the great secret...

NORTH HOUSE FOLK SCHOOL trailer from dennysFilms on Vimeo.

Jean Jacques Rousseau had said that the great secret of education is to combine mental and physical labors so that each refreshes the other. This is truly the best kept secret of education. We force students to sit in desks and resist their most natural inclinations.

I am safely home from Louisville, having flown in a private plane piloted by a former student. It was a great adventure flying over the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers at 6,000 feet, and then coming in for a landing in crosswinds at our local airport. We learn best when our whole beings are involved in learning, and being present in learning. Why in the world would that be so difficult for educators to admit the hands into the circle as the foundation for effective learning?

It is just cheaper to go through empty motions and pretense.

This afternoon I am back to making boxes. It is a relief to have my presentations over and to relax in the pleasure of my chosen craft. A blog reader sent the North House Folk School video embedded above. In Bloomberg Business Week, an article features the work of Marcin Jakubowski, making anyone can make without license open source machines. Making real things that serve humanity in various ways might even offer a better means to engage kids in learning than making making an activity akin to sports. Are we to inform our kids that life is simply one more game, or do we have more at stake than that? The article about Jakubowski is called: The Post-Apocalypse Survival Machine Nerd Farm. Inhad written much earlier about Jakubowski here.

Make, fix and create...