Carnegie units, rather on the student's actual learning. A Carnegie Unit is supposed to represent 120 hours of instruction, but we all know that instruction is not the same as learning. Time spent bored in classrooms while the professor drones on and on is not learning. The Innovative high school is a step in the right direction and I wish them great success.

Sadly, they seem to have no wood shop. They claim to be involved in STEM education but seem to have only digital devices. No saw or hammer in sight.

Make, fix and create...

making boxes... it is that time of the year...

This time of year, I usually receive an order from Appalachian Spring Gallery that sets my box making in motion. It came yesterday. I also have a large corporate gifts order due in late November, so I am getting ready for that, too.

I've spent enough time at school relocating my school wood shop that my classes are going OK and my students are having fun and learning.

Folks have asked how I find a balance between writing, teaching and woodworking, and it is simply a matter of attending the squeaky wheels. Each part of the triad, writing, teaching and woodworking in my own shop is kept fresh by regular rotation. Keeping these three activities in rotation keeps me productive and prevents boredom from getting in the way of my work.

First I compared the new order with what I already had in stock, and noted the kinds and sizes of boxes in the order that I could not ship. Then I set to work on those, making them in multiples, so that I'll have enough to fill the order and replenish my inventory.

The first step is to rip walnut and linden (basswood) into widths about 1/4 in. wider than the finished stock. Then I resaw that material into thinner stock that can be planed to final thickness. Then after one edge is jointed straight and smooth, the stock will be cut to finished width before being cut to final length. I keep the prices reasonable on my boxes by working in multiples, as many as 50 or 60 at the same time.

Make, fix and create...

North Carolina Woodworker Chat...

Today I've been preparing for a chat on next Thursday night, September 18, 8 PM Eastern Time with the North Carolina Woodworker organization. I was sent a set of interesting questions to help me to prepare. Blog readers will need to register to participate. You can register now at www.ncwoodworker.net

If you are not a resident of North Carolina or one of the surrounding states, you will need to be approved for membership. This is a simple process but you must register before the evening of the event in order to give the administration of the site time to approve your membership.  I will give the address again next week and again provide the link.

One question I've been asked to address is as follows: "What do you see in the future as potentially having an impact on the craft?"

I am concerned that the digital age has some negative impact in the short term. Kids are engaged in investing their energies in digital devices at such an early age, doing things that have been made easy for them by the intelligence invested in chips and software. As human beings, we have always discovered our senses of self by doing difficult and challenging things. We are hardwired for discovery, and expenditure of effort. We feel better when we have worked ourselves full out towards some noble goal. We feel pride when we can demonstrate craftsmanship and at some point, perhaps we will make a distinction between demonstrations of artificial prowess in which we demonstrate the power of our machines, and that prowess that comes through concerted effort and practice.

One thing you will notice about the world of digital devices and software development is that every new development is to make things easier and more powerful, so that everyone with the right software and the device to run it can do whatever it does with as little effort, as little skill and as little practice as possible.

If people don’t rediscover their hands (and feet), human culture will be made worse by it. On the other hand, if we find a balance with our digital devices and override the inclination to allow our senses and creativity to be stolen from us, the hands will always offer the potential of doing incredible, mind boggling things. You can’t simply erase the 10 million years of human development in which the hands played such a major part, in one digital age.

Make, fix and create...

show me, then let me do it...

From Wooden Boat, Sept/Oct 2014

If anyone has doubts as to how people learn best, whether by being told or by being shown, I would be surprised, and yet we still make schooling primarily an act of being told.

This article, Signing, Singing, Speaking: How Language Evolved should clarify the issue. I think it unlikely that a single thing... gesture or singing, as a thing in isolation would be the sole foundation for the development of our language capacity. Even the matter of singing, without the rhythm established by the hands, would lack emotional depth, and it is a mistake to take human behavior apart in such an analytical manner, as we then miss the reality present in the whole of us.

Another article on NPR, This Is Your Brain. This Is Your Brain On Music makes the point that brain scanning is revealing the benefits of music on the development of language capacity. Educational policy makers would like learning to be simple. Shove it in like it's coal and the kids are bins of varying capacities. But children are multi-dimensional and reliant on a full range of senses that we ignore for the sake of false efficiency.

The most recent issue of Wooden Boat Magazine,  (Sept/October 2014) has an article about the Thames Waterman's Stroke, a distinctly efficient means of rowing a small craft through water. The article provides the history of it and makes a sincere attempt to teach it. This particular stroke was developed, and passed on, by demonstration generation to generation, through hands-on experience.  It was brought to the US where it influenced the stroke used by universities to propel racing sculls. The article in Wooden Boat makes a good read, and the photos would provide an oarsman a foundation for experimentation, but without the experimentation, the process of rowing cannot become experiential. Even with the best of illustrations and sifting though carefully composed text, it cannot be learned without doing. Music and nearly all else are the same.

And yet "educational" policy makers are content in American education to leave off the experience needed to actually teach, and for the students to actually learn.

My 5th through 11th grade students are all working on drafting and will begin learning sketchup soon. After a brief introduction to mechanical drawing, they want to make their own T-squares. Those we will begin today.

Make, fix and create...

this morning...

I was up early this morning to make a presentation on Save the Ozarks for our local Rotary that meets every Wednesday morning at 7 AM. They asked if I would speak about our on-going efforts to stop the monstrous power line from being built through the Eureka Springs area.

This issue is not just that of a small town not wanting to sacrifice its own scenic beauty for the good of the whole, but one of a corporate giant (more of a dinosaur) gobbling up the future of the planet. AEP is the largest corporate producer of greenhouse gasses in the world. With new restrictions on coal, they are shifting their investments to extra high voltage power lines, where state regulators guarantee a 12 to 15% return on investment, whether the power lines are needed or not. The other issue is that they have misrepresented the need for this power line, both to the public service commission and to the people of Arkansas.

I've also been moving the last of the cabinetry and drawers into my new school wood shop location. It is a pleasure being right in the middle of things.

Make, fix and create...

three steps...

The three steps to learning, are: 

• 1. Witness. 
• 2. Do. 
• 3. Teach. 

Witnessing is best if it involves all the senses, not just one. Doing should be responsive to what you or the child have witnessed. When a child can teach what they've learned, that means that they have learned to a greater depth at which they have been reflectively engaged.

Today, my first graders were so excited to go to wood shop, and my 4th grade students informed me that woodworking is their favorite class. I hear that kind of thing all the time. My middle school students worked on their mechanical drawing, and I conducted a brief introductory lesson in the use of Sketchup.

One of my students claims to know enough already that he could teach sketchup to the class. Knowing that accepting the responsibility to teach is one of the best ways to assure depth of learning, should I take him up on the offer?

Make, fix, learn and create...

a glimpse of heaven if hell lies just outside of the door...

A Clear Spring School parent sent me this link to the School at Rose Valley, which like Clear Spring School attempts to hold woodworking at the center of school life.

Rose Valley was an intentional Community founded by architect, Will Price, a leader in the arts and crafts movement. In 1904 at the Northeastern Woodworking Teacher's Association he spoke of the relationship between the subsequent rise of the arts and crafts movement in relation to woodworking education in schools:

"In the dark ages when they wanted to torture a man beyond all possibility of his holding up under it they did not torture him with thumbscrews, or the maiden, or the boot. They put him in a room without interests, where there was nothing to do, nothing to see, and dropped a drop of water with deadly regularity on his head, and he invariably went mad. I accuse the present system of doing precisely that thing. The man who has to stand at the tail... of a machine, doing uninteresting work--monotonous, regular, but without any interest, without any volition--is in exactly the same position as the man with the water dropping on his head... As manual training teachers you should realize that it is not enough to take the children into your school rooms and give them a glimpse of heaven if hell lies just outside of the door. Here is this great school of industrial art which teaches people year in and year out how to design beautifully, how to weave properly, how to dye properly, and then gets them jobs which require them to do the very reverse... the demand is not for the best thing that man does but the worst--for the purely commercial thing. That is not enough. That is why I am making this plea for the arts and crafts; that is the connection that I see between the Arts and Crafts movement and manual training school. The manual training school has done much to make the Arts and Crafts movement possible. I have no statistics for this statement; you do not need statistics for such thing--you simply know them; you cannot go on teaching and training these young people for twenty-five years that is its right to do things that are worth while and not have some of them adopt the teaching."

Today I worked to move cabinets from the old wood shop to the new one in a building at the center of the Clear Spring School campus. Make, fix and create...

crafts and human culture...

I was struggling this morning to find something to say about the role of crafts in the creation of human culture, and sometimes, the less said the better. Click on the video to see it on youtube in wide screen format.

Two terms you will encounter in this that may be unfamiliar. Anandam means euphoria or extreme bliss. Sapience means wisdom.

Make, fix and create...

Arkansas governor's awards in the Arts...

Yesterday I met with members of the Arkansas Arts Council, and a small committee from around the state to select recipients for the Arkansas Governor's Awards in the arts. Awards are given in a variety of areas, including corporate support, a patron's award, a lifetime achievement award, an award of recognition for the work of an individual artist,  an award for arts education, etc... seven distinct awards in all. All the various arts need to be considered, dance, visual arts, music, drama, writing, story telling and more.

I was surprised that there were no nominations from the Eureka Springs area... which simply states that we tend to think of our small town as existing on its own, and not so much interconnected with the statewide arts efforts. That is a thing we must fix, and so to remedy things, I plan that next year we mobilize to make more nominations.

The Governor's Awards in the Arts which we selected in yesterday's meeting will be made public knowledge later in the month, and the awards will be presented in the spring of 2015.

Today, I plan to clean shop. It is a mess. And it will help me to prepare for my next work to get it better organized.

Make, fix, clean and create...

New Book...

 I received copies of my new book, Beautiful Boxes, Design and Technique yesterday from the publisher, Taunton Press. With each book (this is number 8, not counting two books translated into German) it has been amazing to hold so much work in my hands and to know that it is being shared in ways that I would never be able to share without help. A book is exactly that. I make boxes (and other things) in my shop, take photos of each step, and write the steps out so that others can read and understand. Then others take hold, help me to edit and clarify my explanations of work and create books from my starting point that allow my own work to shape skills in other hands than my own.

It is an honor to work with such a good team in developing such fine books. And I pinch myself in wonder at how lucky I've been.

Yesterday in the wood shop, my upper middle and high school students worked on their mechanical drawing. They now want to make their own T-squares. We can oblige, but I want them to know how to use them first.

Today I will be with the Arkansas Arts Council in Little Rock as part of a panel to select the recipients of various Arkansas Governor's Awards in the Arts.

In wood shop, I get to see transformational things happen that would be inappropriate to share in this blog. I see personal triumphs that shape the lives of our kids. Today I was witness to one of those. The crazy thing is that people think that woodworking is about making things. It is actually a process through which we ourselves are shaped and refined into new form. It is called craftsmanship, and the real product is the skilled craftsman.

Let not one single day pass without engaging your hands in something skilled or creative.

Make, fix and create...

Is this OK?

Making a wooden pencil box

As adults we learn about standards. For instance if you are writing something, it needs to conform to the basic patterns of word use and punctuation in order to be read and understood by others. If you are writing something for publication and not in a blog, or an email to a friend, editors will be involved in bringing the text to certain standards. If communicating an idea on paper, as one would do as an architect or draftsman, the image must be clearly presented, and certain standards must be met. So it is a challenge in schools to bring a perfect balance between allowing creativity and exploration, and requiring the child to adhere to certain standards of layout and design.

On Tuesday, my students from 5th through 10th grades began a project in wood shop in which they were to present a model in three views using t-square, drawing board, etc. I also wanted them to letter their project in the kinds of formal lettering that draftsmen once used. Sadly, if seems, I presented them too much information for them to absorb at one time, and their understanding of what I wanted got confused as some raced and got ahead of themselves. Some simply traced the model in three views rather than carefully measuring and drawing... thus avoiding the acquisition of skill. Others simply ignored the layout that I had described and demonstrated.

This afternoon, I get to start over and ask the kids to do likewise. We will regard Tuesday's work as first draft. When they ask, "Is this OK?" I plan to redirect them to what the project was intended to look like in the first place... and redirect them to what I want them to learn from it.

When kids leave school and enter the real world, the idiosyncrasies of their work will not be valued. So asking them to adhere to standards in school expressions of what they have learned is a good thing.

The photo above is from Tuesday when I introduced my first grade students to the wood shop.

Make, fix and create...