faced with revolt

The New York State Education Department has faced a revolt among parents and students with as many as 20% opting out of standardized tests. Some parents are opposed to the tests generally and some are opposed to the use of the tests to evaluate teachers. So, the NYSED, knowing that things for them will get worse before better came up with a toolkit of resources that superintendents and principles might use to convince parents that the tests are OK.

The Washington Post chose an ironic photograph to illustrate their article on NYSED's attempt to put testing back on track. Surely the NYSED's idea of a toolkit would not be a thing you would find hanging in Grampa's basement wood shop. You might get the idea from the Washinton Post's choice of photo that the New York State Education Department is a collection of dull blades and their toolkit little more than a matching set of Taiwanese pliers.

The first line of the Washington Post article by Valerie Strauss was:

This belongs in the youcan’tmakeupthisstuff category. Also in the someoneisactuallygettingpaidtodothis category.

In any case, the photo above is an interesting one, and you may enjoy looking at tools found on someone's  grandfather's basement wall. I am particularly intrigued by flat chisels that have been ground round on the cutting edge. There are several of them, and I doubt that anyone from the NYSED could tell any of us what they might be used for.  I have no idea either. But I do know how to fix American education without standardized tests.

In 1890, T.C Horsefall in the UK wrote of the effects of manual arts training in elementary schools as follows:

Its effect on many of the large class of children who, though not dullards, show lack of interest in, and deficiency in the power to understand, the subjects comprised in the ordinary school-curriculum, has been most beneficial. In their Sloyd-lessons many of these children have found themselves the equals, some more than equals, of companions far their superiors at book work, and have by this gained a confidence in their own ability which has often reacted on their power and their will to conquer their other lessons. Thus many children who, when they first began Sloyd, were distinctly below the average in intelligence, have become under its influence completely "normal." On nearly all children the effect of this kind of training has been so vivifying that, a least, as much progress has been made with other subject, when several hours weekly have been given to Sloyd, as had been made previously when all the school-time was given to them.

The points here are simple. All children are hardwired to learn. Children need to be engaged in concrete activity that engages their hands and thus their minds, also. And if you give students of any age something to do that is worthy of their interest and attention, they will learn at a faster rate and retain learning longer than those students who are confined to desks, and restrained through passive learning. 

Make, fix, create, and assist others in learning likewise.

life without principle

Yesterday I posted on the state of the forests. Thoreau, in his essay Life without Principle said the following:

If a man walk in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer; but if he spends his whole day as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making earth bald before her time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen. As if a town had no interest in its forests but to cut them down!

 I was saddened to hear that National Geographic Magazine has been sold to Fox News and will be under the thumb of Rupert Murdoch. He has a way of utilizing his business properties to distort the truth. In the meantime, National Geographic has been doing some honest reporting on global warming and its effects on forests world wide. The image above is from the magazine and shows a large lignite coal mine in Germany that mines 22 million tons a year and may do so for many years to come. When asked how long the coal mining will go on, a young engineer answered "Very long, I hope. We have enough lignite." And of course, the mining of coal and burning of other fossil fuels is sufficient to shift the climate in ways that will be damaging to human life. Children raised through schooling that leaves them bored and disconnected is a good thing from an industrial standpoint in which people care much more for money than for beauty. A culture of that kind needs industrialized stooges to carry forth in the destruction of planetary resources.

The lignite originally came from ancient forests, compressed underground over millions of years into carbon, thereby sequestering it from the atmosphere. The mining laid waste to the forests and the carbon sequestered beneath those forests, when burned is thence released into the atmosphere to disastrous effect. Had these thousands of acres and billions of tons been left undisturbed, there would have been trees still at work making the planet more inhabitable, not less so. The enormity of the scale of destruction would have been stressful for Thoreau. Have you had spent enough time in schooling to have become immune to feelings about nature and the environment? Each night here in our woods I hear the sound of a barred owl, and last night coyotes. Have you ever heard a coyote before?

I dislike being so ugly on this issue. But schooling has become an industrializing agent in human culture. It is easy for those who've not formed connections to nature, for those who have been purposely sequestered from it, to act as agents in its destruction, and man's as well.

Life without principle is one of Thoreau's finest essays, in which he asks: "Let us consider the way in which we spend our lives." I ask whether we will spend it bent on the exercise of creative powers or to stand powerless in the path of destruction?

On a related subject, a teacher's resignation letter has gone viral on Facebook. It's worth a read.
It points out the inhumane situation that teachers and students face in our industrialized system of education. Children, particularly the youngest, should be caring for animals, making things, planting gardens and learning their important role in the preservation of the planet and its resources.

Make, fix, create, and insist that others learn likewise.

our forests...

 I am off from school this week due to fall break, and have been attending to a long list of small projects. Yesterday I used the tractor to carry leaves from the yard into the forest, and used the return trips to carry firewood to the wood pile for splitting after the weather turns cool.

It has been unseasonably warm in Arkansas, and while I know there are many who deny the relationship between burning fossil fuels and global warming, I am no skeptic of science.

I find it odd that the same folks who deny the research done on climate, still watch the nightly weather report, and check their iPhones for the latest predictions, both of which are based on the same computer modelling technology that helped climate scientists understand what we are doing to our planet.

Exxon Mobil Oil Co. had been the first to predict the massive changes and then spent hundreds of millions to seed doubt. Perhaps their long-term planners saw some benefit to melting the polar ice caps, and were afraid that our concerns for the overall health of the planet would get in their way.

Richard Bazeley sent the one photo of loggers and child with a huge log from the early days of the Australian timber industry. Cutting down a massive tree of that size might give a man a sense of pride accomplishment. But to remove whole forests of such massive trees that took thousands of years to grow gives cause for deep regret. The postcard at the top is from the early part of the 20th century in Arkansas showing enormous white oak logs. If you look carefully at the center of the photo, you can see a human being dwarfed by the massive logs on each car. Judging from the individual's height, each log would be nearly 6 feet in diameter and at least 20 feet long.  White oaks of that size can longer be found in Arkansas. It has been said that in the early days of pioneer settlement of Arkansas, the trees were so large and the shade so deep that there were few understory trees and one could ride on a horse at through the forest at full speed. I wondered that that could be possible as I tried to steer the Kubota through a tangle of brush.   I also hope that my own small swath of forest can be returned to better health. But for a mature hardwood forest to grow can take a hundred years or more, and global warming may have a more pressing effect.

When I first moved to Arkansas, huge swaths of land were being cleared for pasture, and in the city limits of Eureka Springs, trees were being pushed into ravines and burned so that gas stations could be built. South of Eureka Springs, large forest tracts were being sprayed with an agent orange related chemical to kill hardwoods so that faster growing pines might take over. My own response to that onslaught was to carefully use Arkansas hardwoods so that others might discover their beauty. Craftsmanship is one good way to express caring and value.

People think of wood workers as being those who use our forest resources. I have another view. We are stewards who interpret forest resources so that others have a window of understanding that might lead them to reconsider before wasting it all.

Make, fix, create, and assist others in learning likewise.

fixin' it...

Chico Bon Bon. The Monkey with a Tool Belt

I am interested in fixing things, making things, and exercising personal creativity, so while I normally stay away from politics in the blog, this subject hits close to home.

Jeb Bush has claimed his ability to fix things with his new campaign slogan and twitter feed, #Jebcanfix it,  So it might seem natural for me to declare my support for Jeb! But it must  have been an exciting day around the Bush campaign as folks on Twitter noted the various things Jeb had fixed in the past. For instance, as governor of Florida, he and his secretary of state Katherine Harris disenfranchised black voters to fix the election of his brother George W. Bush, and we all know now how well that turned out.

If the past is any indication of how and what Jeb would fix, his campaign should close its doors asap. As governor of Florida, he was a leader in the standardized testing movement. He and his family have major investments in the corporations that sell the tests. In Florida, one school district gave more than 160 tests in the last year. Just think of how much they would have learned if all those children had spent time in wood shop instead?

Fixing things is cool, particularly if you actually have the skills to do real things. But the kind of fixing that Bush has in mind does not involve wrenches or any real tools. Bob the Builder, he's not. He could learn a few things from Chico Bon Bon, the Monkey with a Tool Belt. There are about 4 different books about Chico, by author/illustrator Chris Monroe. In each book, Chico demonstrates his intelligence and compassion solving problems to help his friends and neighbors. So, if we were forced to choose between Jeb! and Chico Bon Bon, my advice is to go with the monkey. #Chico Bon Bon for President.

Testing might not have been such a bad thing, but for the unforeseen consequences of throwing money at schools or denying it, based on performance as measured by standardized tests. Local school districts and state school boards are hungry for money and have demonstrated a willingness to sacrifice children to get it. The impact of Federal dollars is nothing new. In fact, the Smith-Hughes Act in 1917  as described in Charles A. Bennet's History of Manual and Industrial Arts Training led directly to the demise of Educational Sloyd in the US. While the Smith-Hughes act, brought federal money into vocational education and was regarded as a huge triumph by some, it also spelled the end for those idealistic and progressive American educators whose understanding of the connection between the hand and brain had drawn them to conclude that manual training was necessary for all. In essence, the Smith-Hughes Act solidified in law the class structure that plagues us to this day. I think you will find in the sad resignation of Bennett's closing remarks, the disappointment he felt. For Bennett, the most interesting part of the history of Manual and Industrial Education ended with the passing of Smith-Hughes and the eclipse of Educational Sloyd:

The signing of the Smith-Hughes act, thereby creating a federal directing and reimbursing law with reference to certain types of vocational education, was the beginning of a new era in manual and industrial education in the United States and therefore the end of the era concerning which this book was written. Throughout the years of effort to obtain the law, there were three constantly recurring and conflicting interests that had to be harmonized or at least propitiated. One was between the manufacturer and the labor union - each wished to regulate vocational training in order to control the labor market. Then there was the conflict of ideals between those who sought more practical education in the public schools and those who feared that vocational training would lower the standard of cultural education. And finally, when the need for vocational training was admitted, some believed that it could be effective only when separated from the public-school work of general education; while others insisted on the unity of control in public education and saw no good reason for a dual system. The law passed was probably the best compromise that could have been obtained at that time.

Today I will be working in my own shop, and have simply written again to remind my readers that the best education and the one to greatest lasting effect comes when the hands are purposely engaged in learning. If you want to fix your own life, make something. If you want to fix education, teach children to make.

Make, fix, create, and assist others to learn likewise.

shamanic engagement in reality...

Yesterday at our local UU fellowship, one of the members described his experience in the paranormal. What it all comes down to is this: Some people choose to watch for and make use of and find meaning in the coincidental events that happen in all our lives, and some choose to regard such things as meaningless and unworthy of attention.

I was reminded during the shaman's presentation of Froebel, and how a sense of wonder can have profound impact. Schools in which the development of the sense of beauty is not a conscious concern is no school to which I would send kids. The awakening to beauty through study of nature and the creation of form is a gateway to the investigation of the interconnectedness of all things.

Also, yesterday, I took my finishing of boxes out of doors, so that I was applying Danish oil amid falling leaves as our seasons turn.

Like leaves is so easy to fall one way or the other. We can nest in our homes and places of employment oblivious to the beauty that surrounds us, with our minds completely engaged in literal things, or we can embrace the poesis that lurks at the center of our souls. A shamanic framework like that practiced by our presenter in the UU fellowship this Sunday compels one to look for coincidences present in our daily lives and to use those to explore meaning.

The greatest tragedy of modern American education is that educational policy makers have placed the standardized test at the center of it all, when instead, engagement in nature and in the realization of the beauty that surrounds us should by all rights and by all necessity, form that essential core.

Now, even the Republicans who pushed No-Child-Left-Behind legislation in the first place are insisting that too much is too much. The average number of standardized tests taken by American students from pre-school through 12th grades is 112 or 8 per year. This figure does not include practice tests or time spent in test prep.  According to Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander, the original legislation was to mandate 17 tests over the course of a student's school career. He blames the Federal Government for having created an accountability system of rewards and punishments that has led states to give students additional tests to prepare for federal tests. Regardless of which party is most to blame for the current state, both parties have a responsibility to bring standardized testing into check.

 If senses and perceptions are open just a crack, one of the things we begin to understand is that things are not always exactly as they appear, and that there are interconnections that lead a man (or woman) to engage in wonder.

Make, fix, create, and assist others in learning likewise.

engaging the senses...

Today in my wood shop I'll be applying finish to boxes in preparation for shipping to Appalachian Spring Galleries on Monday.

One of the concerns expressed by early advocates of manual arts training was that work not become simply mechanical, meaning that the attention is not applied. Real learning requires attention and demands that the senses be applied through powers of direct observation. N. Christian Jacobsen noted that the saw and the plane, in particular, seem to invite "mechanical" activity as the body surrenders itself to the routine movement of the tool and it can be operated for a short time in a mindless fashion. Beginners, in particular, can get carried away with the motions involved, and neglect the intense observation required to keep the saw on line, or the plane square to the stock. In the Clear Spring School wood shop, students often call out, "Doug, my saw's off the line."And they want me to step in and bring it back. But with sufficient attention applied, the saws we use for straight cuts will cut straight from the outset. You can also tell how much attention the student is giving his or her work by watching how much effort is required. If the mind wanders, the body wanders in the cut, and corrective measures then force the blade to bind so that it no longer cuts with such ease as was experienced at the beginning of the cut. It takes time and experience for the hands, eyes and mind to develop the capacity to observe continuously in a multi-dimensional sensory universe and for the body to respond. We can expect things to get worse as children become more and more engaged in the digital realm.

The plane also can be used in a purely mechanical fashion, at times lacking in the student's use of his or her observational capacity. If you do not pay attention to your own body and your own relationship to gravity, to your grip on the plane in relation to the squareness of the stock,  and the direction of the grain in the wood, the work can go quickly in the wrong direction. And so, when a student first uses a plane, a great deal of careful checking is required. One must stop regularly and often to observe results, and one must have some idea of the intended results in the first place. And then one must have some understanding of the corrective motions required. This is not necessarily easy because a sense of one's own body and development of the power of attention are required.

N. Christian Jacobsen notes that in order to develop a sense of form, the senses themselves must be developed. What an odd thing to think about in schooling, where the numbing of senses is too often the norm. But wood shop, music, science lab and the arts are places where sensory engagement is restored, and are places in which creative expression can be given full reign. Unfortunately, however, wood shop, music, science lab and the arts, are the first programs to be cut when budgets get tight, and when more time is required for standardized tests.

Work becoming purely mechanical was very much on my mind yesterday as I went through the motions of sanding boxes. At this point with so much experience in making these boxes, my hands and senses are trained to the process. If I proceed through the correct sequence of grits, and pay attention to the curves on each edge, my hands  go through the motions, and my mind simply checks in at the right moment for quality control. That leaves some mental capacity for other things, which I suspect may have launched Rousseau's speculations concerning work shops and the development of philosophy. The great thing about wood shop philosophy is that it's nearly impossible to get carried away with it without messing up the work. If your mind wanders too far off track, errors in the work with call your attention back from the brink.

Comenius (1592-1670) had put forth his argument that the senses form the core of learning:

"The ground of this business is, that sensual (sensuous) objects be rightly presented to the senses for fear that they not be received. I say, and say it again aloud, that this is the foundation of all the rest; because we can neither act nor speak wisely, unless we first rightly understand all the things which are to be done and whereof we have to speak. Now there is nothing in the understanding which was not before in the senses. And therefore to exercise the senses well about the right perceiving of the differences of things will be to lay the grounds for wisdom and all wise discourse, and all discreet actions in one's course of life, which, because it is commonly neglected in schools, and the things that are to be learned are offered to scholars without their being understood or being rightly presented to the senses, it cometh to pass that the work of teaching and learning goeth heavily onward and offereth little benefit."

The engagement of the senses lays the foundation for comprehension. And yet educational policy makers have become ignoramuses. What Comenius had observed in the 17th century still applies to children today.

Last night was Halloween in Eureka Springs, and the amount of creativity that was applied to costumes was amazing. My wife and I went to a friends' tourist lodging on White St. to help pass out candy and witness the event. Over 900 children stopped to ask for treats. To see all the young children and their parents in such wonderful costumes tells us that there is no lack of creativity in our community. In fact there is a hunger to express it among children and adults. And in light of that hunger, we have to wonder why education has been forced by policy makers to become such a dismal science.

Make, fix, create, and inspire others to learn likewise.

gifted?

A father introduces his son to Froebel's gifts.

As I mentioned a week or so ago, I had attended the local school board meeting in which school reports were offered, regarding test scores and various programs. One of the programs is that called "gifted and talented." The teacher in charge of that program throughout Eureka Springs Public Schools prefaced his remarks with the idea that all children are in some ways "gifted and talented," but that the state offers specific funding for his program that must not be ignored. And so, it could be reasonably stated that we have a gifted and talented program to get state funds at student expense.  The "Gifted and Talented" child profile covers those smart children who would be totally bored in school if they were not offered something to do. And so these kids are pulled for periods away from their classmates and set apart as those who have both special opportunities and are recognized by the system as being superior in some way.

Gifted and talented is a program that parents generally support because they want their own children's gifts and talents to be acknowledge by others, particularly in school. And those parents with "gifted and talented kids" are usually those who who have a greater level of persuasion when it comes to school board policy.

The idea of "gifted" is also problematic.  Usually students with recognizable "gifts" are those whose parents have the greatest level of participation in their children's learning, "gifting" them opportunities in the form of museum visits and educational resources in the home unavailable to children living in poverty and whose parents may be working two or three jobs to make ends meet.

The problem of bored children who may have greater intelligence than average, or are developmentally advanced is one that falls into the problem of class teaching and graded schooling. In real life, where our learning is seldom "class learning" and we are no longer assigned to specific grades, we may be tested by circumstances to achieve real objectives. The artificiality of schooling sets it apart form real life. To be honest, I consider the notion of "gifted and talented" as being an invention of the 60's that should be eliminated from schools. The notion is elitist and offensive. If we recognize that all children have potential gifts (areas of interest) and talents (skills resulting from application of effort), then no child should be set apart and elevated over his peers by anything but his or her own efforts and schools should be equipped to recognize and employ a diverse range of talents (skills).

The wood shop is one area of schooling in which all the forms of human intelligence can be explored and activated, and if every school was equipped with spaces in which hands-on learning might take place, and if all children were able to explore their own capacities freely in such places, we would have schooling in America vastly different from what we have now, directed toward much greater and more meaningful lasting effect.

Today in the wood shop, I will be sanding boxes, and applying Danish oil finish.

Make, fix, create, and insist that others have the opportunity to learn likewise.

character building

An article in Education Week claims that Technology Isn't Bad, It's Character Building. Of course wrestling through difficulties with technology can be character building in comparison to sitting around doing diddly squat all day or in school. Trying to saw a straight line can have the same effect. In fact, Ruskin had noted that to take a thin shaving from a plank or to lay a brick level in its mortar would mold a man's character in ways that words alone could not. But the basic thrust and selling point of technology, including digital technology is to make things EASIER, requiring less skill and more certain, at less expense.

Character, on the other hand often arises from doing difficult things. Some people call that kind of character "grit," or "determination." Schools should also be the place where difficult things are done to mold a willingness to embrace challenges: those that will come one after another inevitably from life. Digital technology is an equalizer, but only in that anyone who can afford the technology can do amazing things easily, without effort and certainly without any particular exercise of determination or skill.  For the sake of comparison when it comes to character, have students craft something useful, beautiful, or both.

In a parallel matter, I had downloaded the new operating system El Capitan to my Apple computer and laptop and had difficulty getting my mail functioning right. It was a challenge greater than what would be faced by kids in school trying to get their iPads to download necessary apps. Perhaps I should be thankful to Apple for the work they did in fostering the development of my character.  In any case, it did feel good when I managed to get my mail working right on both computers and without having to call for technical support. It also felt good to share what I learned with Apple so that they can make things easier for others.

Yesterday I had a remarkable day in the wood shop at Clear Spring School. As an activity for our annual harvest party, we made native American totem necklaces upon which students from pre-school up to high school stamped power words, letter by letter using a metal stamping set. We adorned their power totems with feathers tied with artificial sinew. At one time, I had about 6 pre-school students and their mothers and teacher in the wood shop, each waiting their turn to make a totem piece of their own. I asked one little boy what his power word is. J-O-E he replied. What power there is in such a simple name!  I asked one of my second grade students what her power word would be. "Water" she replied, but then upon further thought added "and rainbows," noting the connection between the two. She stamped the word water, and then used markers to tell the rest of the story.

The idea that character must be built upon artificiality is mesmerizing. The children who came through my shop were not lacking in character, noble aspiration, or compassion for others, even at such an early age. One of my 5th grade students was in the wood shop working on his power totem when the pre-school students arrived in a sudden flood. I felt suddenly overwhelmed. Garrett stopped working on his own totem and began helping the pre-school students with theirs. He looked up at me in the midst of being so busy, and said, "Now I know how you feel sometimes in class." The ability to empathize with another is an aspect of character that may be hard to teach, but that may be discovered and preserved in the right learning environment.

The point here is not that character must be built, but that it must be allowed to flourish. The artificiality of schooling can convince children that the essential points of character may not matter. But challenge the students to make beautiful and useful things, and character will stamped in bold letters within the school and in the community at large.

The photos at the top is of one of my high school students helping her little sister (3 years old) in the wood shop.

As you can see in the photo at left, box parts are becoming boxes, as I prepare to fill holiday orders.

Make, fix, create, and please enable others to learn likewise.

does it make a sound?

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear, does it make a sound? You know the question. I heard it posed three times yesterday.  Or maybe that was just twice. But when philosophers go off the deep end,  people can talk about it for years. The stupidity of the question is the presumption that if a thing's not been measured by man, it may not have any basis in reality. Tell that to the billions of years of planetary evolution upon which our own evolution stands. The same stupidity has infected education through the assumption that if learning has not been measured in standardized testing, no valid learning has taken place. And yet, we know students learned in schools and learned better in schools for years before our educational policy makers became obsessed by the test.

Today, the kids at Clear Spring School are excited. Prior to the fall break we have our harvest party in which students dress in pioneer fashion and develop games for the entertainment of each other. Ian and Lily, for instance, plan to have a magic act in which they will saw Ana in half using a large carpenter's saw from wood shop. These are not the kinds of activities that you can measure. What did he or she learn from that? You want me to be precise, or can we just flow as though schooling is a part of natural life in which children learn, play and grow just as human evolution has evolved from every tree that fell in every forest whether or not the sound was recorded and thence forgotten by human ears?

For some policy makers and administrators to have children's lives reduced to statistical data that they can manipulate to increase funding makes sense. Fortunately we seem prepared at long last to escape such foolishness. N. Christian Jacobsen talked in his book and lectures about finding the ideal teaching circumstance and placed emphasis on the necessity that schooling take place within a social setting.

For the child needs the influence of many, besides the closest person or people involved in bringing him up, and is affected by his whole environment, both living and inanimate nature which has and must have an influence on his development. Given that the child is created by and shall be educated for life within community, it requires among other things, to be put into social relation with peers during this education.

The Clear Spring School is much more than a school in which lessons are administered and measured. It is a social setting in which children learn and grow in relation to each other and to caring adults. Of course similar things can be said about most schooling. But if a tree falls in the forest, it does make a sound and have impact on all the life that surrounds it, whether it's been heard by man and thus measured or not.

I am making gradual progress in my boxes. The photo above is of cutting the angled tops of pencil boxes.

Make, fix, create, and assist others in learning likewise.

finishing bows, playing gaga and box making.

My students at Clear Spring School are finishing their bows and with only a couple exceptions are as interested as I am in the quality of how they turn out. There is a magic in holding something you've made whether or not it reaches a level of proficiency and perfection. The bows have the power of launching arrows, and so there is an excitement building toward putting them to use.

At the beginning of our school year, the GaGa court we had made a couple years ago was idle most of the time, but having put just a bit of energy into restoring it has brought it back to mind as you can see in the photo above. The game starts with kids of all ages and sizes crowded into the small court, but the number of students inside quickly shrinks as the ball taps legs. Some of the smaller children are over looked at the beginning of play, and often stand up to the taller kids who have more body exposed as target due to their greater size.The ball has to be kept low to avoid exiting the court, and so is never hit with enough force to injure even the smallest child.

In my wood shop, I've been cutting slots for barbed hinges. I've devised a new system of locating the part on my shop made hinging machine and it was a pleasure to work so effortlessly and accurately with a machine I made myself.

In the meantime, I've been trying to get into the text of N. Christian Jacobsen's book and give it the attention it deserves following Barbara's translation from Norwegian. I've had so many things going on at once that it has been difficult to find time.

Make, fix, create, and extend the power to others to learn likewise.

machine teaching and mediocrity...

The following is from my blog post of September 27, 2006, and I am re-posting it here in response to the standardized testing movement and what it is doing to our nation's schooling and in response to a comment from Tim.

The Nature and Art of Workmanship
by David Pye ...

David Pye, UK woodworker, philosopher and author explored the meaning of craftsmanship in his book “the Nature and Art of Workmanship”. The book questions many of the typical assumptions about the values inherent in work and the products of manufacturing and craftsmanship. Pye differentiates between “workmanship of certainty” in which the processes are mechanized, engineered and controlled to achieve a certainty of outcomes and “workmanship of risk” in which the outcome is less predictable and largely dependent on the attention and skill of the craftsman.

This morning as I was brushing my teeth, I couldn’t help but marvel at the simple invention moving through my mouth. It has an ultrasonic vibration that helps to remove microscopic particles, and it cost $3.87 at the local discount store. It is obvious that modern manufacturing is able to offer significant value in the goods made through what David Pye calls workmanship of certainty. If I were to attempt to make a simple toothbrush, I could spend much more than a day doing it, and still not be able to make one myself that would be so effective. Or, I might go outside and with prior knowledge and experience, simply choose something from the range of available natural materials that would suffice, but it would be far less effective than the tooth brush I used this morning.

The age of cheap manufactured goods has called the life of the craftsman or maker into question. It is an old problem, and one that John Ruskin attempted to address long before David Pye. How do we come to an understanding of the value of the handmade object? What are the attributes that give it value? In most circumstances, a handmade object can’t compete with a well-designed manufactured object in either usefulness or price. So where does it compete, and why would someone want to either make or purchase something made by hand?

If you are interested in this question, reading David Pye’s book is a good place to start. Personally, I think the answer lies in an exploration of our own values. If we are a “values damaged” society as suggested by Matti Bergstöm (see post of Thursday, September 14, 2006  this blog) and are only able to think of the objects in our lives in the economic terms of supply, demand, price and marginal utility, we might as well forget the hands and all the higher values in human life… things like love, the miracles of growth and the joy of discovery. But if there are other values at work in our lives, we will always have a need to be making things with our own hands and to treasure things made through the inspired hearts and skilled hands of others.

Tim asked if I saw a relationship between the craftsman's dilemma and what children face in school. The same search for false certainty and avoidance of risk is driving school reform.  Just as we want machines to crank out tooth brushes at such a low price, policy makers want the same of education. Standardized testing is part of that scheme as "educational reformers" try to use measurement of children's performance to cut costs and achieved new standards of efficiency despite the damages that ensue to the culture and to the soul of the child.

There have been many who have described American education as an industrialized process. It is time to re-humanize things. We can do that quite simply by training teachers to be effective (and that means hands-on), and trusting them to deliver, instead of tying their hands with standardized tests and stratagems controlled from the top. I mentioned in the title of this post, machine teaching and mediocrity. What is happening to teaching with the widespread use of digital technology in the classroom is very much akin to what happened in the industrial age to the making of things.

So, what is a man making when he makes something beautiful and useful and what does that have to do with mediocrity? Certainly, and with some degree of certainty, a machine can make things faster and in some ways better than can a man. But when a man makes something, he, himself, has the opportunity to escape  mediocrity in the making of himself as a craftsman. While the machine is in the process of wearing itself out making meaningless stuff, the man, on the other hand, hones and polishes his own soul.

Make, fix, create and inspire others to learn likewise.

too much testing? Let's get real.

President Obama and the Department of Education have finally admitted that schools and the Federal Government got carried away with standardized testing. Obama said, "Learning is about so much more than just filling in the right bubble." He called for capping the time devoted to standardized testing at 2 percent of classroom time and recognized that the Federal Government had been a contributing factor in a big mistake. Democrats and Republicans have been at odds over many things, but joined at the hip when it came to pushing the standardized tests.

Cutting back on the standardized testing juggernaut is a step in the right direction, but may I remind you that when students are doing real things, no means of abstract testing is required to measure their success.

Every school district has reading specialists to coach children to become better readers and to coach teachers to be better at teaching that important subject.  We need coaches and specialists to help teachers develop strategies to engage children's hands in doing real things for which they can be authentically assessed. I hope this blog serves as a coaching tool. It is time to get students out of desks and classrooms off their butts. The hands are our best instruments to take a new lead in learning.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with assessment. Even before the days of standardized tests, teachers had means of determining whether or not students were progressing in reading and math. Teachers observed students in real time as they became capable problem solvers and learned to get along with each other. And so the great stupidity of modern educational policy is that teachers are no longer trusted as observers and assessors of growth except through 3rd party standardized tests.

If the movement to restore sanity to American education continues at an ever increasing pace, I may get to retire from writing this blog. This article about the Joyful, Illiterate Kindergarten Students in Finland may help to explain what I have in mind. When I visited the University of Helsinki for an educational conference in 2008, I visited the university wood shop where Kindergarten teachers working on their masters degrees were learning to teach wood working to their kids. That would be the right kind of education to launch in the US.

Yesterday and this morning I took photos of lots of tiny boxes, along with small objects to indicate scale to the viewer.

Make, fix, create, and encourage others to learn likewise.

from spark to flame

Tim sent this link: Among Dartmouth's Lathes and Saws, Lessons in Creativity.  An article about a few folks clinging against the tide to what has always worked on the human condition. We make, we learn, we grow in character and intelligence through the collaboration of hand and mind. Many graduates of Dartmouth have clearer memories of the time they spent in the school wood shop than of any of the classes they took.

The feeblest spark of genius may grow into a flame if it receives adequate fuel or nourishment. But this is precisely what is wanting in earliest childhood, because our educational systems leave out of account the law of all production, the law according to which the artist produces his masterpieces, and the silk-worm spins. "Forbid the silk-worm to spin,"—he will go on all the same! But not so the human being, who in thousands and thousands of ways, may be hindered from spinning out his particular destiny. "Genius needs no tutor, it bursts through all obstructions and makes itself room to work in spite of all!" – Bertha Von Marenholtz-Bülow, Hand Work & Head Work, 1882

Yesterday I applied finish to many of the tiny boxes I've made to prepare them for photography in my own wood shop and for shipping to Taunton Press so they can design a cover image for the Tiny boxes book. I also attended a reception for a good friend with whom I helped to found the National Water Center and worked to heal the springs for which our small town was made famous. It is hard to believe that was almost 40 years ago. We were ambitious and thought we would change the world. In addition to starting the National Water Center, (a 501-C3 organization) we also proposed a National Water Week and celebrated it with compost toilet building workshops and musical events. We thought we would create an ethos of environmental responsibility. Most of the world, it seems was either not listening or was headed in the opposite direction.

In the meantime, some of our work with Save the Ozarks bore fruit yesterday when the Safari Park in Gentry, Arkansas was awarded a jury settlement in its lawsuit against SWEPCO in the amount of $917,000. SWEPCO had agreed to pay $37,000 for eminent domain in taking land from the Safari Park. The owners of the Park appealed and based in part on evidence provided by Save the Ozarks the jury awarded them 25 times the earlier settlement. We proved the power line was never necessary in the first place, and the jury agreed that SWEPCO should pay damages. We hope this is the beginning of a new day for the power grid in which companies are forced to consider service over profits.

Make, fix, create, and assist others to learn likewise.

building club...

Managing a class is a lot easier when you have something for your students to do. Yesterday I made .125 scale model 2 x 4's. for the school's building club. According to the scale 1 1/2 in. equals one foot. So I tried to hold the student's attention while working at the white board multiplying various real dimensions to learn their sizes in scale. Lily said, "I'm sorry I don't do math on Fridays." And while she knows she is good at math in math class, the things learned in math classes don't generally translate outside of class without practice doing real things. Going from the abstract to the concrete is not as effective as teachers would like, and actually applying math to the real world is not as easy as one might think.

In any case, we managed to determine the various lengths of 2 x 4's at scale and made 8, 10, and 16 foot scale model so that scale model walls could be made. I taped pieces of wood together in bundles so the students could cut them to lengths using a hand powered frame miter saw. I plan to make more 2 x 4 stock, and perhaps some 2 x 6's also, so that the building club can make various components for a model building of some kind when their usual club teacher returns from New York.

The students used glue guns to assemble the walls with the studs placed on 2 in. centers.

I cut the model stud stock from real sized 2 x 4 studs. A model stud at .125 to 1 in. scale is 3/16 in. thick and 7/16 in. wide, and an 8 foot stud is 12 in. long, so this is an easy scale to work with and many lengths of stud stock can be cut from a 2 x 4. I advise cutting the real 2 x 4 in 4 ft. lengths  first, then ripping strips 7/16 in. thick, and then ripping those in strips 3/16 in. thick.

The great thing was that once the students were given something to do, the work became quiet and intense concentration ensued.

In the meantime, the President of the US and the department of education have acknowledged that standardized testing is a policy that has gone much too far. Sign this petition to join others in demanding that they listen to the concerns of parents and teachers and involve them as they craft a new standardized testing policy.

In my own shop I finished inlaying lots of boxes yesterday for fall orders, and will take a break from box making to finish and photograph tiny boxes for the book.

Make, fix, create and assist others in learning likewise.

Our Southern forests...

I would like to share my sense of outrage over what is happening to our Southern forests. We know that trees are essential to human survival. As woodworkers we are dependent on the materials supplied from the trees of our forests for our creation of beauty. We know that trees that have grown in a natural forest provide wood with character and greatest beauty. We know that the forests give life to the planet in a multitude of ways, only one of which is to convert carbon dioxide to oxygen, thus acting in reverse to global warming. We know the roots of trees control erosion and hold back the floods, that impoverish the soil and damage lives and that their leafy boughs fertilize the soil and sustain wildlife.

So, let's talk briefly about what is happening in the forest industry. Chipper mills. Whole forests are being mowed down, hauled away and pulverized to make pellets to feed power plants in Europe. There they consider wood products to be renewable energy. But how many years does it take to renew a whole forest? And what are the long term consequences?

When I moved to Arkansas in 1975, this place was forested and lovely. Over the years, thousands upon thousands of trees were cut and turned to pastures for livestock and clearings for gas stations. Whole forests were bulldozed into piles and burned as though the trees do not matter. I can assure you that when the forests are gone, they may not be coming back, and the idea of renewable requires first that we renew and take an active hand in preservation. There is no way on earth that chipping whole forests into pulp and burning them in power plants is a reasonable solution to global warming. In fact, the loss of forest resources is a particular horror for those of us who enjoy the beauty of wood.

You can read about the growing crisis here. Please also read part 2 and part 3.

I know that woodworkers use wood, but we also create beautiful and useful works from it and thereby share a sense of its value. We have an important interpretive role to perform, and simply using wood to share useful beauty is not enough as we watch whole forests destroyed.

Today, in addition to inlaying boxes with native hardwoods, I'll be a substitute teacher in the school's building club.

Make, fix, create, and insist that others learn likewise.

Going GaGa again...

We had new gravel put on the Clear Spring School playground, and the bobcat spreading it accidentally damaged the school GaGa court that I'd helped the upper elementary school class build two years ago. The court was pushed out of shape, and a board had been cracked and left jagged on one end. So the upper elementary school students helped in restoring the court. We used my tractor to lift one end so that the kids could push the court back in shape, then cut away a portion of the cracked board and added replacement wood.

The game GaGa has become a school favorite, and has been undergoing a renewed interest. The court also serves as an outdoor classroom at times, and is a gathering place for students during recess as the edges of the court are a great sitting height. So, even when the game is not in full play, the court is in use. The game is a good one for schools because children of all ages can play at the same time.

The damage to the court turned out to be a good thing, in that a new class was able to make an investment of effort it and feel pride in their work.

Today I have the luxury of working alone in my own shop, as I inlay boxes and prepare the parts of boxes for assembly.

There is a national movement afoot to opt out of standardized testing, but opting out is not enough of a response and not a good idea for an individual child. At the Eureka Springs elementary school they had 40 days of testing in the last school year. So of the 180 days required by the state. over 22% were spent or spent in part on standardized testing. Add to that time, test prep and test practice, and the curriculum taught to the test, and you can see how the opportunity to follow student interests is a goner. The regimen of standardized testing is so deeply ingrained, that even if a parent preferred that his or her child opt out of the test itself, the adverse effects of standarized testing are inescapable. Would a reasonable parent pull their child out of school for those 40 days? We need a much stronger positive response. Where students are doing real things, no abstract and artificial testing is necessary to provide evidence of real learning. And so the answer is for schools to get real, and to allow students to do real things.

Make, fix, create, and assist others to learn likewise.

the cost of testing...

I went to the Eureka Springs School board meeting last night and listened to reports on school progress from the various school principals.  The main discussion was of our elementary, middle and high school rankings on various standardized tests, comparing our schools' and students' performance with others across the state. One thing the elementary school principal casually mentioned was that standardized tests were administered on 40 days during the school year. Schools in Arkansas are required to offer 178 days of classes, so if you were to do simple math like that expected of a middle school student you would learn that testing interfered with over 22% of instruction time. If 40 days are taken up by testing, how many additional instructional days are also taken away by test preparation? Even if only half as many days were wasted in test prep, how many days were spent teaching to the test? Are you beginning to get the picture?

I have no doubts that our teachers, principals, and school board members want to do what's best for our kids. But their hands are tied. Standardized testing is a juggernaut propelled by an educational industry, and individual teachers, even when they disagree with it, in whole or in part, dare not stand in its way. Here in Arkansas, the state board of education has changed tests 3 times in 4 years. To draw comparisons from one year to the next is not accurate, so to spend so much time testing is a needless distraction from real learning.

Standardized testing and reliance upon it is standard in all 50 states. It is an attempt to industrialize learning. It is not healthy for the child to spend so much time and so many days distracted from real learning. Nor is it healthy for human culture, which thrives upon diversity of ideas and experience. So, while the standardized testing industry rakes in billion dollar profits at tax payer expense, the real cost is what it's doing to students, schools and human culture. Perhaps worst is the illusion that standardized testing measures anything real. There are aspects of mind regarding the retention of facts that lend themselves to being measured in bubble tests, but there are aspects of character that are just as essential to the child's success that do not. To be so focused on test scores is to ignore the development of the whole child.

On the other hand, children left to their own devices learn and reflect. It is a primary aspect of human consciousness. Would it not be best that we put standardized testing aside, give students the tools and inspiration to make beautiful and useful things and allow them to get on with it?

Make, fix, create and assist others in learning likewise.

early childhood...

Friedrich Froebel was the inventor of early childhood education, and echoed Pestalozzi's call to young mothers to take a  decisive role in their children's learning. How do I state this as clearly as I am able? I will rely upon Bertha Von Marenholtz-Bülow, 1882 as follows:

Every human being possesses some special endowment which is the strongest of his powers, and the development of which may lead to original production. The one gifted with a strong sense of form and beauty builds a cathedral which is a masterpiece; another with the same kind of gift, only in a lesser degree, contracts tables, vases, or shoes in a perfect manner. Be it great or small, some spark of productive genius dwells in every living being called by the name of man, for a being formed after the image of the Creator must be destined to create. How much, however, of this human creative power fulfills its end, and how much of it is lost, is a calculation which no statistician would be equal to. But what can a state accomplish without cultivated human powers? The feeblest spark of genius may grow into a flame if it receives adequate fuel or nourishment. But this is precisely what is wanting in earliest childhood.

We need a revolution in education, but not the one proposed by technocrats and corporate investors. As Bernie Sanders mentioned in a speech on Sunday, those who care for our children in preschools are often trained and paid less than the clerks at MacDonalds. Are children of so little importance to us that they are to be flipped and placed on buns? Young mothers, too, should be trained to take part in a revolution. That revolution was what Froebel started in his invention of Kindergarten through which the important role of mothers as the child's first teacher was made known, and through which women were drawn into the profession of teaching for the first time. That revolution also played a great part in the manual training movement as schools attempted to enliven schooling at all levels through making real things and exercising the student's inclination to toward skilled craftsmanship. That revolution fell relatively dormant during the beginnings of the computer age, but while technologies have changed, human beings and the need to learn through the exercise of our creative capacities has not.

Today in the CSS wood shop, my home schooled students finished their toy making class. It was an interesting class as the boys made things I'd never thought of as toys. One made a small door complete with knob. Another told me, after making a thing that I could not name, that it was 80% complete and that he would finish it at home.  My 7th and 8th grade students worked on their bows and arrows and one began making a box. Creative genius is not launched by every student doing the same thing at the same time and to the same standards of mediocrity.

Make, fix, create, and assist others to learn likewise.

why the hands will out*

The wired classroom

Yesterday I began the process of throwing out old CDs and DVDs that brought systems and applications to my computers over several generations of technology. They represent capacity that I was allowed short term license to use (under certain restrictions) but not own. Most of modern technology is following the same direction. As cars and tractors are designed with chips and processors to control their performance, mechanics and owners are finding that the same rules apply. As new development occurs, planned obsolescence sets in to affect old products, and owners discover that they cannot be fixed or operated beyond their planned time. Even toasters can be programmed to force their replacement when the owner of the license wants the consumer to buy a new one.

This will mean that objects, no matter how much you care about them, and regardless of how much you take care of them, will expire on a timeline established by others.

The inclinations of the craftsman to create lasting beauty and utility, and to shape his or her own intelligence and character at the same time are directly counter to the machinations of the industrialized world, which for all intents and purposes produces things quickly and of short duration, thus assuring our continued dependence on the products of modern technology. The big question of course is how long we will remain complaisant consumers and allow power to be taken from our own hands.

Still, the hands will out.* While industry robs the planet of its resources, including the rain that falls and the air we breathe, the craftsman puts back and preserves, and thinks of coming generations, not short term profits.

Just as a small power tool can go out of adjustment and mis-cut joints having a greater adverse effect than a simple error in hand tool use, the larger and more complex the system, the more catastrophic the collapse.

My point here is not to create a doomsday cult, but to urge a society of makers who are sensitive to the environment and responsible to the preservation and extension of human culture. Originally Kindergarten and the manual arts movements were formulated to do just that. As described by Countess Bertha Von Marenholtz Bülow in her book Hand Work & Head Work:

The ordinary way of getting infants to be quiet and attentive is to make them fold their hands behind them, or put their arms by their sides. Nature impels children to be constantly using their hands; we resort to this unnatural method, to prevent the perpetual "playing with the hands," which takes off the attention from the lessons to be learnt. But anything that is antagonistic to the child's nature is hurtful to it. And in this very instinct to use the hands, if we would only believe it, we have the best possible means of arresting the attention of the child. Froebel has taken this lesson fully to heart, for in all his lessons for young children there is always accompanying action of the hands. The child's nature requires that head-work and hand-work should be combined; that all its knowledge should be obtained by action.

*the term "will out" as applied to murder and the truth go back in English literature to Chaucer and Shakespeare. It refers to a thing becoming of public knowledge. The hands, on the one hand have been treated roughly. On the other hand, the hands are the true source of human wisdom and will not be neglected for long unless we are deeply set on damaging the lives of our children and grandchildren.

Make, fix, create and extend the power to learn likewise.

yesterday...

Yesterday I was working on some doors to turn a book case in to a pantry, and decided to take the easy route by using a biscuit joiner to attach the stiles and rails. Unfortunately, the biscuit joiner went out of adjustment part way through and began cutting slots that would not match the previously cut parts. First thing today I'll be fixing what the machine screwed up.

The entire thrust of technology whether we are talking about digital technology or woodworking tools is to make work easier, faster, and to eliminate risk of failure or injury. But when machines screw up for one reason or another, the results are often worse than with skilled hand tool work. In the meantime, doing difficult things, not easy stuff, offers growth in understanding, character and intellect. Technology, however smart it may be, can leave us acting smart and really dumb.

One of the big problems with mechanization is that when things go wrong, they go disastrously wrong, and may have effect on a number of parts before the defect is noticed by the operator. On the other hand, sometimes machine error brings interesting effects. For example, my illustration above showing Keats' concept of negative capability has become animated through no fault of my own. For some reason when it was saved, my iPhone kept a series of images in one file, leading to it performing as an animated jpeg. You can see how the basic illustration evolved as well as the layering of concepts that took place.

What exactly is all this about? You can refer to the original blog posts in which I discussed negative capability. Here and here. We know more than we think we do in that what has for the sake of convenience been called the right brain, can't really explain what it knows to the left, and yet what it knows is known. Metaphor is the vehicle through which the right brain alerts the left to possibilities it cannot grasp on its own. The hands are active participants in the transfer of knowing from one side to the other. For Keats, "several things dovetailed" in his mind. He may or may not have been a woodworker, but at least he tried to talk like one.

Yesterday I spent time with a friend who explained that his three daughters, each with a young son, have taken a shared interest in Montessori education, and I tried to explain that Froebel's Kindergarten was invented nearly a century before Montessori (1870-1952) was born. Froebel lived from 1782 to 1852 and invented Kindergarten along with early childhood education in 1846. Maria Montessori reacted to and dismissed Kindergarten as it was practiced at the time with 30 to 50 children in a class by practitioners who failed to get the real point. It may never be noticed by Montessori practitioners that Maria Montessori, though a giant in education, stood on the shoulders of an earlier giant. The following is from Bertha Von Marenholtz Bülow's book Hand Work & Mind Work

The nature of the individual is similar to that of his race, and the expression of the being and the nature of universal humanity is the measure of the being and nature of the individual. As nature has given to children this instinct of perpetual movement in order that their limbs may be developed and strengthened, so likewise has she implanted in them a desire to touch and examine all the objects surrounding them in order that by this means, they may collect experiences concerning the qualities of materials, and learn to distinguish between hard and soft, brittle and pliable, etc. But the educational guidance which shall turn these instincts to their destined purpose is indispensable.

Nature supplies children with the faculties for all branches of human culture. These faculties reveal themselves in children as impulses which drive them to this or that kind of activity. The young child experiences a constant need of using his hands in all manner of ways, which develop technical dexterity. If these impulses be left without guidance they will lead to a spirit of mischief and wanton destructiveness, instead of to the power. Systematic training of the senses according to Pestalozzi's theories, forms now-a-days—or at any rate is expected to form—the basis of every properly constituted school. The senses, however, begin to awaken long before school-time, but until this time has come there is little or no provision for any methodical training—for the first years of life education is left pretty much to chance.–– Bertha Von Marenholtz Bülow, 1882

The preceding was published by the Countess as she was promoting Kindergarten and early childhood education while Montessori was but 12 years old. My point here is not to disparage Montessori or followers of Montessori education but to awaken readers to the origins of progressive education. To think that early childhood education was invented by Montessori would be to miss nearly 100 years of earlier development that subsequent development should take in mind.

If a teacher begins to understand the relationship between hands and mind, as Von Marenholtz Bülow hoped, he or she must ask whether or not students' hands have been successfully engaged in each lesson. If you don't see the hands at work, the mind may not be working either.

Make, fix, create, and insist others learn likewise.