Froebel's early teaching experience...

In 1807 Froebel began as tutor for three boys for the Von Holzhausen family. The father gave them a small piece of land to cultivate on their own. He said,

"Their highest joy was to give their parents and me fruits from their garden. Oh, how their eyes glistened when they could do it. Beautiful plants and little shrubs from the field, the great garden of God, were planted and cared for in the little gardens of the children"

A reader sent the photo at left of a box he made following instructions from my book and video Basic Box Making. He wrote:

"This weekend I finally took the plunge and followed your book as closely as I could, and the box turned out great! When I gave it to my wife, she was speechless!" I learned a lot making it, and I'm looking forward to my next one!"

There is no difference between the feelings that adults get in making something of useful beauty, and the feelings of children upon having made or grown something of tangible value to adults. The following is from the Paradise of Childhood, as it tells the story of Friedrich Froebel's life and gives insight to the origins of his method.

"In those days which Froebel spent with his pupils in the little country house that had been fitted up for them he sought always to combine labor with instruction and when the boys were busy with hatchet and spade, with oar or fishing tackle, he made every occupation serviceable to awaken their desire for knowledge. And we are told that the regular and moderate method of living which they followed banished all the indolence and helpless dependence of the children, so that in a short time they improved wonderfully in health and strength and the keenness with which they enjoyed life was greatly increased.

"When, however, autumn approached, with its dark days, long evenings and bad weather, considerable time was given to the practice of music and drawing. But here were still unoccupied hours which in summer had been devoted to rural occupations. How could they be spent pleasantly and profitably? Referring to his experience at this time Froebel says: 'When my pupils came to me with some new demand I asked myself, 'What did you do when a a boy? What happened to you to quicken your impulse for activity and representation? By what means was this impulse at that age most fitly satisfied? Then out of my earliest boyhood something came to me which gave to me at that moment all that I needed. It was the simple art of imprinting, on smooth paper signs and forms by regular lines.' He also remembered how he had tried to keep himself busy with all kinds of braided work from paper and binding twine, and he resolved to try this occupation with the boys.

"In carrying out this plan he was brought at once to a realizing sense of the crudeness with which the unpracticed hand does its work, how poorly the will is master of the finger-ends under such circumstances, and how inaccurately the eye observes. Consequently he deigned a few preparatory exercises for training the hand and eye, so that the boys could undertake their pasteboard work. Be began with folding and the separating and pasting of papers. He also let them work with twine, till they became experts in making nets and game bags. In these occupation they had to bring into practice what they learned in drawing, arithmetic, and geometry. Later in the season, they did some woodwork."

Have you ever thought of making your own nets or wondered how fishermen and games keepers were able to do so? The video at below shows one of the things the boys in Froebel's care did for their own amusement and intellectual development.The following video shows how to make the tools you will need for net making. An additional video shows an even simpler method.

Make, fix and create...

making bows...

Students need to find ways to cope under difficult circumstances. But schools should offer these opportunities in the first place. In this video you will find a young man who was driven by a compulsion to escape the pressures of the Korean school system, and learned from his outside the classroom activity to be a philosopher. It's just what Jean Jacques Rousseau said would happen. "Put a young man in a workshop, his hands will work to the benefit of his brain and he will become a philosopher while thinking himself only a craftsman." Larry, Thanks for the link.

Every seven years Clear Spring School goes through a process of re-accreditation and we are finalizing reports and preparing for a team of visiting educators to come in April. When Friedrich Froebel's school was visited and assessed in 1824, the inspector found:

"Self activity of mind is the first law of the institution; therefore the kind of instruction given there does not make the young mind a strong box into which as early as possible all kinds of coin of the most different values and coinage, such as are now current in the world, are stuffed; but slowly, continuously gradually and always inwardly, that is according to a connection founded upon the nature of the human mind, the instruction steadily goes on, without any tricks, from the simple to the complex, from the concrete to the abstract, so well-adapted to the child and his needs that he goes as readily to his learning as to his play."

This is what we expect our visiting team to discover at the Clear Spring School.

Make, fix and create...

oiling boxes

I've worked for days to reach the point at which I spend a quiet day out of doors applying Danish oil to boxes. The weather is lovely. The autumn colors in the woods surrounding my home are sublime. One more coat on a few boxes and they will be ready to ship on Monday morning.

I've continued reading Milton Bradley's 1907 Quarter Century edition of the Paradise of Childhood, that includes a large section on the life of Friedrich Froebel. It helps to understand his method if you see it in context to his life, just as it helps a beginning teacher to come to terms with teaching through an understanding of the history and evolution of the theories that have shaped modern education.

On the other hand, I can understand why universities don't teach the history of education, for if they were to do so, teachers would be inclined toward adopting progressive methods and become radicals and thorns in the side of administrators who are concerned only for test scores and not about releasing the natural enthusiasm children have for learning.

Frank Lloyd Wright was one of those who attested to the value of Kindergarten. He said, referring to Milton Bradley Kindergarten Blocks his mother purchased for him in the 1876 Philadelphia Worlds Fair Kindergarten exhibit: "The maple-wood blocks...are in my fingers to this day,"

Maya Angelou addressed standardized testing on MSNBC, in an interview with Andrea Mitchell. Our current educational culture is killing our children's interest in reading and in learning. Wood shops can help to put that love back. Our fixation on standardized testing is making a mockery of education. All Americans should see this interview.

Make, fix and create...

Today in the wood shop...

I have been working toward this point for days, getting products ready to assemble and sand so that holiday orders can be filled. I navigate between days at school and time in my own shop, sometimes doing a bit of time in each. The following is from the Paradise of Childhood, Quarter Century Edition, 1907 published by Milton Bradley:

"Free invention, creating, is the culminating point of mental independence. We lead the child to this eminence by degrees. Sometimes accident has led to invention and production of the new, but Froebel has provided a systematically graded method by which infancy may at once start upon the road to this eminent aim of inventing.

If the full consciousness, the clear conception of its aim is at first wanting, it is prepared by every step onward. The objects present and the material employed, afford the child, under the guidance of a mature mind, the alphabet of art, as well as that of knowledge, and it is worth while there to remark that history shows that art comes before science in all human development." (emphasis mine)

Testing of children has revealed a rapid decline in measurable creativity commencing their first days of school.

It seems that teachers and schools prefer quiet, measurably intelligent kids, to creative and potentially disruptive ones, and that the system is designed to advance one kind of child and squelch the other.

As we watch our decline from the smartest toward among the dumbest of all nations, we can point to our schools as the reason why. But can you imagine a system of education that fosters children's creativity, that recognizes that their meaningful introduction to science must be derived from the arts, and that children are at their best when they are inventing? Friedrich Froebel did that. With his guidance we too, can imagine schooling in which the hands are at the center of learning and children become instruments in the creation of useful beauty.

Alfie Kohn posted a dozen essential guidelines for educators that go along the lines of what you read here.

Make, fix and create...

purposeful awakening of beauty...

In the mid to late 1800's Kindergartens in America spread like fire, in part because of enthusiasts like Milton Bradley. He turned his manufacturing experience toward the making of Froebel's gifts. That in itself was a major endeavor. There were 20 of them. To put the use of color into children's hands, he manufactured crayons in competition with Binney and Smith. He also published the "Paradise of Childhood", a book that explained in detail how the gifts were to be used as "occupations". Those who read here on a regular basis, may remember how Educational Sloyd training used models (objects of useful beauty  made by students) and exercises (tool methods that enabled the child to make the models.) The similarity between Kindergarten and Educational Sloyd (derived from Kindergarten) was the relationship between the concrete form and the abstract activity that is derived from it (in the case of kindergarten) or enables it (in the case of Educational Sloyd).

Both Kindergarten and Educational Sloyd were very much concerned with utilizing the child' innate inclinations to discover beauty in their surroundings and to make it in service of others. In fact, modern day kindergartens in which children are being pushed to read, have nothing in common with the original Kindergartens, just as in most cases school wood shops as they evolved fell far short of the Educational Sloyd ideals. The following is from the Paradise of Childhood, Quarter Century Edition.

"Nothing is plainer to the careful observer of the child's nature than the desire of the little mind to observe and imbibe all its surroundings with all its senses simultaneously. It wishes to see, to hear, to feel, all beautiful, joyful, and pleasant things, and then strives to reproduce them as far as its limited faculties will admit. To receive and give back, is life, life is what the child desires, what it should be led to accomplish with a view to its own development. Eyes and ears seek the beautiful, the sense of taste and smell enjoy the agreeable, and the impression which this beautiful and agreeable make upon the child's mind calls forth in the child's innermost soul, the desire, nay, the necessity of production, representation, or formation. If we should neglect providing he means to gratify such desire, a full development of the heart of the individual, a higher taste for the ideal in it, never could be the result."

While modern day kindergartens are reduced to a single year, and have now become concerned with getting a leg up on reading rather than play, the original Kindergarten was proposed to last 3 or 4 years in the life of the child, and was concerned much more with the cultivation of a sense of beauty, harmonious relationship and craftsmanship rather than with just reading and math. Can you imagine schools in which the creation of beauty and the awakening of the child's sense of it came first? Can you imagine the culture that would arise form such schools?

Make, fix and create...

Fiske...

I've been named to present the Fiske Memorial Lecture this year with the Northeast Woodworkers Association, as described in their November newsletter.Thursday, November 14, 2013 7PM, Clifton Park Senior Center, Vischer Ferry Road, Clifton Park, NY In addition I'll present two days of box making class on November 15-16.

"Doug Stowe has been selected as the 2013 recipient of the Fiske Award and will be honored at the November general meeting. He will be the 18th to receive the award. Among previous awardees are Silas Kopf, Phil Lowe, Teri Masaschi, Ernie Conover, Hank Gilpin and Garrett Hack."

The Fiske Memorial Lecture is named in honor of Milan Fiske, one of the eight founding members of the Northeast Woodworking Association (NWA). The public is invited.

I have been reading The Paradise of Childhood, 25th anniversary edition published and edited by Milton Bradley in 1907. I found it as an old book to supplement the electronic version I downloaded from Google Books. It's an ex-library copy from the Philadelphia Normal School for Girls and has the smell that arises from old books that have rested on the shelf too long with their words ignored. And it has evidence left by other eager readers from over 100 years ago.

In a brief section on kindergarten culture it offers this Latin explanation "Nihil est in intellectu, quod non antea fuerit in sensu", "Nothing is in the understanding that was not earlier in the senses." ... That's why children need to be doing real things in school (art, music, wood shop, laboratory science and more) in addition to reading, writing, and math.

Definite ideas are to originate as abstractions from perceptions... If they do not originate in such manner they are not the product of one's own mental activity, but simply the consent of the understanding to the ideas of others. By far the greatest part of all acquired knowledge with the mass of the people, is of this kind. Every one, however, even the least gifted, may acquire a stock of fundamental perceptions, which shall serve as points of relation in the process of thinking. Indefinite or confused fundamental or elementary perceptions prevent understanding words with precision, which is necessary to reflecting on the ideas and thoughts of others with clearness, and appropriating them to one's self. In the fact that a large majority of persons are lacking in clear and distinct fundamental perceptions, we find cause of the existence of so many confused heads, full of the most absurd notions.

In German, there are two forms of knowledge Wissenschaft and Kenntnis with one being from instruction (language based from lecture or from books) and the other from actual experiences through which all the senses would be engaged. The Kindergarten method was to create a set of shared experiences as the foundation for subsequent knowledge, based on the assumption that we learn best, most thoroughly, and to greatest lasting effect, when we learn through our own active engagement in learning. In other words, Hands-on.

Make, fix and create...

Japanese handsaws...

Years ago when I got my first dozuki saw, I was thrilled with the quality of its cut. I was also somewhat dismayed that its teeth were fragile. After a time, it was missing a few teeth in important places, and I had read that a Japanese carpenter could take the saw down to a flat blade and start over with the filing and setting of new teeth. Not having a clue as to the high level of expertise required, I tried it with files that I ordered from a mail order tool company. I did a hack job of it. Besides, as I learned later, the Japanese hand saws supplied to the American woodworking market were hardened steel and not suitable for resharpening in the first place.  That explained why so many teeth had broken off during its use.

Douglas Brooks wrote an excellent article in the last issue of Wooden Boat (234) that goes deeply into the subject of Japanese hand saws, some of which are specially designed for the making of wooden boats. He explains that a high quality Japanese saw made with softer steel that can be resharpened and reset may sell for $500.00 or more. Needless to say, the saws we use at Clear Spring School and the dozuki saws in my shop are not of that quality.

In any case, Brooks' article is a must read for anyone fascinated as I am about the use of tools of any kind.

Today in the Clear Spring School wood shop our upper elementary school students will be working on wooden habitat for their new gerbils. The high school students will be working on their cahones.

Make, fix and create...

even on your worst day...

A simple plexiglass cover over the router bit allows me to safely and accurately fit pieces of spalted wood inlay into grooves cut to exact size. Note the impossibility of getting my fingers into the router bit. By making things safe, I can keep doing this into my 90s.

One of the complications of craftsmanship is that it takes a sense of ever increasing expertise to engage the flow of nuerohormones that result in feelings of ecstasy. We are led to engage in ambitious projects and risky projects by personal egotism, the desire for recognition and by the intensity of our engagement when we are doing difficult and challenging things.

On the other hand, it makes plain sense to plan some of your work so that it can be done successfully and safely, even on your worst day. The pleasure you can find in simple work will bring balance to your life, and if you have simple work to do your wood shop will become a place that will call to you and welcome you even when the outside world seems to be at odds with your spirit, and even when more complex projects aren't working out so well.

I spent the day yesterday in my shop inlaying box lids, pencil cups and business card holders, and have more to do today. These small products are not my most glorious endeavor. They are not difficult to make because I've refined my techniques through years of their making.  I can walk to the shop and spend hours doing what I am doing today, and as the work passes through my hands, I can find a sense of inner piece.

Years ago when I began making inlaid wooden boxes, I realized that I would be doing what I was doing until the end of my days. That's partly a matter of choice, in that I like what I do, and partly a matter of circumstance in that there are no guaranteed retirement plans for self-employed craftsmen. But the skills and understanding of technique in the application of mind and hand to material in the making of beautiful and useful things offers service to the spirit as well as to the bank account. And making of small things has become easy enough for me that I plan to do it when more ambitious projects are out of my reach.

In the meantime, we are waiting for the Administrative Law Judge to make her decision on the AEP/SWEPCO EHV power line through Eureka Springs application. Utility companies are now facing what some have called "The Death Spiral" in which their high prices are no longer competitive with the developing solar industry and folks begin leaving the grid in droves. AEP is currently the world's largest commercial producer of greenhouse gasses, and they way they've treated my community, the death spiral seems appropriate. When it comes to the death spiral, they've earned it.

Make, fix and create...

3rd place...

My gallery talk at the Zarrow Center, students from JBU

I received the 3rd place award for best hat at the Mad Hatter's Ball last night in Eureka Springs. The Mad Hatter's Ball is an annual fundraiser for the Eureka Springs School of the Arts. My daughter Lucy designed my hat to be a protest against AEP/SWEPCO's invasion of our small community. I think I got votes of sympathy for our cause. No one wants them to do what they want to do to us.

Yesterday I drove to Tulsa to give my gallery talk at the Zarrow Art Center. It would have been poorly attended but for a group of students from John Brown University who were in the neighborhood at the time and walked in off the street. The students were taking a class called "the arts for non-artists."

It is interesting to me  that the arts are considered by most to be something separate from their own lives. In schools the arts are considered separate from academic disciplines... as though the arts are in some way disconnected from math, science, psychology, sociology, and all else. What utter nonsense that is. All students should be deeply engaged in the arts.

It was said that in Bali they have no arts, they do everything as well as they can. Here we have arts, because there is a tendency to do things to the point of sufficiency, rather than to a point of excellence. I find examples of this everywhere I look. In the AEP/SWEPCO Environmental Impact Statement, they tried to offer the minimal amount of information to get by and squeeze their proposal through the regulatory process. In the judge's order she asked whether the EIS was "sufficient to meet the requirements of Arkansas State Law." And if you read the Arkansas State Law, you'll find as I did that it's sufficient only enough to provide lawyers an opportunity to argue both sides in court.

Testing and standardized testing in schools creates an environment in which getting by is OK. The arts and craftsmanship engage students in pursuits in which there are no limits to possible growth. Without the arts, we dwell in persistent mediocrity.

An art teacher friend of mine had noted that his time with his kids was but a pinpoint in time. What could he possibly accomplish in that pinpoint in time? But a child's engagement in craftsmanship and participation in the arts can inspire work and shape attitudes and relationships for a lifetime.

Pass the saw between and edges will be cut to fit tight.

Today in the wood shop, I'm working on boxes to fill gallery orders before the holiday season. I am behind as usual. And I always keep discovering new ways to improve the accuracy of my work. For instance, I now fit inlay by laying two parts on the table saw sled and pass the blade between. This innovation was brought to mind by a Japanese boat building technique called suriawase in which a saw is passed between two boards to bring them into perfect alignment.

Make, fix and create....

Bauen Kleine Schränke...

Publication rights to my most recent book, Building Small Cabinets, have been sold to Holtzwerken for translation and publication in German. It may be a while before it comes out, and I don't know for certain what the title will be... perhaps "Bauen Kleine Schränke," but I'll have to wait months to learn for sure.

This is the second of my books to be printed by Holtzwerken in German. The first was Kästen & Schachteln, perfekt konstruieren und bauen.

Today I'll be traveling to Tulsa to do a gallery talk on my work and that of Steve Miller, Robyn Horn and John Horn. The talk will focus on the interpersonal connections that influence the creative lives of artists and will attempt to address the full range of intellectual tools available to us as we make beautiful, useful and meaningful things.

Make, fix and create...

vague...

I'll be in the Zarrow Gallery, University of Tulsa for a gallery talk at 12 Noon, tomorrow, October 25. It's free and the public is invited. I will be discussing the work of sculptor, Robyn Horn, printers, Steve Miller and John Horn, and my own work, as well as the creative interconnections and collaborations between artists. RSVP, Cindy Williams  918-631-4402 or cindy-williams@utulsa.edu.

Vague:

1. Not clearly expressed; inexplicit.
2. Not thinking or expressing oneself clearly.
3. Lacking definite shape, form, or character; indistinct: saw a vague outline of a building through the fog.
4. Not clear in meaning or application. See Synonyms at ambiguous.
5. Indistinctly felt, perceived, understood, or recalled; hazy: a vague uneasiness.

In a school culture of routine testing and particularly one in which standardized testing is allowed to be determinant in all things, 80% right is OK. Ninety percent is better, and almost completely right (like 98%) gives a student marks that propel him or her toward a glorious destiny in the halls of academic success. Students taking standardized tests are encouraged to guess the answers if they don't know them. The purpose is simply to advance one child over another and sort them out for college and careers... rather than to prepare them for engagement in the discovery of and adherence to truth. Verisimilitude is the name of the game. Stephen Colbert calls it truthiness. It looks like truth and it's close enough to fool the common folk. Keeping common folk fooled may be a hidden agenda in American education.

In box making, there are no right or wrong answers, but still truth can be found. How to hinge lids without relying on store bought ones is a question that a middle school teacher asked in this morning's email.

There are lots of hard ways to install hinges that are easier if you are a skilled woodworker. Pin hinges is one method that comes to mind. Pin hinges with the pins drilled in from the sides of the box into the  lid require very precise set-ups on the drill press or horizontal borer, and require precision in the cutting of parts. Let them go there when they've shown a great interest and have developed skill. What I've suggested is the simple pivot lid as shown in the sketchup illustration above. The pins for attaching the lid are available from Lee Valley. The idea here is to go from the simple to the complex, from the easy to more difficult, and from the concrete to the abstract... principles of Educational Sloyd. My students assemble this box with nails.

Today in my wood shop, I am making some of my standard boxes to fill gallery orders prior to the holiday season.

Make, fix and create...

The Paradise of Childhood...

As I've mentioned before, manual arts training was seen by early educators as a way to extend Froebel's teaching methods throughout the child's school experience. Why should the very best of education be limited to one's first year in school? And then why, after such a great introduction, should the rest of a child's school life be a torturous experience? Anyone wondering what those teaching methods were would benefit from the book that Milton Bradley published as a 25th anniversary edition of The Paradise of Childhood.

Originally, Bradley had been a small manufacturer of board games, and when he met Edward Wiebé, he was not all that impressed by the book that Wiebé wanted him to publish. Then he met another early advocate of kindergarten who impressed him thoroughly, and led him to reconsider. He published Wiebé's The Paradise of Childhood, and began making the various gifts used in the kindergarten teaching method. The 25th anniversary edition includes a huge amount of information as to how the method is used.

Children should be as thoroughly versed in human creative methodologies as they are in reading and math. Children educated in their own creativity represent our human species species at a new level.

The book is rich in visual images in explanation of Froebel's gifts, and also in human understanding as follows:

"The fantasy of the child is inexhaustibly rich in inventing new forms. It creates gardens, yards, stables with horses and cattle, household furniture of all kinds, beds with sleeping brothers and sisters in them, tables, chairs, sofas, etc., etc. If several children combine their individual building they produce large structures, perfect barnyards with all outbuildings in them, nay, whole villages and towns. The idea that in union there is strength, and that by co-operation great things may be accomplished, will thus early become manifest to the young mind."

Today in the school wood shop, my first, second and third grade students will continue working on independent projects and my middle school students will continue making book rests using hand tools.If one were to wonder what Froebel had in mind, you would find some of it in the CSS woodshop.

Make, fix and create...

Milton Bradley...

Most Americans will know the name Milton Bradley as being the original manufacturer of such games as Candyland, Operation, and Battleship. The man, Milton Bradley was also an early American advocate of Kindergartens, published books about Friedrich Froebel, and used his manufacturing capacity to make and market Froebel's gifts.

In 1890, he wrote the following about manual arts education.

"Teach the pupils to make things themselves; things which will be useful and which will be sold to admiring friends;' say the ardent advocates of this new application of an old idea.

"These people, however, although they include a good may educators of note, labor under a serious misapprehension regarding the end of manual training as it is understood by the thoughtful promoters of the so-called new Education. Indeed, it can be safely said that manual training is everywhere suffering form the almost universal misconception on the part of the p public that its end and aim is the teaching of trades, that it robs the pupil of certain hours which would otherwise be give to the common or higher branches for the sake of teaching him to 'make things' which are supposed to belong solely to the carpenter's or blacksmith's shop. But manual training proper, considered in its educational relations, must be at once and for all time separated from the idea of immediate financial, or money getting results. In other words, manual training in the public schools must be kept clear and distinct from trades schools or the teaching of trades.

"The mental education which we undertake to give our children at public cost is supposed to be equally valuable to the pupil whether he becomes a business man, manufacturer, lawyer, clergyman, physician or teacher. On the same principle the manual training which we are seeking to incorporate as a part of our public-school system is intended to benefit alike the future carpenter, machinist, blacksmith, manufacturer or general mechanical engineer; nay more, it is expected to help the boys who are to follow commercial or literary vocations just as much in rounding out their education and equipping them for life as it does the other class. For we can never 'send the whole boy to school' till we give those who are destined for the mechanical class of the world's workers a fair mental training, and also impart to those who are to make up the professional class the fundamental ideas of hand culture."

Today I've been working my way through edited chapters of my new book and beginning to write needed sidebar material. It is not as much fun as sawing and making things, but it ill help others to do so. At noon on Friday, October 25,  I will give a gallery talk at the Zarrow Art Center in Tulsa, on the show of my work that will be closing on Saturday. Please join me if you are in the Tulsa area, and bring a brown bag lunch.

On the SWEPCO front, I got an email from a company I've bought hinges from since 1978. They now have enough solar cells to run their meter backwards while manufacturing is in full swing. AEP/SWEPCO has made a mess of their own customer relations, and we hope they go to hell in a handbasket. It's what they deserve, and as they are rapidly proving themselves to be against our best interests, we can get along without them. If Craft, Inc. can go solar in Massachusetts, we can go them one better in sunny Arkansas.

Make , fix and create...

impulses...

In designing an education based on an understanding of the child... Robert Keable Row suggested that the child's impulses be considered...

"the impulses to activity, the impulse to get sense stimulations, the impulse to motor activity, to play, to imitate, to construct or to make things, to experiment or see what things will do in different conditions, the social impulse, the aesthetic impulse, the ownership impulse. ...the impulse to think and to work. ...These are all united in the general impulse to activity, with a view to solving problems, satisfying needs, attaining desired controls."

He notes that all of these find expression through the manual arts.

One of the things I enjoy most in the school wood shop, or my own, is making tools that are useful in my teaching and in my work. these are simple wedge type marking gauges. They are easy to make.

Today in the wood shop at Clear Spring School will be making things from their own imaginations and my high school students will be working on their cahones.

Make, fix and create...

Manual arts and small children...

From Robert Keable Row, The Educational Meaning of Manual Arts and Industries, 1909...

"Because the sensory and motor impulses are usually strong in young children they present a condition that must be met. Generally the children will strive very hard to find some way of expressing these dominant impulses. If the school does not provide for their expression so much the worse for the school; it has a problem in repression. If it succeeds in repression, so much the worse for the children, It is true that, under the right conditions, many kinds of children's games do much for the development of motor control, but it must be remembered that play has its limitations. Play alone can never express the impulse to make, to decorate, to own, to design and plan, to produce something of value. For expression and development along these lines the young child needs much regular training in various forms of manual arts."

If we fail to take advantage of children's natural inclinations toward industry, or are in fact successful at suppressing or diverting their natural inclinations, what kind of world will we have made for them?

Today I will work on edited materials for my new book, ans spend some time at school preparing for Monday's classes.

Make, fix and create...

by Scripture and Bennett...

The following is from Edward W. Scripture from "Manual Training and Development," Manual Training Magazine, October 1899.

"1. Manual training develops the intellectual side of the mind as nothing else can. 2. Manual training develops character as nothing else can. 3. Manual training furnishes the pupil with real knowledge; it teaches him something. The laboratory method -- the method of learning by doing -- is after all the only method of learning anything, whether it be drawing, or Greek, or chemistry or mathematics. The attempt to commit facts to memory by reading books is hopeless. What is memorized in this way fades in a short time, leaving little or no trace."

From Charles A. Bennett's article, "The Development of Appreciation," Manual Training Magazine, January 1907.

"Two of the direct results of art instruction and manual training, are first, power to do and second, ability to appreciate what is done by others."

One of the assumptions is that children (and adults) can be taught to appreciate art by looking at it, but the greatest appreciation comes from having made the attempt to accomplish real works of useful beauty.

Joseph Park noted:

"The importance of industrial work as a subject which helps to give definite ideas of the value of toil and the real worth of things that are made by the sweat of the brow cannot be overestimated. The rich boy works along with the poor boy, each endeavoring to produce something which will express tangible results. Manual training work to be valuable must be strenuous. Boys must be made to plane and saw and sweat. They must produce shaving that have the artistic curl of the craftsman, not meaningless chips. Shopwork should give ability to plan and execute work according to good technique."

Make, fix and create...

morbid thinkers and miserable workers...

From Educational Woodworking for Home and School, by Joseph C. Park, 1909

"We are always in these days endeavoring to separate intellect and manual labor; we want one man to be always thinking, and another to be always working, and we call one a gentleman, and the other an operative; whereas the workman ought often to be thinking, and the thinker often to be working, and both should be gentlemen in the best sense. As it is, we make both ungentle, the one envying, the other despising, his brother; and the mass of society is made up of morbid thinkers and miserable workers. -- John Ruskin"

Following the rise of manual arts training, it underwent years of decline to reach this day. The attitude of the society described by Ruskin crept into schools. Manual arts classes became the dumping ground for kids who were not planning to go to college, whereas they should have been the fertile ground for intellectual development and moral engagement for all kids. Manual arts teachers found their place in rescuing potential drop outs, while the true purpose of manual arts training was brushed aside for the sake of expedience and economy. Why train students in the finer things if they were to become tradesmen? Why train college bound students in the practical arts if they were destined to greater things? And so the public schools became a place in which the absurd standards of an unjust society as described by Ruskin were coldly and purposefully thrust into future generations.

At this point, I just want to remind readers that manual arts training, whether at home or in school, has a noble purpose that schools and our society have forgotten.

"The most colossal improvement which recent years have seen in secondary education lies in the introduction of manual training schools; not because they will give us a people more handy and practical for domestic life and better skilled in trades, but because they will give us citizens with an entirely different intellectual fiber.

"Laboratory work and shop work engender a habit of observation. They confer precision; because, if you are doing a thing, you must do it definitely right or definitely wrong. They give honesty; for, when you express yourself by making things, and not by using words, it becomes impossible to dissimulate your vagueness or ignorance by ambiguity. They beget a habit of self-reliance, they keep the interest and attention always cheerfully engaged, and reduce the teacher's disciplinary functions to a minimum" -- William James

Make, fix and create...

every seven years...

Every seven years, Clear Spring School goes through our accreditation review, and this is the year we will have a visiting team come from ISACS to go through every thing with a fine toothed comb. The team will come form other independent schools. There is an incredible value in this process. Before they arrive we have to look closely at what we do, and make certain that everything we do aligns with the mission of the school.

I have been looking at what I do, and attempting to write a report on it, that will be short, succinct, accurate and readily understood by educators who are well equipped to walk into a room and assess what's happening from an educational standpoint.

This morning I'm thinking about craftsmanship. David Henry Feldman, PhD. had written a lovely treatise, "The Child as Craftsman." in 1976. It explores the natural inclination all children have to excel to the best of their ability in something. Feldman had made a study of "gifted and talented" children, but the inclination toward craftsmanship is much more of a universal principle in child development. Offering children the opportunity to discover how craftsmanship is constructed, and that it is constructed piece by piece through thorough repetition, gradual effort toward refinement is one of the many things that children learn in the Clear Spring School wood shop. Once discovered the values of craftsmanship can be applied to anything.

In the wood shop, I'm ready to apply Danish oil to box towers, sanded as shown.

On the power line front, we are winning thanks to friends like Faith and Michael.

Make, fix and create...

today, again, as yesterday...

I expect to be stuck at my desk for most of the day, as I write the text and captions for another chapter. I did one yesterday and plan to do one more today with this one being the last in the book.

Writing step-by-step is vastly different from the writing in which you just make stuff up. Parts of things actually do have to fit without suspension of disbelief. Readers have to be able to take what I've written and apply it in their own lives and in their own workshops. And so while it may not be necessary to trust the author of fiction, there is real trust involved in how-to writing.

We've all read fiction that leads us to a point of disbelief, and some authors do a good job of engaging us in fantasy and imagination, carrying us beyond credibility.  How-to writers engage readers in creative imagination, not fantasy, and the real object is not to engage readers in what will never be, but in what can be, and in what we each can be and do, as the makers of real, beautiful and useful things.

There is nothing fictional about the hands and no fiction in what I've told you about them. The use of the hands in the crafting of beautiful and useful objects is the foundation of human intelligence and human culture. You can take my word for it, or do something to test these principles by taking matters into your own hands.

You may wonder how to get started and to change your modus operandi from that of consumer to maker. It is actually easy.

American Workshop near Minneapolis is planning a "honey-do weekend" in which aspiring wood workers can bring project ideas and get professional help in bringing their plans to fulfillment. October 24 is the planning day, and then October 25-27 are available to get you started (and maybe finished if your creative notions are not too difficult or complex).

Make, fix and create...

this morning...

This morning I'm going through photos and writing captions and chapter text for the last but not least chapters of my new book on box making. Did you know that box making is more fun than writing about it? I can just walk into the shop and get busy, an it beats sitting at a desk. The project I'm working on remembers for me right where I left off, even if I've been pulled out of the shop for up to a week or longer.

I've been noticing that when my kids at school are working on a project of their own design, they simply walk into class and pick up where they left off. That is a marvel, as I know that many teachers have to ride their kids to get much done. Often when the project is my idea, I have to work a bit harder to get kids in motion at the beginning of class.

A reader sent me a link to this play set, with the suggestion it might be good for a child or grandchild to see what school wood shop might be like. For $15.00, I would prefer that you buy your child or grandchild some real tools, and spend some time working with them instead of wasting their time and your money.

Make, fix and create...