the exercise of the creative faculty

Yesterday, a group of my older students gathered in the wood shop during lunch, asking that they be allowed to stay. They insisted that they preferred the wood shop to the playground, and they each had goals to accomplish that required tools and the space to work.

As I was working on other things, and not watching the time, I allowed them to stay until recess was over and their teacher came looking for them. I insisted they not miss geography.

The following is from Susan Blow's Symbolic Education.

The most obvious correspondence between the unfolding of the mind and the growth of organisms is that in both the condition of development is exercise of power. Use and disuse, long since recognized in the parable of the talents as the sources of spiritual gain and loss, have in our day come to be insisted upon as the sources of all gain and all loss. Use gives the blacksmith his brawny arm, the musician his nimble and flexible fingers, and the thinker his power of marshaling at will the battalions of his ideas. Disuse takes from the caged bird the power of flight, from the sedentary student the vigor of his limbs, from the man who indolently refuses to think and act the power of thought and action. Pestalozzi struck the keynote of educational reform when he wrote, in the Evening Hour of a Hermit: "Nature develops all the powers of humanity by exercising them; they increase with use."

In the formative instinct of childhood Froebel discerned an analogous attempt of mind to stamp itself upon its environment. The child is constantly trying either to change something or to make something. This persistent effort hints to us that mind is something more than an intellectual stomach. Knowledge is food, but creation is life, and we do not live to eat, but eat to live.

It is fascinating how little time in most schools is devoted to our children's creative and formative capacities. The old saying, "use it or lose it" applies.

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

Boxes and bows

Yesterday in the wood shop I spent just a bit of time assembling boxes. Where I will sell all these, I've no clue. With the boxes formed, I can begin crafting decorative veneered panels for the tops.

At Clear Spring School several of my students are finishing their bows and arrows, and one of my second grade students insisted on making one, too. We are also making toys for the local food bank as we often have at this time of year.

The following is from Susan Blow, Symbolic Education.

The greatest mistakes in education are rooted in the failure to recognize and conform to the different stages of natural development. Educational theorists are constantly pointing out this error; educational practice is constantly repeating it. Notwithstanding all that has been said and written, we still make knowledge our idol, and continue to fill the child's mind with foreign material, under the gratuitous assumption that at a later age he will be able, through some magic transubstantiation, to make it a vital part of his own thought. This is like loading his stomach with food which he can not digest, under the delusive hope that he may be able to digest it when he is a man. It is forcing the mind to move painfully forward under a heavy weight, instead of running, leaping, and flying under the incitement of its own energy and the allurement of its own perceived ideal. Thus to load the young mind is a grievous sin; but we commit a yet more heinous offense when we insist upon the exercise of faculties whose normal development belongs to a later age. The child is sympathetic, perceptive, and imaginative, but he is incapable of sustained observation and repelled by analysis and logical inference. The very flowers he loves so dearly become mere instruments of mental torture when we constantly insist upon his analyzing and classifying them. The attempt to force a premature activity of reason can result only in the repulsion of his sympathies and the stultification of his mind.

It is odd that when it comes to children taking their first steps, it is acceptable to parents and pediatricians that those steps be taken at 11 months. It is equally normal that first steps be taken at 15 months or later with pediatricians claiming no indication of abnormality.

Tiny bows and arrows

But if a child is not reading and doing math on schedule, teachers and parents are launched into conniption fits. Parents and teachers know that when a child walks is not a thing under external control so they are willing to surrender at least that to the child. We would be best advised to also understand that the exact timing of when a child  is developmentally ready to learn other things is not subject to exacting external control either.We would do well to listen to the advice offered in the 19th century and pay better attention to the developmental needs of each particular child. By not paying attention to the different stages of natural development and by applying too much pressure to learn, schools do much more harm than good.

So what should children do in school? We must restore play and playfulness to the heart of it.

Make, fix, create and attend to the necessity that others to learn likewise.

delightfully put...

paper weaving

The following is from Susan Blow's book on Froebel, Symbolic Education available from Google books, and is delightfully put.

With increasing consciousness of his own power and increasing knowledge of the properties and adaptations of objects the child begins to exercise a higher form of causative activity. Discerning in objects some ideal possibility, he seeks to make that possibility actual, and the mere exertion of force rises into productive and transforming energy. Observing the various forms in which this productive energy finds expression, we become gradually aware of a fresh parallel between the development of the individual and that of the race. Science has shown that the embryonic period of physical development is a masquerade of long-vanished forms of life. In like manner the children of each new generation seek instinctively to revive the life that is behind them and in their favorite occupations and amusements re-enact the prehistoric experiences of mankind. All children crave living pets, build sand houses, and make caves the earth; are fond of intertwining bits of straw, paper, or other pliable material; delight in shaping bowls and cups and saucers out of mud; and are inveterate diggers in the ground, even when, as in city streets and alleys, such digging is wholly without result. Can we fail to recognize in these universal cravings the soul echoes of that forgotten past when man began the subjugation of Nature by the taming of wild beasts, the erection of rude shelters, the weaving of garments, and the manufacture of pottery? Can we doubt that the order of history should be the order of education, and that before we teach the child to read and write we should aid his efforts to repeat in outline the earlier stages of human development? Even more interesting than the reproduction of primitive industries is the struggle of the child's soul to express its own nature in the varied forms of art. To sing, to dance, to hear and repeat simple rhymes are chief delights of all young children; and alliteration, too, has for them a tireless charm. Nor are they less eager to build, draw, paint, and model. To a pathetic experience of Froebel's own childhood, when, with such material as he could pick up, he vainly tried to imitate a Gothic church, may be traced the impulse which bore fruit in the building gifts of the kindergarten. The love of drawing shows itself in many forms. The child draws with his finger in the air, traces outlines in the sand, makes shadow pictures on the wall, blows on the window-pane, and covers its clouded surface with his motley fancies, and even bites his cookies into the forms of men and animals. In like manner his plastic instinct finds satisfaction in shaping figures out of animals. In like manner his plastic instinct finds satisfaction in shaping figures out of wax, clay, or dough, and, lacking a paint-box, he will find or invent coloring material for himself.

The kindergarten gifts are Froebel's practical response to the cravings of childhood.

What Blow describes comes from the days in which children were reliant on the exercise of hands and mind instead of upon screens that have been purposely programmed with the exercises and expectations of a industrialized adult world.

Yesterday in the wood shop of Clear Spring School my student who had tried three times to make a working bow reached a level of success that truly pleased him. He is a large boy and wanted to make a bow that would express his own power. He has done so. And the excitement that comes when a student has reached a tangible goal is palpable.

In the morning before school, I began assembling boxes. Previously, I had selected and planed the material for over 30 boxes, and then pre-sanded and finished the insides. I later squared the edges and ripped the sides to width, and cut miters. Then I cut grooves for the bottoms to fit and rabbets where veneered top panels will be fitted after assembly. Now I am in the process of fitting bottom panels and gluing corners, so small piles of box parts are beginning to resemble real boxes in that they have volume and take up space.

I remind my readers of my Etsy store where you can find my boxes for sale. Each was crafted using my own hands and aesthetic judgement at every step.

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

ending the derangement of public education...

Some folks simply seem to go crazy, but the derangement of public education in the US has been purposeful and near complete. In 2001, we launched my Wisdom of the Hands program and I started this blog in 2006. Originally, I was concerned that shop classes were being cut right and left from American schools. It was claimed at the time by too many ignoramuses to count that we were no longer a manufacturing nation and would buy all our stuff from China, so would no longer need skills. As a craftsman I had observed the process for years, as my own work became devalued in comparison to cheaply made, and readily available imports.

But the loss of shop classes was a symptom, not a cause, and if people in the US had a grasp of the relationship between hands and mind... that they form an essential partnership in learning, wood shops, music, laboratory science and the arts would have never been threatened by such foolishness, and we would have continued to have the best education in the world. Had they not disembodied learning we would not have abandoned so much. Now, we struggle to compete.

NPR is running a series on Morning Edition this week to focus on American Manufacturing... where the jobs are, who's making what, and how we can find workers to fill the jobs that are available as baby boomers retire. It seems that education has been off track for so long that it's hard to get back. All schools and all citizens should be involved in the effort to restore sanity to education.

In the meantime, I try to do more here in this blog than rant at the stupidity of educational policy makers. We must allow children to become engineers of their own lives, instead of engineering every little detail for them. And we can start with a better understanding of early childhood development to restore what we have lost.

Mademoiselle Albertine Necker de Saussure wrote the following in the early 1800's with regards to the development of the child.

"It is a matter of surprise to some, that children are satisfied with the rudest imitations. They are looked down upon for their want of feeling for art, while they should rather be admired for the force of imagination which renders such illusion possible. Mold a lump of wax into a figure or cut one out of paper, and, provided it has something like legs and arms and a rounded piece for a head, it will be a man in the eyes of the child. This man will last for weeks; the loss of a limb or two will make no difference; and he will fill every part you choose to make him play. The child does not see the imperfect copy, but only the model in his own mind. The wax figure is to him only a symbol on which he does not dwell. No matter though the symbol be ill chosen and insignificant; the young spirit penetrates the veil, arrives at the thing itself, and contemplates it in its true aspect. Too exact imitations of things undergo the fate of the things themselves, of which the child soon tires. He admires them, is delighted with them, but his imagination is impeded by the exactness of their forms, which represent one thing only; and how is he to be contented with one amusement? A toy soldier fully equipped is only a soldier; it can not represent his father or any other personage. It would seem as if the young mind felt its originality more strongly when, under the inspiration of the moment, it puts all things in requisition, and sees, in everything around, the instruments of its pleasure. A stool turned over is a boat, a carriage; set on its legs it becomes a horse or a table; a bandbox becomes a house, a cupboard, a wagon—anything. You should enter into his ideas, and, even before the time for useful toys, should provide the child with the means of constructing for himself, rather than with things ready made.

I think that if you have a mind through which to observe children on your own,  you will arrive at the conclusion that children must be equipped with tools and be given the necessary instruction to use them safely. The reason that young minds can put things together in such meaningful ways as de Saussure describes, is that the children are thereby engaged in a process of discovery. That sense of discovery brings the child to a heightened state of engagement (excitement) that is rarely found in classroom learning.

On another subject, Friends of Bill Coperthwaite have set up a website in his memory. Insearchofsimplicity.net  You may recall my own visit with Bill that I described here and here and elsewhere in the blog–places you can find using the search block at upper left. Type in Coperthwaite and press enter. Thanks Randall for the link.

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

on being led out part 2

We are in a wilderness of our own making in which the structures of society are rapidly removing agency, while we are operating under the illusion of free will. I hope that Matt Crawford's final chapter of his new book will help us whack through the thicket to some clear light.

In yesterday's post, I mentioned Crawford's books and the quote of mine which served him well as an entry point for his first book and concluding dialog for his third. In the third book, he was quite complimentary and called me a "first class thinker about education." But he also suggested in an offhand manner that the educational institutions that exist are working for some. Naturally a motorcycle mechanic with an advanced degree in Political Philosophy would see some merit in the status quo, even if he places his own thoughts at odds to it. I take a contrary view. First, I must assure my readers that I am pleased and flattered that he would spend as much of the reader's time in reflection on just a single quote from this blog, and at such important points in his books. And let me assure you that each of his books is a very worthwhile read.

On the other hand, the system of education based on students sitting confined to desks, at any level, pre-k through university is not working, and leaves even those successful in it and through it crippled in a variety of ways unless they are able to find some means through which to discover hands-on ways to bring balance to their learning processes.  Matt Crawford managed that by keeping motorcycles outside the city dump.  But it is my belief that since many students are not able to discover that balance on their own and have so few examples for it in their daily lives, it should be the job of education at all levels to insure learning at its best, which means in every case and for all students learning should become as much hands-on as educators are able to provide. It is absolutely true that for all students, what we learn hands-on is retained at a deeper level, for a longer period of time  and is therefore more likely to find use than those things that are learned without benefit of the whole body.

So first, let's explore why some student have apparent success in school, giving some the impression that the current methods work. Pierre Bourdieu, French philosopher and sociologist identified capital as being more than just money and financial resources. He identified the concept of social capital, which applies here in that social groups and particular families hold their young to varying standards and some work very hard to place their children at an advantage in schooling. The "Tiger Mother" is an example, and if you were the son or daughter of a second generation immigrant Asian mom, you might dare not perform at a high enough level in school to best your peers. And so even if the game is boring, or rigged, you play your heart out because it matters so much to Mom. The child of the upwardly mobile mom (or dad) will study harder, take learning more seriously, even when bored to tears, and will be provided a great deal of support within the home to make dead certain of success. This sociological principle also applies within the charter school movement in which rote memorization from the 19th century may be supercharged with hand clapping rhythmic response, but the real reason for success if it comes to that is that the students and their parents come to those schools with social capital focused on particular results. It does not hurt either that the efforts of those schools may be totally focused on getting high test scores and that important aspects of learning that are not on the test will be ignored to save time for those things that are.

But does schooling as a contrivance steeped in artificiality serve any students well? And what if we were to restore those areas of endeavor that brought life to schooling by doing real things? I can mention a few. The arts, music, wood shop, laboratory science and physical education. You can pretty much rely on the hands to give direction in this. And even where the hands have not been traditionally utilized to explore learning, as in history, literature and geography, they must be. Where the hands are engaged, hearts soon follow.

The great stupidity of modern education is that the hands are too often kept from doing real things.

Make, fix, create, and extend the notion,  please, that others may learn likewise.

Electronics and kids brains don't mix

Comedian Paula Poundstone wrote an essay for CBS News,  Electronics and kids' brains don't mix but the point she makes isn't funny. Digital media is now the perfect definition of a juggernaut, or it might be described as a tsunami with regard to the impact it's having on children's lives, but few seem to notice or consider what kids are missing. It's odd that the same parents who would protest if children were given Sloyd knives to work with in school, will give their children texting devices and launch them at high speed in cars they are barely mature enough to control. Who cares now if they can see over the steering wheel? Most tragically their eyes will be glued to the screen, whenever the device dings to tell them that someone else has posted something inane.

It is strange that people would so seriously engage their own children, putting them in situations of known risk, in a culture-wide experiment that promises estrangement from family and from the lessons that one can learn through the engagement in real life.

My thanks  to Mario for the link.

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

on being led out...

I contacted Matthew Crawford yesterday to thank him for keeping my thoughts alive in his latest book, The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction. 

I asked him for the rights to quote rather extensively from his last chapter, and with that granted, I hope to explain a few things. He said in the final chapter, On Being led out, redux:

To reclaim the real, both in the way we encounter other people and in the way we encounter things, would have implications for education. They are crystalized in the following quote from Doug Stowe, a woodshop teacher and first-class thinker about education: “In schools we create artificial learning environments for our children that they know to be contrived and undeserving of their full attention and engagement… Without the opportunity to learn through the hands, the world remains abstract, and distant, and the passions for learning will not be engaged.”

He goes on to offer a minor caveat, saying. "I don’t think this is true for every student, but it is true of enough students that we ought to worry about it."

I can accept that there are some students that emerge from our current educational model as successful students and those particular students would consider the current model to be ideal, based on their success within it. I suggest that there are many successful students who for various reasons buy into the game of education, all the while knowing quite well that it's contrived, steeped in artificiality and abstraction like any other game. The children's game of Sorry comes to mind. If these particular children don't understand that the education game is rigged in their favor, they would have to be stupid indeed. And if education is a game then what is that telling students about real life and their responsibilities within it and their responsibilities to others less successful within it? Some seem to have difficulty reconciling the fact that some bright students successfully manipulate the education game to move on to Harvard and other top notch schools that provide the credentials for stellar careers and economic success, while others on the surface may appear to be more severely and outwardly wounded by the artificiality of schooling.  I contend that ALL students pay a tremendous toll for the artificiality of hands-off learning.

I can also see that this may take some serious explaining. But from my perspective, the damages of artificial learning environments apply to all students, and in particular unseen ways to those who are most successful within such schooling. As winners in a game stacked in their favor they may never be fully cognizant of the wounds they have received or that they may then inflict inadvertently on others. Hang in here with me, ask a few questions if you like.  Challenge me and see how well I can explain it.

Our Thanksgiving holiday is over, guests and family have gone home, and I'm making boxes in the wood shop. I have just a bit more text and a few photos to submit to the editor on my Froebel book, and one more chapter to finish in Tiny boxes.

On a different (but related) subject, I was disappointed when due to computer upgrades and software incompatibility, my Rosetta Stone program for learning Swedish would no longer work. Learning Swedish had been part of my journey into Educational Sloyd. A lovely replacement has emerged. It's better than my old Rosetta Stone and free for use on your smart phone or digital pad like object. Go to your app store and download duolingo. It offers most of the popular languages. It is free and based on a profit scheme that requires no advertising. It will allow you to advance steadily, will provide reminders and the opportunity to share your progress with friends. As I have been advancing through the basics, I am pleased to learn that I have remembered enough Swedish to make it fun, and I am learning things that Rosetta Stone never touched upon.

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

peas-work

Photo courtesy of Norm Brosterman

Peas-work, also called cork-work or “sticks and peas” was identified by some early authors as Froebel’s 19th gift in his invention of Kindergarten. It consisted of dried peas, softened in water before use, and pointed sticks or wires used to connect the peas into various structural forms. In the case of cork-work, small cubes or balls of cork were used in place of peas, but to the same effect. Peas-work could be viewed as a predecessor to Tinkertoys™.

As described by Norm Brosterman in Inventing Kindergarten, sticks and peas was particularly instrumental in Buckminster Fuller’s development of the geodesic dome. In Kindergarten, Fuller suffered from severe vision impairment and while the other students were making the kinds of rectilinear forms familiar to those who see, Fuller found inspiration in the triangular forms that gave greater strength. As Fuller described it years later,

“When the teacher told us to make structures, I tried to make something that would work. Pushing, then pulling, I found that the triangle held its shape when nothing else did…The teacher called all the other teachers in primary school to take a look at this triangular structure. I remember being surprised that they were surprised.” From the video “Buckminster Fuller: Thinking Out Loud,” Produced and directed by Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon (New York: Zeitgeist Films, 1996)

As described by Edward Weibé’s book The Paradise of Childhood,

“the material consists of pieces of wire of the thickness of a hair-pin, of various sizes in length, and pointed at the ends… As means of combination, as embodied points of junction, peas are used, soaked about twelve hours in water and dried one hour previous to being used. They are then just soft enough to allow the child to introduce the points of the wires into them and also hard enough to afford a sufficient hold to the latter.” Paradise of Childhood Quarter Century Edition, p. 264, Milton Bradley, Co., New York, 1896

The peas would then dry and harden again forming a lasting structure. For those wanting to experiment with peas-work, or to offer the benefits of peas-work to their children or students, dried peas softened in water, mini marshmallow bits, or cork balls can be used with toothpicks. In addition to making representations of concrete forms, sticks and peas can also be used to construct models of atoms and molecules in Chemistry. Styrofoam balls would also work, but I would avoid them as they are not likely to biodegrade before doing some damage to the environment.

Sticks and Peas was delineated by Weibé  as Froebel's 19th gift, and should be reserved for those students whose dexterity of hand and mind has been thoroughly developed by the earlier gifts. It requires a great deal of skill to manipulate the tiny balls and sticks into successful shapes.

Edward Weibé described one of the benefits of peas work in the greater permanence of the object created. As the child grows,

“It is no longer the incipient instinct of activity which governs the child, the instinct which prompted him apparently without aim, to destroy everything and to reconstruct in order to again destroy. A higher pleasure of production has taken its place not satisfied by mere doing, but requiring for his satisfaction also, delight in the created object––if even unconsciously––the delight of progress, which manifests itself in the production, and which can be observed only in and by the permanency of the object which enables us to compare it with objects previously produced.”

In this case, sticks and peas, Wiebé is describing what Froebel had called an “occupation.”

A reader from British Columbia alerted me that my quote from Matthew Crawford's first book, Shop Class as Soul Craft that was used as the opening to chapter one, was also explored thoroughly at the close of his new book, The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction. The quote has now been used as the opening for one of his books and the closing of another, and I feel honored that my words have been used as bookends for this important point.

“In schools we create artificial learning environments for our children that they know to be contrived and undeserving of their full attention and engagement… Without the opportunity to learn through the hands, the world remains abstract, and distant, and the passions for learning will not be engaged.”

The basic assumption in schooling is that students are stupid and can be easily manipulated. The truth is that they are not. By the time they reach school age, they have already been deeply immersed in learning and have enough sense to distinguish between that which is contrived and wrongfully  presented in a game-like fashion, and relality. Some students are deeply engaged in playing the education game, and some are more resistant to it. But when ALL students are asked to do real things, like the creation of useful beauty, real, memorable and remarkable learning happens. It's why we need shop classes, music, the arts, laboratory science, physical education, hikes in the woods (along with serious classroom nature study), and to get kids out of the classroom doing real things.

The image used above is from Norm Brosterman's book, Inventing Kindergarten.

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

the universal man...

H. Courthope Bowen in his book Froebel and Self-Activity had suggested that the songs and games of Kindergarten should be adapted to better conform to the immediate lives of the children in the particular community. His idea was that since it was unlikely that Kindergarten children in an urban environment would ever encounter fishes living in a brook, that songs and fingerplay about fish should be abandoned to make room for others more relevant to the particular children involved. Susan Blow in her book Symbolic Education respectfully took an opposing position. There should be no child not taken to a brook and exposed to the wonders of nature where real fish might be observed.

I fall on Susan Blow's side in this minor dispute. If Kindergarten is to lead to an understanding of the interconnectedness of all things, as Froebel intended, how can that be without the child's direct engagement in nature? Through planting gardens, tending the growth of plants, observing the wonders of nature and attending to the needs of small animals, children are awakened to a deeper relationship to life, and nurture their own sense of responsibility to life itself. There are universal principles having to do with nurturing children to become nurturing of all that surrounds them. This might not fit well with industries' demand for the industrialization of all things for the sake of their profits. But to a very large degree, survival of our species requires that we act with a high degree of sensitivity to what surrounds us.

In addition to celebrating Thanksgiving, I am attempting to illustrate Froebel's idea of occupations..I'll focus on just two examples as the book about making Froebel's Gifts should simply provide a starting point for parents hoping to take a greater role in assuring their child's full development. With the occupations, building upon the foundation provided by the gifts, the parents' role becomes simplified. Provide some simple tools and materials and back off while the child creates...

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

regard for the value of the student's work...

Yesterday one of my students added a leather handle to her bow. As she began personalizing it further by wood burning her design logo on the front side, she informed me that the bow was the most beautiful thing she'd made in wood shop and that she was more proud of it than of anything she'd made to date. I could tell by her enthusiasm when the project was first introduced that this would be the case.

Making things and then making one's own marks to further personalize the things one's made are natural to the learning process. When work matters to the student and the student takes the work seriously, the signs of that are the student's interest in making the work clearly reflect his or her own personality. With that in mind, I am careful to demonstrate on wood other than the piece upon which the student works.

For the sake of comparison, I am reminded of my time in high school freshman English class. My teacher would grade and correct my writing assignments, each written carefully in cursive, and return them to me emblazoned with her red ink pointing out the errors in punctuation, and with no comment as to the intelligence and originality of my thoughts. I did not realize that I was supposed to take her comments and redo the assignments with her corrections in place. In my mind, she had simply desecrated my work and insulted my intelligence. And having been insulted, I simply threw the papers away as I left class. At the end of the semester, Mrs. Adamson informed me that I was failing and would not pass if I did not return my corrected versions of the papers, all of which I had thrown away. My only choice was to redo all the assignments, and to go through the process of correction, ugly red ink and all. And the point here is that student work should be respected, though it routinely is not. If you don't get it, read yesterday's post, the property sense.

This being Thanksgiving Day in the US, I will be busy making pies and will spend just a bit of time with lessons for my great niece Olivia in wood shop. As she is in Kindergarten in Florida, and as kindergarten is no longer what it once was, I hope to experiment just a bit with paper weaving, and peaswork.

Counting blessings and feeling thankful are important elements in the celebration of the Thanksgiving holiday. And I have many things to be thankful for. Among these are the opportunity for creative endeavors and friends interested in sharing my journey. Happy Thanksgiving.  We've 29 making days before Christmas. Make this a giving season in which the greatest gift is to yourself: dexterity of mind and hand.

Make, fix, create, and extend to others the gift of learning likewise.

the property sense...

Yesterday my student who had broken two bows as they were being made came to wood shop  early to begin crafting his third. When students want to accomplish real things, they make time for it even when it means missing a part of their lunch hour recess. While he was at work on his bow, I made a very tiny bow and arrow inspired by the efforts of one of my students. My very tiny bow and arrow, as silly as it may seem, has inspired a number of students to ask if they can make one, too. The desire to possess interesting objects can lead students forward in learning skill.


In my home work shop, I finished a few boxes  and cut miters for nearly 30 more. What will I do with so many boxes? I find joy in the making of them and that should be reason enough to carry forth. I have the power to disperse them as I see fit.

Felix Adler suggested another reason to support manual arts training for all students:

"––namely, that it develops the property sense. What  after all, apart from artificial social convention is the foundation of the right of property? On what basis does it rest? I have a proprietary right to my own thoughts. I have a right to follow my tastes in the adornment of my person and my house. I have a right to the whole sphere of my individuality, my selfhood; and I have a right in things so far as I use them to express my personality. The child that has made a wooden box has put a part of himself into the making of that box––his thought, his patience, his skill, his toil––and therefore the child feels that that box is in a certain sense his own. And as only those who have the sense of ownership are likely to respect the right of ownership in others, we may by manual training cultivate the property sense of the child; and this, in the case of the delinquent child, it will be admitted, is no small advantage."–Felix Adler 1888

With the making of things comes the possession of the object made, and also the possession of the skill required in making it. Desire and anticipation of owning an object can lead students onward. As students apply themselves to skill building tasks with the intention of laying claim to objects desired, they also lay a strong claim upon aspects of self that will serve them well in all things.

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

What will we make today?

Last year my great niece Olivia visited here in Eureka Springs for Thanksgiving, and we did a few simple projects in the wood shop. We made tops and toy cars and so one of Olivia's first questions this year as they planned their trip was, "What will Uncle Doug have for me to make this year?"

Later in the day, we'll find out., but first I have pancakes to make.

This year Olivia is in Kindergarten in South Florida, and they will likely never consider woodworking as an activity in her school, so this is her chance. I brought home one of the kid sized benches from school and have plenty of tools and materials to keep her busy with a project each day. Last year she was shy about woodworking. This year she perks up when she hears the word woodshop.

As it is growing even less likely with each passing day that wood shops will return to education, the responsibility to preserve the hands-on intelligence of our nation falls in your hands and mine on a case by case basis. Let me tell you, that inviting a child to create under your own watchful eyes is not a burden but a joy.

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

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

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

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

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

reduction of testing time...

Here in Arkansas, the change from PARCC to ACT Aspire testing programs this year is claimed to cut the amount of time students spend taking standardized tests in half according to a front page article in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.

What will likely not change, however, is the amount of time spent teaching to the test. If testing drives the standards, then the standards will be driving content. And student interest will fall by the wayside. I've included an interesting cartoon above that tells the story.

Some of the serial effect launched by the common core and PARCC testing, and ACT Aspire is that students have to be on computers to take the tests, and that is predicted to cost education more than 17 Billion dollars over the next 7 years.  According to an article in KQED:

Districts are scrambling to figure out how to improve, update, and add technology so students can actually take the new tests. Murfreesboro public schools in Tennessee, for example, borrowed $5.2 million to purchase laptops and iPads to prepare students for the new assessments.

If you buy a bandsaw or lathe, it will be useful to students 20 years down the road if cared for and maintained. With computers and programs for them, the investment is obsolete within three years, (whether you find sufficient and effective use for them or not) and school districts will be forced to launch a whole new dance to acquire funding for that. But what may interest readers is that the implementation of core curriculum and the testing for it, is actually forcing schools to join in the stampede to spend money on iPads and laptops. It is a vicious cycle. Students won't do well with the core testing if they are not proficient on the computer. So teaching to the test, and training in computer proficiency will dominate classroom learning.

The computer is seen by most educational policy makers as a magic silver bullet. that can be aimed at all the problems in education and child development. But screen time has long been understood by the American Council of Pediatrics at having detrimental developmental effects. The silver bullet of technology is experimental at best, but without the controls necessary to understand the outcome.

In the meantime, a few schools across the country are awakening to the importance of the hands. As is described here: How turning math into a maker workshop can bring calculations to life.

The point is that kids are inspired to learn when they are given the opportunity to do real things. As I was quoted in the first chapter of Matt Crawford's book Shop Class as Soulcraft,

In Schools we create artificial learning environments for our children that they know to be contrived and undeserving of their full attention and engagement… Without the opportunity to learn through the hands, the world remains abstract, and distant, and the passions for learning will not be engaged. --Wisdom of the Hands blog post of October 16, 2006

How can you make certain your students are doing something real? Get their hands engaged in it.

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

sufficient interest...

Yesterday, in addition to cleaning in my office and finish room (the shop is still a disaster), I spent a bit of time trying to finish a few boxes that were made during my summer classes as demonstration pieces. They display a variety of joints and techniques, and as I get finish them  I can either sell them or give them to charity events.

A good question that educational policy makers could ask, is how do we create schooling in which the natural interests of the child are sufficiently captured, so that self-directed learning is engaged. Froebel had called that "self-activity." Just because a child is active does not mean that he is not learning. In fact, the child's activity suggests that learning is taking place.

In speaking of the delinquent or disadvantaged child and the more advantaged child as well, Felix Adler (1888) wrote on the integration of two important points:

First... History, geography, and arithmetic are not, as a rule, interesting to young children, especially to young children of the class with which we are now dealing.  These listless minds are not easily roused to an interest in abstractions. Secondly, it is a notorious fact that the intellectual culture, pure and simple, is quite consistent with weakness of the will. A person may have very high intellectual attainments, and yet be morally deficient. I need hardly warn my reflective hearers that, when emphasizing the importance for the will of intellectual culture, I had in mind the intellectual process as applied to acts. To cultivate the intellect in its own sphere of contemplation and abstractions, apart from action my leave the will precisely a feeble as it was before.

And now, all that has been said thus far converges upon the point that has been in view from the beginning––the importance of manual training as an element in disciplining the will. Manual training fulfills the conditions I have just alluded to. It is interesting to the young, as history, geography and arithmetic often are not. Precisely those pupils who take the least interest or show the least aptitude of literary study are often the most proficient in the workshop and modeling room.... Thus manual training fulfills the one essential condition––it is interesting. It also fulfills the second. By manual training we cultivate the intellect in close connection with action. Manual training consists of a series of actions which are controlled by the mind, and which react on it. Let the task assigned be, for instance, the making of a wooden box...

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

manual training and the poor...

The following is from Felix Adler, a small portion of an address to the National Conference of Charities and Correction at Buffalo, July 1888.

"By manual training we cultivate the intellect in close connection with action. Manual training consists of a series of actions which are controlled by the mind, and which react on it. Let the task assigned be, for instance, the making of a wooden box. The first point to be gained is to attract the attention of the pupil to the task. A wooden box is interesting to a child, hence this first point will be gained. Lethargy is overcome, attention is aroused. Next, it is important to keep the attention fixed on the task: thus only can tenacity of purpose be cultivated. Manual training enables us to keep the attention of the child fixed upon the object of study, because the latter is concrete. Furthermore, the variety of occupations which enter into the making of the box constantly refreshes this interest after it has once been started. The wood must be sawed to line. The boards must be carefully planed and smoothed. The joints must be accurately worked out and fitted. The lid must be attached with hinges. The box must be painted or varnished. Here is a sequence of means leading to an end, a series of operations all pointing to a final object to be gained, to be created. Again, each of these means becomes in turn and for the time being a secondary end; and the pupil thus learns, in an elementary way, the lesson of subordinating minor ends to a major end. And, when finally the task is done, when the box stands before the boy's eyes a complete whole, a serviceable thing, sightly to the eyes, well adapted to its uses, with what a glow of triumph does he contemplate his work! The pleasure of achievement now comes in to crown his labor; and this sense of achievement, in connection with the work done, leaves in his mind a pleasant after-taste, which will stimulate him to similar work in the future. The child that has once acquired, in connection with the making of a box, the habits just described, has begun to master the secret of a strong will, and will be able to apply the same habits in other directions and on other occasions."

The point that Adler was attempting to make was that part of the problem for the poor and for the juvenile delinquent was insufficient development of will. But then the development of will might offer challenges to the powers that be in that strength of mind would lead to demand for change. Here in the US, it seems policy makers would rather incarcerate young men than train them to do useful things. That may sound like a harsh thing to say, but it is true, as evidenced by the elimination of manual arts training in schools throughout the US.

Today I hope to gain some quality time in the wood shop, and plan to renew a proposal for an article about my simple router table. The table itself was featured in "Methods of Work" in Fine Woodworking years ago, but the addition of various fences and a new, simple means of providing zero clearance to the bit makes it worth another look.

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

stopping the school to prison pipeline...

Asking the right questions ... The US Department of Education is using google hangouts to address the problem of school discipline. Way too many children are suspended from school and these kids are disproportionately from particular social groups that also are incarcerated in disproportionate numbers. The pattern is well established. Kids perform poorly in school, are suspended and left on the streets where they get in trouble, are then thrown into the juvenile court system for a time, and as they reach prison age without maturing beyond petty criminal and gang activities, end up in prison.

I am curious of course, as I listen, whether or not policy makers will ever get around to the important question about capturing student interest, and the challenge of maintaining discipline in overly large classes, classes that should not be so large in the first place. We know that in small classes, teachers have a better capacity to address student needs.

The way this fits the school to prison pipeline is that too many children are simply suspended as a part of the discipline protocol, and by being pushed from schooling, the issues are compounded.

One good question that was asked the panel had to do with students questioning authority. The questioner was not specific whether he was asking about school authority or authority in general.  The question threw the panel for  a moment or two. But should questioning authority whether it's the school's authority in question or the standard assumptions of society not be an important part of the student's school experience? I would hope that students challenge, and challenge again.

The wood shop offers an important opportunity for kids. My standard response when kids ask, "Can I do this?" is "Try it, See how it works." It's not my job to prove my own authority, but to encourage children to test on their own. The important thing is not to give students a standardized view of reality, but to help them to use their own minds and hearts to test physical and social realities. Woodworking is a bit different from courses in which children are captive in desks, afraid to move without launching a discipline protocol.

A friend asked me about the effectiveness of woodworking in the education of the delinquent or disadvantaged child. It is not a thing I discuss much here, because in truth, woodworking is relevant to all children in their development as responsible adults for the many reasons I routinely discuss. But if educational policy makers were interested in breaking the school to prison pipeline, they might consider wood shop, and giving students something to do that would fully capture their interests and attention.

Yesterday one of my students broke his second bow, due to it having been weakened in one spot near the handle due to a design choice. He had broken one earlier due to a defect in the material. So it was extremely discouraging for him to have had two failures. I offered my own bow that I had done as a demo for him to complete as a replacement for his own. He thanked me, but insisted that he wants to start another and to work on his own to make it more perfect. This is a student that I've had in wood shop since he was in first grade. He was a reluctant student at first and wanted nothing to do with real tools, so it is pleasant for me to observe his maturity and interest.

Marc Adams School of Woodworking has announced its classes for the coming year, with a process for signing up. My own classes are sometimes filled early in the enrollment process so adult students hoping to take one should apply soon.

On an unrelated issue, SWEPCO in their haste to build an extra high voltage transmission line through my home town of Eureka Springs, that they claimed was to serve us  by providing 8 times the currently available power, but was really to provide them with a power transmission corridor to sell wind power to the East Coast, had piecemealed the project. They divided it into smaller chunks,  hoping to get approval for a distasteful project and built the first portion of the power line, doing unnecessary damage to properties to the west.

One litigant filed an appeal to SWEPCO's court settlement on his property, and was awarded over 917,000 dollars in damages. Yesterday the Arkansas Supreme Court upheld the jury's decision. After the way that SWEPCO lied to us and to the Arkansas Public Service Commission and after our long fight to stop them from building their unnecessary and destructive power line through our county, it is gratifying to see SWEPCO facing at least a small measure of justice. As I've mentioned before, if the corporation was a person, it would be ashamed of itself. If one were to assess corporations the way psychologists assess and diagnose patients, SWEPCO's corporate behavior in this issue would be found to exhibit a pathological Anti-Social Personality Disorder.

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

the necessity of creativity...

With my book on tiny boxes nearly complete, I returned my attention to making Froebel's Gifts by writing an essay on occupations to submit to my editor.

Engagement in Froebel's occupations gave the student the opportunity to test material properties and test the dexterity of both mind and hands in the creative process. Creativity offers students a means to test what they have been told been taught, to engage in direct problem solving, and to directly observe and measure their own competence. Schools without the creative use of the hands are a waste of mind.

Yesterday in wood shop my students tested their bows and arrows, turned gavels on the lathe and made toys. Oen made a toy grapple on a string and as I left school he was attempting to capture the climbing gym.

The image above is a proposed cover for my new book.

Make, fix, create, and find it imperative that others learn likewise.

The impact of Kindergarten...

Phildelphis World Exposition's Kindergarten class, 1876.

I had such a good day at school today, and plan to have just as good a day tomorrow. The kids are so much fun and show such enthusiasm for woodworking when they are challenged to do meaningful work.  This afternoon, when they saw that I was in the shop during lunch hour, they started filtering in early to work on their bows and arrows, and to hang out with the wonderful smell of wood. I'd been cutting cherry, so the odor of that wood was dominant in a room already smelling of sawn ash and planed pine. I'm reminded that manual arts in school was intended by some to extend the Kindergarten method into the upper grades, so it can be added to the long list of effects that Kindergarten had on education at large. The following is Nina C. Vandewalker's description of the impact of Kindergarten written in 1907.

“The kindergarten movement is one of the most significant movements in American education. In the fifty or more years that have passed since the first kindergarten was opened in the United States education has been transformed, and the kindergarten has been one of the agencies in the transformation. Although it came to this country when the educational ideal was still in the process of transformation, its aims and methods differed too radically from the prevailing ones to meet with immediate acceptance. The kindergarten is, however, the educational expression of the principles upon which American institutions are based, and as such it could not but live and grow upon American soil, if not in the school system, then out of it. Trusting to its inherent truth to win recognition and influence, it started on its educational mission as an independent institution, the embodiment of a new educational ideal. Its exponents proclaimed a new gospel — that of man as a creative being, and education as a process of self-expression. They substituted activity for the prevailing repression, and insisted upon the child's right to himself and to happiness during the educational process. They emphasized the importance of early childhood, and made the ideal mother the standard for the teacher. They recognized the value of beauty as a factor in education, and by means of music, plants, and pictures in the kindergarten they revealed the barrenness of the old-time schoolroom. By their sympathetic interpretation of childhood, their exaltation of motherhood, their enthusiasm for humanity, and their intense moral earnestness they carried conviction to the educational world. The kindergarten so won its way to the hearts of the people that the school at last opened its doors and bade it welcome. It has become the symbol of the new education.”

You can see That American education was headed in the right direction for a short time, then disrupted. In the meantime, "disruptive technology" has been presumed by those selling it to have only positive effect, and so anything that presents any consistency or constancy in human culture appears to be fair game for purposeful disruption. Whatever it is, disrupt it and see what happens. They used to say that if its not broken, don't fix it. Now the idea promulgated by avid technologians is break so it needs fixn' in the technologian manner. If schools buy into the technological fix, they must buy new equipment and software every three years to sustain it. But a good bandsaw, or lathe can last 20 years in a school setting, and kids can actually learn about 3 times as much about themselves in half the time by using one. How many kids these days are engaged in making useful beauty?  Too few.

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

for years now...

On last Friday, my 4th, 5th, and sixth grade students poked a hole in the theoretical underpinnings of my program. Part of the theory of my Wisdom of the Hands program was to enrich their studies by doing projects that were integrated with their classroom studies. For instance, if they were studying dinosaurs, we made model dinosaurs in wood shop. It seemed to me when we began the Wisdom of the Hands program in 2001 that we needed to prove the value of woodworking to staff and administration. So we developed projects to build culture and relationship within the school.

One day last week, my students were unsettled and the lesson I had prepared for them was not a thing that they were at all interested in. They were reading a book about the voyage of Christopher Columbus and I had thought a model and models of the Santa Maria would interest them. Only one student expressed interest, and the others were strongly disinterested. Their classroom teacher heard how noisy they were as they were goofing off. I challenged them at the end of class, telling them that I felt frustrated when they were not interested in learning what I had prepared for them... That I had spent most of my life developing skills, and that my own sense of fulfillment came from passing along what I had worked hard to learn.

So, I struggled in the night before yesterday's class, wondering how to get my students more deeply engaged. But their classroom teacher had raised the same question with them at the close of school on Friday. They told her that they wanted to do projects, not based on the ideal of integration, but of clear service and of meaning to others. It was interesting that I had arrived at the same conclusion during the night.

Yesterday we started two projects. The kids will be making toys for the next month to give to children at the local food bank. Select students will be working on turned projects on the lathe to be given as special gifts from the school. So instead of children goofing off, all were deeply engaged in their work.

Having a project that the children have chosen can make all the difference in the world. And an interesting thing to note, is that integration between classes, though an ideal in that it leads to collaboration between teachers and culture within the school, is not a necessity. Children, left to their own imaginations and intelligence can see the interconnectedness between areas of study, or are capable of making those discoveries on their own.

So, while school administrators all over the world, are embracing iPads as the essential tool, kids, when given the opportunity to do real things that are of meaning to others, will make the better choice.

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

yeah...

They say its your birthday, it's my birthday, too, yeah. Thus sayeth the Beatles and the world rocked anew. If you have the right rhythm, are loud enough, have clever lyrics, and kids can dance to it, changes can come dramatically in a single night. Other, more meaningful things, can take a bit longer and still surprise you in how quickly they have come to pass.

Yesterday was my birthday, and I thought I was going to simply celebrate by doing chores. Instead, when we went to the UU church, some of the members were telling me about seeing me on TV...  several times, in fact. They were impressed by the short video done by the Historic Arkansas Museum and being shown on Arkansas Public Television in a series showing the skills and talents of Arkansas. Many of my readers may have seen this before: Wisdom of the Hands by filmaker Gabe Gentry. In any case, being on public television so many times has made me just a bit famous around here, and some of my students, too, have seen themselves on the little screen that's no longer so small in some homes as it once was.

Yesterday evening, we attended a celebration for volunteers at the Eureka Springs School of the Arts, and I learned about half-way through, why my wife wanted me to wear something other than blue jeans and old shirt. They had chosen to honor the three "founders" of the organization, Eleanor Lux, Mary Springer and me, by placing a bronze plaque on the original building we bought about a dozen years ago, and that is now called the "founders place." It is amazing to look back, and see that some small gestures at bringing people together around a good idea, can lead to such things. If you want to see that something can start out small and have a significant impact on the lives of others, ESSA is a good place to visit either in person or online. The Eureka Springs School of the Arts is that kind of place.

Robert Browning had said  "A man's reach should exceed his grasp, else what is a heaven for?" And that describes having had a simple notion shared with a few friends, about starting a school for the arts. For some of our students, to have become engaged in personal creativity for the first time, is their entry to heaven. Why else would some call God, the "creator."

A friend on Saturday noted that she's turned 75 and is taking the time to enjoy each moment in the awareness that she may not have that many years left. Time appears to move more slowly and deliberately when we are very young, everything is new to us, and now to us, and we could take nothing for granted.

Now, having been honored while still alive (a thing that does not happen often), I can get back to teaching, box making and my written works.

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