I am home from Helsinki after a very long day of flights and airport connections. Catching up on my mail, I found an article about Walker Weed in Woodwork Magazine. Walker Weed was the long-time director of the wood shop at Dartmouth and was most recently honored by Furniture Society with its 2008 Award of Distinction.

The article describes how Walker Weed developed his early interest in furniture while taking Sloyd woodworking courses in elementary school. The article states: "The Sloyd approach, with its emphasis on progressively more challenging sequence of tools and techniques and on the whole person has profoundly affected Walker through his life."

You may recall my mention of Walker Weed earlier in the blog. It was suggested by one of his colleagues that in his honor and tradition, each student at Dartmouth should be required to excite the intellectual capacity of his or her hands through the making of the chair to be used throughout their college career. In that way, perhaps, what wasn't learned through hands might be imparted through their posteriors. This story was related to me in response to my suggestion that university core curricula be modified to include hands-on learning. I have added just a couple more photos to share the beauty of Helsinki.


I will have lots more information coming in the next weeks and months as I process my experience in Finland.

I am at the airport hotel and ready for my early morning return flight to the USA and I want to share just a bit more about the hands. In the first photo, you see a coil of rope, a simple expression of ritual pleasure and pride in one's work. It is the hand's engagement in ritual that stands at the core of human culture.

In the next photo, look at the expression of ritual and rhythm made manifest through patterns of brick and stone... what might start in the human soul as a gentle tapping of fingers, becomes the undulating arrangement of pattern in physical form. Nearly all of downtown Helsinki is a network of patterns, and if I were at some future time to become a professional photographer, it would be to pay homage to the patterns created by the human hand. The meaning of the ritual expressed in stone is little different from the coiling of a rope. It tells that someone was here, whose mark is of deep caring for all that he or she might touch. Those who think the hands have no place in education are those who know nothing of ritual value in their own lives. A small pity for them. A huge tragedy when imposed on a society at large.

The third photo is not about visual pattern so much as it it about life. The stem of a boat is designed to cut water and ease the passage of a boat. There is a stem and a stern for each of us in every act. Pattern and ritual is what takes place in the space between stem and stern. Observe the ripples at the side of a boat as it passes through water and you will see what I mean. If you have the chance to visit Helsinki, or even if you are stuck in the confines of your own home, I hope these simple photos, only a small sample of what I have enjoyed seeing and recording will open your eyes to observe ritual and the engagement of the hands that has made Helsinki a place of exquisite beauty.

Today I took the SuperSeaCat ferry to Tallinn, Estonia. I was told that it might be a rough ride due to sea conditions, but at least the trip wasn't canceled. I should note that going to Tallinn for a day is roughly equivalent to trying to see the Louvre in 3 minutes or less. When I arrived in the park across the street from the Ferry terminal, I found myself in a ceremony complete with brass band.
Today, September 28, 2008 is the 14th anniversary of the sinking of the Baltic ferry MS Estonia taking 852 lives.The photos below are of a news crew interviewing family members at a memorial site shown in the next photo. I spent almost all my time in the old walled city of Tallinn, and particularly enjoyed the Estonian Maritime Museum located in an old circular walled fort. It was full of hand crafted displays, and I took a number of photos before I was told they weren't permitted. I have way too many photos from my very brief Estonian sojourn to share, so you will have to take my word in their place. The old city is filled with interesting craft stores and small museums, and if you plan to visit Tallinn, plan for much more than the single day I had available.

My visit here in Helsinki has been very good for helping me gain an overview of the state of Sloyd in Scandinavia. In the mind everything can be oversimplified, but on the ground, and following over 100 years practice in a variety of nations from the date of Sloyd's invention by Cygnaeus and Salomon, things have gotten complicated. The situation in Finland is complicated enough. Here part of the country in recognition of its Swedish language and heritage practices Sloyd, while the rest of the country, being primarily of Finnish heritage and language prefers the term käsityön to describe crafts. In addition, there is a distinction made between textile crafts which are taken primarily by young women and are considered to have a strong design component and artistic value, and wood and metal crafts which are taken primarily by boys and are considered to have technical value.

So, what I seem to have discovered is not to look to the country of Sloyd's origins for the best explanation of its value despite Finland's leadership position in the PISA studies.

The other thing that I have discovered here is that those who have lived and worked in school systems that have government sponsored compulsory sloyd are not as concerned as I am about describing the basic rationale for crafts in schools. So while me may agree with each other on the importance of engaging the hands, there is some reticence to agree that crafts should be a tool specifically used for that purpose throughout school curriculum. Like most teachers, craft teachers regard what they teach as being very important, not as an integrative element enhancing other learning, but as a stand-alone, "this is my territory" kind of attitude.


This being my second conference, provided clearer insight than the last, but it should be noted that these observations are my own and if they offend anyone for some reason, please let me know. I still have a lot to learn, of course.

Today, I walked around with friends, visited the fresh market on the waterfront, checked on ferry tickets for tomorrow, visited churches and shopped for souvenirs in Finnish Design shops. As are some in the US, Finns are thinking about products that last.

My conference is over and I made some good contacts, though it may actually be weeks before I can process all the information. One thing I learned is that in upper level education, sloyd is becoming an endangered species as Europeans adapt to new uniform standards in higher education.

At the close of the conference this afternoon Leena Kaukanon, conference organizer reminded us of the question asked last night at our conference dinner at Suomelinna by Patrik Scheinin, Ph.D., Dean of the Faculty of Behavioural Sciences. In light of the success of Finland in the PISA study and with regard to the status of finland as a leader in compulsory craft education, "Can other countries afford not to have craft education?" He promised to help provide the statistical evidence to prove the connection between crafts and success in schools.

After the conference I went to the Helsinki contemporary arts museum, Kiasma. It is a beautiful building surrounded by beauty, but inside, looking at the stuff made with no real care or attention, you wonder, "Why am I here?" Or at least that is the question someone concerned with the development of skilled expression in materials would ask.

Today I made my presentation at the conference and found that I had too much to cover in too little time. But I managed to get through it and received some kind remarks from some of those in attendance. I could use a bit (or a lot) more skill in public speaking, and a combination of jet lag and over stimulation meant I really wasn't at my best.

But this is a long term endeavor.


We had dinner tonight in an island castle called Suomenlinna and took a boat to and from. The photos are from walk to the boat and from the trip home at night.

Today the flags of Finland are flying at half staff in mourning for the deaths in the school shootings in a technical university northwest of Helsinki.

The conference went on as scheduled, but with a somewhat increased sense of urgency. We all know that the engagement of the hands are part of the important key in developing a more humane and caring culture for our young.

My head is swollen larger than normal size for all that I have listened to and taken in in presentations, and conversations between. I find that I know many people here from the earlier conference in Umeå, May 2006 and we have a tendency to take up right where we left off.




The photos above and at left are Helsinki in the morning and evening. If I were to live in this place you might find me at the water's edge or walking amidst wooden boats at least some time in each day.

Oops, I no sooner say it than I am proven wrong. I was led to believe that there was no woodworking in the craft education department, but that was before I met Hannu. Hannu Salovalta teaches Kindergarten teachers to teach woodworking. When I found a wood shop I just had to butt in and introduce myself. And I was very glad I did. Also at the conference center, I met tomorrow's keynote speaker Ellen Dissanayake from the University of Washington at Seattle. Search for her as an author at Amazon.com and you will see why she was invited to speak.

I arrived at the conference this morning and went walking around the city of Helsinki. First I took a city bus in from the airport, a risky thing since I really didn't know where to get off. But it was a good way to learn my bearings, and now I am confident in going from my guest house to the conference center. I also went on a museum tour with other conference participants, two of whom had been with me at the conference in Umeå.

I had interesting conversations and learned that the Finns prefer the term KÄSITYÖN for crafts over the Swedish, Danish and Norwegian term Sloyd. But, some of the craft educators firmly believe that crafts, regardless of what you call them play a significant role in the success of Finnish schools as measured by PISA.

On our tour we spent time in a room full of drawers, each full of lace which required white gloves for handling. Some was made in the early 1800's and is clear evidence of the wise hands that preceded modern times. The patterns were incredible. Sadly, there is no woodworking in the craft program at the University of Helsinki. I plan to show them some of what they have been missing.

How does one explain something that at one time would have required no explanation? This is the situation in which I find myself with regard to the hands.

If you've had the pleasure of traveling in Scandinavia, you will know something about breakfast. Hotel breakfasts are wonderful... an assortment of meats, breads, cheeses along with eggs, sometimes salmon, and always muesli and milk and strong Kaffe, prepared and presented with a high level of care.

And so the hands... As we move in education away from the training of skilled hands, what does that do to the individual? Matti Bergström, Finnish neurophysiologist, describes our failure to engage the hands of our children as leading to "finger blindness" leaving our children and culture "values damaged".

In my conversation with the young man from the Netherlands on my flight yesterday, he marveled at the changes brought to his life by becoming a father... an inexplicable and unexpected enrichment of being. People can live fine lives without knowing those expansions of heart. But for those who have become fathers or mothers in the full heart and soul of the experience are awakened to a fullness of being that cannot be explained in rational terms. In the same way, people can live wonderful lives without the expansions of intellect and "heart" that come from the engagement of the hands in learning and making real things with tactile qualities that enrich the lives of others.

Put your hands to work and in service of your learning. You will discover an expansion of self and fulfillment of whole being. What you do and make if done with love and care will be breakfast for a hungry world, but even more, the discovery of complete self. And of course, none of this can be adequately described. Just do it and see for yourself.

One of the things I enjoy about flying is that I find myself randomly assigned to sit with someone with whom I have so much in common.

On yesterday's flight I sat next to a young man from the Netherlands, and we spent nearly the entire time from Amsterdam to Helsinki in conversation, some of it about the hands.

There are so many ways the hands engage in life, and even if we aren't making something from wood, the wisdom of the hands plays through our lives. My new friend mentioned the pleasure he found in the kneading of dough as he makes bread for his wife, young children and himself.

That is a no-brainer that anyone in his right hands could understand. As we invest our time, thought, and careful (loving) attention through our hands in the preparation of food, it is filled with nutrients unseen, immeasurable but of profound significance. If you want to have impact on the quality of your life and on the lives of those you love, the tools are there, your own hands.

I am in Helsinki as you can see from my snapshot of the Helsinki Vantaa Airport. Outside the building is different. The unique control towers are unlike anything I've seen (in my limited experience) Inside it is like so many modern airports. I am tired from trying to sleep with no place to put my long legs.

I will have more to share after I have a real night's sleep in a bed.

I am leaving for Finland this afternoon, for my second visit to a beautiful country. My first was just a drive down from Vaasa to Turku in May 2006 when we were looking for a more adventurous way to travel from the Sloyd Conference in Umeå to Stockholm. We took the ferry from Umeå to Vaasa and then another much larger ferry from Turku to Stockholm for our return to Sweden and it was much more pleasant driving through the countryside of Finland than down through the heavy traffic along the Eastern coast of Sweden. The ferry trip between Turku and Stockholm was breathtaking.

I couldn't help but notice a stark contrast between Finland and Sweden. Many of the farms in Sweden remind me of the farms in Minnesota and Iowa. You drive by and can see so much from the road... the house and barn and other outbuildings, each visible and distinct. In Finland, the farm buildings tend to be arranged in close clusters each opening to a small central courtyard, their backs to the outside for privacy and perhaps also defense.

It reminds that Finland had long been a country under the watchful and controlling eye of others. It was controlled by Sweden for centuries, then by Russia. While it gained its independence from Russia at the end of World War I, Finland was next engaged in Civil War between "Reds" aligned with the Soviet Union and non-communists. Then during the beginnings of WWII Finland fought a war against Russia and reluctantly aligned with Germany to protect itself from Soviet Conquest. There was great caution in how Finland moved from under the concerned eye of the Soviets into the European Union.

I arrive in Helsinki tomorrow evening and will have more to report on my adventure when I get settled in, first in an airport hotel and then at the University of Helsinki.

I am working on all the loose ends before leaving for Helsinki, and there are a lot!

One small detail is having work done so that I can spend time writing instead of watching CNN and the American election while I'm in Europe. So I finished a table today for the book as shown in the photos below. The rectangular table will be the lead project in the book and the round one, finished earlier will be offered as a variation.

Over the past few days we have witnessed the end of the Reagan era... Ronald Reagan and his lock step cadre of conservatives believed that unlimited government deregulation would better serve the American financial machinery than the regulatory environment established by FDR.

Oops.

We are watching the nationalization of the financial industry.

The thing some people seemed to have missed is that because one of the primary purposes of incorporation is to avoid individual financial responsibility beyond the value of is shareholder's investments, corporations require oversight to insure that they are responsible partners in society. Corporations have no feelings of guilt or shame to hold them accountable to higher purpose. You can't punish a corporation for its transgressions by sending it to prison (though when you can prove deliberate fraud by its personnel, they can be individually punished). Investors can scoot away scott-free, leaving huge environmental and societal disasters in their wake.

The Republicans have pushed deregulation to create an environment in which corporations are accountable only to the growth of their shareholders' investment and unlike real people, corporations feel no sense of shame for taking part in outrageous, irresponsible behavior.

Frankly, I was one of those who knew that Ronald Reagan was an idiot. And while I'm not happy to see the dire circumstances that so many Americans face, it can be gratifying for a humble craftsman to look back and know that he was right.

In working intelligently with your hands, you begin to acquire what some have called "common sense."

Today at the Clear Spring School wood shop, the 3rd and 4th grade students worked on symbols of America in preparation for our upcoming election. These will be compiled into a classroom mobile after they are painted and when I am home from Helsinki.

The 1st and second grade students made "Squib". Squib is an owl that is featured in a favorite children's book, Hoots and toots and Hairy Brutes by Larry Schles that the students are currently reading as a class.

My trip to Finland is now being featured on the Fine Woodworking website: Here! Hopefully, this exposure will help to communicate a new understanding of the hands.

The following is the Fine Woodworking condensed version of my paper to be delivered in Helsinki next week and that will also be delivered on the Fine Woodworking website:

Tools, Hands and the Expansion of Intellect
By Doug Stowe

When I was in high school and college I worked summers and holidays in my father’s hardware store and would slip away for an hour or so each afternoon to restore an old car under the guidance of a master craftsman. While home from college my craftsman friend commented, “Doug, I don’t know why you would plan to be a lawyer, when your brains are so clearly in your hands.”

His comment was prophetic. It led me to reexamine my academic path, alerted me to the pleasure I received in learning and working through my hands, and ultimately caused me to question the artificial and unproductive separation between hands-on learning and academic pursuits.

I became a professional craftsman, then author of woodworking books and in 2001 I began a woodworking program for students 1st through 12th grades at the Clear Spring School, a small independent school, with the intention of demonstrating the value of the hands in general education. A short time later I learned of educational Sloyd, and began testing its principles in wood shop. As a craftsman, my purpose isn’t to provide statistical information but to demonstrate methods and principles that would be useful to others interested in providing quality education more capable of emotionally engaging our children.

Tools
Thomas Carlyle said: “Man is a tool-using animal. He can use tools, can devise tools; with these the granite mountains melt into dust before him; he kneads iron as if it were soft paste; seas are his smooth highway, winds and fire his unwearying steeds. Nowhere do you find him without tools; without tools he is nothing, with tools he is all!”

American Psychologist Abraham Maslow proposed an interesting hypothesis: “It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.” In other words, our tools and our understanding of their use controls the scope of our intelligence as well as the range of our actions...

So what if the only tool we offer in education is a computer? That seems to be a question whose answer we already know. Here in the USA children are being introduced to computers in homes as early as two years of age and in schools pressures for early reading and achievement on test scores are displacing previous emphasis on learning through crafts and through play. The evidence linking screen time to a wide range of social and developmental disorders is stronger than the evidence linking smoking and lung cancer.

Dr. Glenn Kleiman is the director of the William and Ida Friday Institute and as former director of the Education Development Center, Inc. was responsible for some of the first educational software in mathematics. He stated the following about my Wisdom of the Hands program at Clear Spring School:

…children should have lots of experience with real tools and real materials. Virtual environments should be an addition to, not a substitute for, hands-on activities of all types. I developed a middle school math curriculum some years ago. When testing it, we found many grade 8 students who had never used a ruler or other measuring devices. They had seen them in books, but never used them. The importance of concrete experiences has often been missed in text-based education practices also. When utilizing computer based curriculum we believe that students should have experience with physical materials first.

The Hands
As schools have attempted to become more efficient in the process of education, children have been confined to desks with hands stilled, essentially blocking their successful engagement in the process of learning.

Current research in the new field of embodied cognition recognizes that the whole body takes part in the processing of information and human intelligence. The idea that human knowledge is “brain based” no longer provides an accurate view of who we are or how we learn. One of the areas of research involves the use of gesture. Work led by Susan Goldin-Meadow, a psychology professor at the University of Chicago, has found that children given arithmetic problems that normally would be too difficult for them are more likely to get the right answer if they're told to gesture while thinking. In fact, students who can use gesture in the solution of algebraic formulas have been shown to be 4 times more likely to get the right answer. Studies by Helga Noice, a psychologist at Elmhurst College, and her husband Tony Noice, an actor and director, found that actors have an easier time remembering lines their characters utter while gesturing, or simply moving.

The interrelationship between hand and tool
Charles H. Ham wrote in 1886, “the axe, the saw, the plane, the hammer, the square, the chisel, and the file. These are the universal tools of the arts, and the modern machine shop is an aggregation of these rendered automatic and driven by steam.”

In essence, tools are extensions of the basic motions and capacities of the human hand through the application of mind. As shown by the drawings at left from R.J Drillis Folk Norms and Biomechanics, the hands have been the fundamental means through which the world has been shaped and measured.
While the metric system is based on relative abstraction, earlier concrete systems of measure- ment were based on observation of the human hand and other parts of the human body. So what is it about the hands that would enable their movement to engage the intellect and make our learning more effective? The answer to that question may be of less importance than the question, How do we get our children’s hands involved in their learning?

The Demonstration at Clear Spring School
At Clear Spring School, we engage our children’s hands in learning and test Maslow’s hypothesis through the making of tools. Some of the tools enable children to do work, while others are used to expand the children’s understanding of concepts. Some are used for investigation and demonstration of scientific principles, some are used for organizing and collecting data and still others provide additional interest in classroom activities. Each project is planned in cooperation with core classroom teachers to integrate with current studies.

•Working tools are those that provide the children opportunity to do other projects, often involving crafts. Examples are looms for weaving, knives for carving, pens for learning cursive, and pencil sharpeners among others.
•Conceptual study tools include geometric solids for the study of geometry, math manipulatives, models of the solar system, puzzle maps for study of geography and plate tectonics, and abacuses for doing math problems and developing numerancy.

•Investigatory tools include windmills for studying meteorology, bug boxes and nets for catching insects, and projectile launchers for the study of trigonometry and physics.

•Organizational tools include collection boxes for the collection and display of scientific specimens, desk accessories for children’s desks, and more.

In addition, the children of all ages have a love of making toys and we use toys as tools to expand interest in specific areas of study. As examples, the children have made trains and various animals inspired by their reading. We have made dinosaurs inspired by their study of dinosaurs. as well as boats for the study of the sea, and cars and trucks for the study of economics and transportation. Much of the success of the program is rooted in the close relationship between classroom teachers and the wood shop.

The Key to our success
The fact that our Clear Spring School classroom teachers are part of the planning process, often suggesting possible projects, leads them to become active wood shop participants, working alongside the students, demonstrating their own engagement in the learning process. Rather than the wood shop being an isolated school activity, it is successfully integrated at all grade levels.

People have asked about how I find time to do the things I do. It is easy. Turn off the TV.

It is interesting that television is harmful to our children, but it is also harmful to our culture as illustrated by this clipping from this week's Time Magazine, an issue dedicated to calling our nation to renewed service. Television distorts our values, but perhaps equally significant, it leaves us idle when we could be serving and making instead. In other words, cut your television time down to the barest bones and you will have time available to build, renew and serve. One of the great places to start is in the wood shop. Children who have the opportunity to explore their creative capacity in the wood shop are more confident at solving problems of all kinds in real life. So in your free time created by turning off the TV, take your son or daughter out to the garage and make something. Don't have a wood shop? Get a couple knives and whittle. It is a small start that leads to greater things.

This last weekend, we were hit by the tail end of Hurricane Ike, leaving hundreds of homes in and around Eureka Springs without power. Watching the crews at work, confidently erecting new poles and lines and removing downed trees gives a sense of the dignity and importance of such work.

Yesterday and today, both Clear Spring School and our Carnegie Public Library have been without power. At the library, my wife Jean and her enthusiastic assistants led library patrons by flashlight all day to keep them stocked with reading material.

There are those who would lead you to believe that small town values lead one to ban books, kill moose, hunt wolves by air, lie consistently and exaggerate your importance in community and national affairs while depriving the rights of others to control their own lives. They've been watching the wrong town.

I would suggest a visit to the Eureka Springs Carnegie Public Library this morning would be the best way to see real small town values in action. My wife is far more qualified to be nominated and to serve as Vice President than the ridiculous Republican nominee. Leading children and adults to knowledge by flashlight is heroic.

John Deal sent an article by Charles Murray, W.H. Brady Scholar from the American Enterprise Institute. Are Too Many People Going to College? Pay particular attention to the following:

There has never been a time in history when people with skills not taught in college have been in so much demand at such high pay as today, nor a time when the range of such jobs has been so wide. In today's America, finding a first-rate lawyer or physician is easy. Finding first-rate skilled labor is hard.

He concluded his article with the following: "What I have just described is the system that we have in place. There must be a better way." so I have written him about the Wisdom of the Hands.