the task, to teach

 https://gliedganzes.substack.com/p/the-task-to-teach

From Pope Leo.

From Pope Leo— "In this era of artificial intelligence, it is becoming urgent to distinguish human art from what machines produce. There is an ontological difference, even before an aesthetic one, between art and what a machine can generate through statistical calculation based on millions of images created by others. Algorithms lack the spark of humanity. For this reason, the Church wishes to renew an alliance with artists and cultural institutions to safeguard our humanity."

I've been here the whole time. To produce art is an act of resistance.

Make, fix and create...

the child as craftsmen

 https://gliedganzes.substack.com/p/the-child-as-craftsman.

Make your own Shaker knobs.

https://gliedganzes.substack.com/p/turning-a-shaker-style-knob-on-a

An article on making your own Shaker knobs originally published in Woodwork Magazine, October 2002

boats

A memorable experience from 2017. https://gliedganzes.substack.com/p/we-built-boats Part One, preparing for the students to arrive.

the risk of cognitive surrender

An article in the New York Times tells of a study at MIT that described the effects of artificial intelligence as leading to "cognitive surrender" as students look for the easy way out. 

Whenever faced with difficult challenges, students are turning to AI to solve them rather than working out solutions in the own minds and hands. One outcome of this is related to memory as the solutions derived from using AI are not retained. Craftsmen, on the other hand, retain a catalog of hypothetical solutions in their own minds derived from their own experiences.

Free gift article.

I had a conversation yesterday with an editor from Woodcraft Magazine about the need for woodworking in schools, for all students. A link to the resultant article will be shared later.

The use of the hands is our best tool for building the intellect, for it requires us to be present and engaged.

So we do things in schools that advance the student's minds or we choose to do otherwise. While some educators are choosing to think that artificial intelligence is merely the wave of the future and that students must be trained in its use,

I suggest the future is in our own minds and hands. A distinctly different story.

The photograph is of a piece from my video, Rustic Furniture Basics, a "stump table" now in the collection the Historic Arkansas Museum.

Are we all like?

I just finished a 4 day class with adults, making inlaid boxes. It should be noted that teaching adults and children is essentially the same thing, particularly if the children have an interest in learning, as do most adults who have joined me in the wood shop.

It is all a matter of play. We experimented. We asked questions of ourselves and others. We watched for the safe operation of tools. And we made inlaid boxes. 

We maintained an atmosphere where mistakes we OK.

Adults or children, we start with our interest, as that is what we build upon. We proceed from what we know, toward what we want to find out. We move from the easy to the more difficult. We go from the simple to the complex and always from the concrete to the abstract, and back to simplify and make real.

Make, fix and create.