Sunday, November 14, 2010

transform the world in shop class

Of course most of us know the value of shop class already. But it is well past time for the message to be getting out to others. One interesting thing you will note on this project is that they really haven't rally accomplished much yet. Lots and lots of talk, and it is best to cut to the last 4 minutes where it starts to get good. But with the publicity that comes from being featured on CNN, perhaps the message will get through.

Since I'm still not bored with my latest box creation,  have given it a final coat of finish and additional attention, including lining and felt pads, I share it again below.

5 comments:

  1. Wow Doug. Beautiful.

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  2. Richard Bazeley1:59 AM

    Emily is right the working class blue collar workers need better bus shelters while they wait for the bus to the peanut farm. Might inspire them to design a better bird house that they can build in their spare time when they get home. But then they never had a shopteacher to teach them how to build a bird house. Just have to Google that and maybe the virtual shop teacher will show them how. Opening here for a virtual shopteacher that could go beyond the borders of America. Excuse me while I go and look for my virtual hammer.

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  3. Richard, there is an opening here for a virtual shop class teacher. In Sweden they are experimenting with headsets that allow a distant teacher to see what the student is doing on a lathe. I'm not sure how that distant teacher will grind the edge or even see that it is properly ground, but then if the lathe itself were virtual as well, then perhaps chisel's cutting edges could be theoretically sufficient to cut virtual wood.

    There would be not problem with catching.

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  4. Richard Bazeley3:20 PM

    Doug I have no problem with the teaching of design but I do not think that it is a solution on its own. There is still a need for skills based training for vocational reasons. Who do you want looking after your car? A designer or a mechanic? There is also a need for the creative experience. The birdhouse, the footstool and the pencil box all have there benefits in a child's development. Building the virtual birdhouse in Sketchup is one set of skills. Making the birdhouse in the workshop is another.

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  5. Richard, too often designers don't know the process of making things and thus know nothing about actual design. Things on paper (or on sketch-up) are not the same as real stuff. Design that is not rooted in capacity to make real stuff is inherently flawed.

    And designers think that they are above craftsmen somehow or other... a point which neither I nor John Ruskin, nor William Morris would agree.

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