can you guess?

What is it? Can you guess? One of my first grade students made it. Can you put your mind in the eyes of a child, and consider the things that a child might consider important, and then understand the need to create representations of those things?

This of course, is a lego block, a bit larger than most, held together by glue and tape. But it's a thing that one of my students conceived and planned the making of.

In modern life, even the toys children play with are designed and made by others, cutting off from the child the natural progression of things, from easy to difficult, from known to unknown, from simple to complex and from concrete to abstract. But these are not just the principles of educational sloyd, they are also the map describing the journey of growth, for the child and for ourselves as well.

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

Sid's motor tank

The students in wood shop at the Clear Spring School often have things in mind that can't be easily explained. For instance Sid's Motor Tank has been in the works for weeks as he's explored various ways to add more and more pieces of wood, in defiance of gravity. As you can see, more and more tape has been needed to hold pieces together. I asked how he would improve it if he was to make another. He said, "I'd make it metal." And so we can see prototyping in action. We also witness art in action, as the process of creating art transcends boundaries even when masking tape is necessary to do so. With the motor tank complete Sid began attaching wings, proposing another attribute of the arts. It's that one thing leads to another.

In cross posting from my blog to facebook, only one image makes the transition so visiting the blog directly will show you more. If you are one of those hoping to transition away from facebook and still keep up with happenings on the Wisdom of the Hands blog, you can do so here: http://wisdomofhands.blogspot.com

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

Today in the woodshop

We are finishing up student projects in the woodshop to clear the decks for an experiment in learning during the month of June in which Clear Spring students will be divided up into three multi-aged groups. 

It's an experiment that would be impossible in most schools. For us it will further extend a family style learning in which students take greater responsibility for each other. Each group has a theme and students are grouped to get along withe each other and to meet student interests.

I'll be working primarily with the "camping group" that will be centered on outdoor learning.

My students Grace and Sola are making a board game for classroom use. It has four turned game pieces, and a central dragon, all on a board carefully laid out on a grid.

The dragon's area of movement is laid out in darker lines at the center of the board.

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

Wm. Coperthwaite

I've been doing some writing about my friend Bill Coperthwaite which along with photos I hope will become a magazine article. In this poem you will likely understand why.

Love Thy Neighbor

"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself..." 

As much as I love myself? 

I did not understand.

Then it happened.

Could that possibly mean love thy neighbor as a part of thyself?

Suddenly it came alive: a rule to live by.

My neighbor and I are one - as fingers of one hand 

My neighbor's welfare is my welfare - His poverty my poverty,

His happiness my happiness.

Time passed.

The old commandment has grown to mean: 

Love thy planet as a part of thyself. 

Treat it with love and kindness, 

With care, gentleness, and thanksgiving. 

Any harm done to my planet Is harm done to me. 

— Wm. Coperthwaite

Make, fix and create. Assist others in living and learning likewise. 

building the connections between things.

Some of my students in woodshop told me that they are designing a classroom board game and needed game pieces to be turned on the lathe. I turned these following their instructions and close supervision. 

Of course woodworking is a collaborative experience as is much of life. We work together on things and step in to play our own parts, which in this case for the students became sanding and then coloring of the game pieces using crayons. 

We each bring forth skills and interests that augment the whole. And of course that's one of the problems with education that attempts to separate us into classes. There are social classes, and classroom classes and being stuck in one or the other may offer value to those who manage others and assert power over others, but don't bode well when it comes to growth.

Back in 1917 President Woodrow Wilson, a known racist, signed the Smith-Hughes Act, separating the manual and industrial arts education from the education of those he considered destined to become the masters of society. As President of Princeton, he had said, 

 "We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class, of necessity, in every society, to forgo the privileges of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks."— Woodrow Wilson 

Wilson said nothing about assuring the dignity of the working class. And so as there's a resurgence of interest in Career and Technical Arts Education, we must go to great lengths to assure ALL that being able to do various difficult things as necessary and needed by society is not the end of learning, but the start. There must be no dividing line between classes.

In the ideal world, schools would hum with activity and the making of things that brought relationship and established deeper connections.

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

flag poles

Kids in Kindergarten (our rainbow group) will gladly make anything, as there's excitement in the use of tools and in seeing what you're learning develop in concrete form. My student Lane asked, "Do I get to take this home?" That's an important question that shows a direct line from home to school, that builds important links. The students are proud of what they've made and want to share. That they have  a concrete expression of what they've learned makes that age old question, "what did you do in school today?" easy for children to answer.

Yesterday's project was making "flag poles," each being a piece of wood tenoned to fit in a base and adorned with wooden flags. The kids  (with help)operated the drill press and a cordless drill with tenoner, then sanded and decorated the parts and assembled them. With the right tools and preparation in place only a half hour lesson was necessary.

Children having more year's practice in wood shop have more complex ideas. Three of my students decided yesterday that they wanted to design and make a board game for classroom use. So I helped make game pieces on the lathe that they insisted are needed. Over the next two weeks we'll see whether they bring their board game to a finished form.

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

The illusions of class

When it comes to poverty and what's called the upper and lower class, class is quite real and we've been contending with that throughout the rise of the modern economy. Salomon's Educational Sloyd was deeply concerned about the barriers presented by class and the struggles that were arising as modern economies took advantage of the poor. By engaging ALL students in the manual arts he hoped that ALL, even those who would pull the economic strings of industry, would develop a sense of the dignity of labor and be willing to reward for its full value.

But there's another meaning to the word class that Salomon regarded as illusion, the idea that you could take a group of kids of the same age and put them at desks and lecture them through an entire course and to then think that they had successfully followed along. Of course the problem is that all students arrive at that "class" with varying experiences to serve as a foundation for what they are to learn and they pass through with too little effect.

Then there's the problem of mind. If I say something to you, it's intended to trigger either complaisance or response. In complaisance it's all "in one ear and out the other." If I say anything at all that stimulates your attention, your own mind becomes engaged with questions about what I've said. Once your mind is stimulated in its own internal dialog, you will no longer be listening to me, but to your own thoughts. For a group of kids to all be attending to the same facts at exactly the same time is near impossible as they each receive learning as it connects with their own prior experience, interest and disposition.

Friedrich Froebel and others in the progressive movement believed that nothing should be learned without the opportunity to test what you've just learned, so instead of sitting idly while being presented with endless streams of useless stuff, schools would be laboratories of learning where students are engaged hands-on. A perfect balance might be one part stuff and 3 parts action, and of course the academician's response would be "we don't have time for all that, we've got important stuff to cover." 

But the truth is that while school can be hard (and boring) learning is easy. And the refreshment that doing real things brings to schooling pays off by providing reason for the students to attend, both in body and mind. For the inventors of Educational Sloyd, woodworking and other crafts would unite the body and mind in learning, extending the Froebel's Kindergarten style of learning into the upper grades.

Those in a so-called "class" are frequently there, but absent in their attentions. Bringing the hands and mind together would assure the participation of the whole child. This is not new folks. Rousseau had noted the way that the activities of hand and mind would each refresh the other. 

Feel free to share this with others. It's important.

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

bridging the gap.

I'd written about this matter before. If the use of the hands makes you smart, then why are there so many folks at odds with those who attain advanced degrees? And the simple answer is that education often fails to bridge the gap between the concrete and the abstract. 

According to the theory of Educational Sloyd, education was to start with the interests of the child, then build from the known to the unknown,  from the easy to more difficult, from the simple to the complex and from the concrete to the abstract. Launched from student interest and built through steady progression, education was to provide a firm foundation for exploration of the abstract. 

Imagine you are building a bridge from the concrete to the abstract. You start with a single line or cable and add comprehension step-by-step until the bridge is complete. Even the most obscure principles can be understood if the bridging is complete. Education that segments students into classes fails to build the proper foundation and builds barriers between social and economic classes.

What happens too often now is that children are thrown into abstraction without what Otto Salomon called "a firm foundation." The student may achieve understanding in narrow bounds and form judgements on what they consider the stupidity of others. The range of interest is narrowed, and complex subject matter is avoided.

A large part of the problem stems from the illusion that children can be successfully divided into classes based on age and taught together as classes without addressing individual student needs. This idea is not mine alone, but was discussed thoroughly in Salomon's "Theory of Educational Sloyd." But how can student growth be managed so each is allowed to arrive at highest potential and understanding? The family serves as an example: a group of kids, each at differing levels of maturity and interest, and yet with each encouraging the growth of each other, under the guidance of a mentor.

So for those looking for a model for education that sets things right, we need look no further than the 18th century when Pestalozzi wrote "How Gertrude Teaches Her Children" or the 19th century when Froebel invented Kindergarten, and Uno Cygnaeus and Otto Salomon invented Educational Sloyd. But then, how many in the halls of academia would consider they might learn important principles from the manual arts? Or why would anyone be willing to listen to a wood shop teacher with regard to reforming American education? You might be one of the first.

Even in my Rainbow Group (kindergarten) children arrive at school with a variety of prior experiences upon which to build learning. Some come from families where crafting is a regular activity. Some have never used a hammer before. Some readers wonder how we are willing to risk holding our fingers and thumbs so close  as our students hammer for the first time. We're brave.

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

The indirect workings of mind.

I'm fascinated by the workings of mind... the ways we make connections between things, and these connections and how the mind works are as much drawn from the unconscious and that which we barely know about ourselves as they is from the broad daylight of conscious knowing. And so, what's the purpose of education? Is it to have those connections clearly drawn out between lines, or to provide us the tools to chart our ways through the unknown and unknowable? And so, while administrators would like teachers to be more like newsreaders laying out what the station owner wants the community to know and believe, teaching is more of an art through which students discover themselves and their own relationships to the world at large.

In my how-to writings I can tell, "do this, and next do that," and I offer instructions that if followed to the "t" lead to the product I showed on the first page of the article or chapter, or maybe featured on the cover of the book. But when it comes to people (and students of course) whom we hope to offer skills for the navigation of real life. There are no simple formulas or processes that apply equally to all kids. So it troubles me that children are to be laid out upon a grid of standards without being fully regarded as the valuable individuals they are.

There was a monster in Greek mythology named Procrustes. He would welcome visitors into his home. He had a special bed that was equipped to provide for the one size fits all ideal of classroom learning. If you were too short for the bed, it was fitted with chains and gears through which you would be stretched to fit. If you were too tall, it would chop length from your feet and legs to bring you to the right size.

You can see why Procrustes was regarded as a monster. And you might see some similarities between the bed of Procrustes and what passes as modern education in which children are pressed into molds and held in place until set.

Education at its best is about things other than reading or math or compliance with standards of behavior. It's about navigating that space between the conscious and unconscious mind through building bridges toward a sense of wholeness that assures the student he or she is a part of things, a wholeness of community life within which he or she plays (even as a child) an important part. 

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

Rackensack Kilns

I attended "Slabberday" at Rackensack Kilns between Gateway and Rogers this morning and was pleased find friends attending from the Stateline Woodturner's Club who were there to demonstrate wood turning. It is a wonderful operation turning wood into lovely slabs of wood that are for sale to woodworkers.  It's  become a destination for area woodworkers and offers a variety of species of lumber, all in large form.

They mill it, dry it and plane it flat for your use. 

A couple days ago I got some new jigs in the mail, sent by a reader who took my flipping story stick technique from my books and articles and made a jig that duplicates the process. Instead of making  story stick for each box, you adjust the jig to the length and use it to set up stop blocks on the router table.

I promised to demonstrate the jig to students in my classes and to test it and provide feedback.

I'll have more to show on that at a later date. The photo shows only a small glimpse of the inventory of slabs available at Rackensack Kilns.

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

Slabberday...

Today I'm going with friends to an event called "slabberday," where a man will be cutting logs into large slabs of wood. It is an annual event. In the meantime, this article about a young chess master is an important thing to read. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/08/opinion/sunday/homeless-chess-champion-tani-adewumi.html

It concerns a young man proficient at chess, and suggests that we need to offer all children the advantages they need to succeed. The young chess master, in his wisdom says "I don't lose, I learn." And I ask "when will we learn?" that all children and parents need the opportunity to find success, not delivered on a platter or slab of wood, but that they work for and that's within reach.

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

What we learn about the truth

Yesterday in the woodshop at the Clear Spring School we made tiny house napkin holders with the Rainbow Group (kindergarten). At that age the children are so excited to make things and simple things bring great joy. To prepare for this project I cut front and back pieces and a strip of wood to be nailed between. After the students had sanded the parts, I drilled pilot holes for the nails to give them a head start in entering and joining the pieces. Glue was also applied between parts.

Education that's left overly abstract allows students to think that you can just make things up. Education that involves doing real things, gives children an understanding that discovery of truth is related to powers of observation through the senses.

In 1973 I had watched the joining of the two parts of the Hernando Desoto I-40 bridge in Memphis. It was amazing how they brought the two parts from opposite sides of the river to meet exactly in the middle. Out of curiosity, and before th bridge was opened to traffic, my sister Ann and I walked across that bridge.

Now the Hernando Desoto Bridge is closed to traffic due to the failure of one part, a massive box beam, and it was good that the breakage of that part was discovered before a colossal failure of the bridge. Routine inspection and discovery of the break led the inspectors to call 911 and to demand immediate closure.

As we watch in politics, we learn that you can lie and make things up. You can choose to ignore what you see with your own eyes, and then fabricate and obfuscate. You can deny what you've done and if you can get enough folks out there to go along for various reasons of their own, you can keep lying til the cows come home, and they may not. Perhaps chickens will come home to roost.

You can make stuff up and walk right off the deep end in lies if you choose that as your path, but we should at least be helping our students discover pathways for discerning the truth. You find that path by doing real things.

letterpress

My new book is in the hands of an editor and her work will be complete in a week or so. There will be questions for me to answer, high resolution images to supply. The title is not yet finalized. 

Today in the Clear Spring School wood shop students will be working on a variety of non-weaponry projects from their own imaginations. My Kindergarten students, called here at our school, "the Rainbow Group" will continue to make toy cars and trucks. 

I'm hoping to bring the letterpress, typography art to our Eureka Springs School of the Arts by arranging a visit by John Horn and his portable letterpress studio described in his blog here: http://www.johnthetypesnob.com/2019/04/23/a-portable-print-shop/

Some may know John as one of the foremost authorities on letterpress and typography in the US. As an avid collector during the time in which the letterpress art was being abandoned, John was there as both a printer and collector. To have him here to share with us will be an amazing opportunity. 

One of my favorite blog posts from John's website is of his visit to an old print studio. It lets us know that there are still places for artists to go to save what's been abandoned in our face-first smack-down launch of "civilization" into the digital, everything easy age in which we live. The photo is from John's travels, of a print shop that got away, left abandoned. Would it not be wonderful for some aspiring young printer to find it and restore it to use?

Make, fix and create. Assist others in learning lifewise

a new knife.

Yesterday I tempered the spoon carving knives that we'd forged at ESSA last week, putting them in the oven at 425 degrees for an hour and letting them cool gradually to room temp. With the blades ready I was able to sharpen and add a handle to one, designing it to feel good in the palm of my hand. My high school students will work on their's today.

Without tempering hardened steel can be brittle. Tempering restores some of its flexibility while maintaining the steel's ability to hold a sharp edge. This thing is sharp.

The handle is made of ash.

Have you had the experience of making a tool for your own use? If so, you'll know that it feels good to feel what you've made, touching it and exploring its use in your own hands.

Just think about spoons for a moment or two and and how they are symbolically connected at the core of human life. We stir food with spoons as its being cooked. We measure ingredients with spoons. We feed babies with spoons and they offer a means through which we feed ourselves. 

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

Coperthwaite's spoon knives

Today I'll temper the spoon knives we forged last week so my high school students can begin adding handles. The spoon knives shown in the photo were made by Bill Coperthwaite and used for an article I wrote for Woodwork Magazine a few years back. 

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

learning family style...

Our lower elementary school teacher Rigdon, has a chart on the white board in his room on which his students have listed the various things they're good at. The idea is in part that when they finish their work, instead of insisting on starting something new and that their teacher provide that for them, they can offer their skills to assist others, and those who may need help know to which fellow student they might turn. That's the way things work in families. And that's the way things worked in Pestalozzi's novel Leonard and Gertrude, centered on the life of Gertrude, a mother who taught her own children in a manner that caught the attention of the local duke. 

The success of Pestalozzi's novel brought him fame through which he attempted to build a series of demonstration schools of his own. His book, How Gertrude Teaches Her Children was his attempt to revolutionize schooling, particularly for the poor.

So what was so important about Gertrude's method? Think for a moment or longer of the one room school house with children of various ages and abilities, each responsible to the teacher and also to the success and well-being of every other child in the room. Two of the mistakes made in schooling are the division of students by age into classes, and the division of what they are supposed to learn by proposed grade level. These leads to a rushing through, with some kids leaping ahead and some left behind scratching their heads.

At the Clear Spring School we have powers unavailable to more conventional schools, and the pandemic has provided both inspiration and opportunity for us to leap ahead and be bold in ways most schools would not dare. In June we're planning a return to the one room school house concept, dividing the student body in three with each third being a multi-age group in which, as in a family, each child will assist the learning needs and development of each other.

I'm excited about this new and very old development in education, as I know Pestalozzi would be also as we are poised to offer the revolution Pestalozzi had in mind.

The photo shows my student Grady with his expanding sloyd trivet. Grady says, that as the son of a carpenter he has "woodworking in his blood," so he's one I'll be counting on to help others.

Make, fix and create. Assist others in learning lifewise.

Knives and sharp sticks.

Yesterday I was told to no longer allow my students to carry sharpened sticks from the woodshop, as they failed a test, violating the rules of such things. Kids love whittling, and the level of interest they apply to sharpening sticks with a knife is amazing. But being allowed to sharpen sticks carries a burden of responsibility. Sharp sticks are not to be displayed as weapons or held in a manner that suggests they might be used as weapons. I got a texted photograph from the head of school, warning, no more, so that's that.

The rules were simple. Sharp sticks must be carried down at the student's side, not brandished, and upon returning to the main campus were to be put immediately in backpacks and not gotten out during the day, but kids and sticks, sharp or not are irresistible.

There are educational values in sharpening sticks. It takes close observation and develops hand skills as well as attention. So the new rule is simple and will be easy to enforce. Kids can whittle sticks, but they must be left in woodshop.

Yesterday I took another group of high school students to ESSA to use a forge for hardening their spoon carving knife blades. They were of course immediately in love with the place. Their knives are ready for tempering and adding wood handles next week.

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

forged in fire

Yesterday I took a group of high school students to the blacksmithing studio at ESSA to begin the process of hardening their spoon carving knives. Each used the forge to heat their blades cherry red and then quenched them in oil. 

None had done anything like it before. All will likely want to become students at ESSA so they were asking about classes and scholarship opportunities. I'll return to ESSA with another group on Thursday, and I remembered to get a few photos of the process which I'll share in an article in Quercus Magazine in the UK.

The simple point is that students deserve the opportunity to do real things, making the real world clear to them, developing in them an appreciation and understanding of our material planet. Schools can be designed to do that and should be.

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

We share this dream

John Horn sent me this small booklet containing Dr. Martin Luther King's famous speech. The printing and binding are flawless. Jean and I are grateful to receive it. Letterpress is nearly lost art, saved only by enthusiasts like John and important words set in type have greater effect when brought to us through the artist's touch.

The message in the book, "I have a dream" must become one of "We share this dream." 

If you've ever driven by mistake to "the wrong side" of the tracks, or ridden on the commuter train through areas where the planners chose that it not stop, you can assess for yourself that poverty and racism yet stand in opposition to the dream described in this thin volume.

Today I'll take some of my high school students to ESSA to use the black smithing studio to heat treat the spoon knife blades we've been making. We'll use the ESSA forges to heat them red hot, then quench them in oil. Next we'll heat them in the oven to temper the blades and handle them with walnut.

I'll do an article about making spoon knives for Quercus Magazine in the UK.

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

development of form

While modern education seems to have fallen on the narrow shoulders of the alphabet, and so many children (even in pre-school and Kindergarten) bear the heavy burden of letters and have chosen to shrug off such a heavy load,  Pestalozzi had recommended an "alphabet of form". The idea was that there were things other than reading that offered value of study. Form for instance. All learning was to arise from the senses first, and from the child's direct experience. The illustration above is from How Gertrude Teaches Her Children, Pestalozzi's book that proposed a revolution in education. It was based on how an exceptional mother might take care of her children and influence her community.

If you think of progressive education as a relay race with the baton being passed from one to another, Comenius handed off to Rousseau, Rousseau to Pestalozzi, Pestalozzi to Froebel, Froebel to Cygnaeus and Salomon (running side by side) and then Salomon to Dewey (even though they never actually met.) As has always been the case, most runners think only of themselves and their part in the race, and may be inclined to ignore the contributions of those who handed off to them. Maria Montessori, for instance, was critical of the performance of Froebel, even though her method was not independent from the foundation Froebel laid in the invention of Kindergarten. Education as to form, was one of the important differences perceived by N. Christian Jacobsen between Danish Sloyd and Swedish Sloyd.

Swedish Sloyd, as taught by Salomon was deeply rooted in the progressive tradition launched by Comenius, in which children were to learn from experience, and adults responsible for their learning would take advantage of their greatest resource... the natural inclination of the child to follow their own interests in learning. To ignore those interests, in the view of Comenius would be to lay obstacles in the path of effective teaching.

The alphabet of letters (in the view of most progressive educators) could wait until after the child had been guided to make intellectual sense of their own perceptions. And so for Salomon, and as he tried to reinforce through his lectures in 5 languages, Educational Sloyd was about the development of the whole child, and was part of a philosophical lineage of progressive education. And it was extremely important to him that his students (teachers) understood their own positions in the development of education. He knew that at some point, time would march past him, just as time had eclipsed Pestalozzi, and that educational sloyd was but a "casting mold" from which an even more modern and progressive system of education would emerge. It may be of interest to readers that Salomon kept a stone from Pestalozzi's gravesite on his desk as a reminder of his role in an historic progression. It may seem egotistical to some that I have a stone from Salomon's gravesite on my own desk.

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

Once again.

Today I'll be doing some prep work at school for this next week's classes. In the meantime, there are two critical school and non-school factors that have the strongest influence on student success. These are no-brainers, meaning you don't have to be an educational expert to understand their effects.

The first is poverty. The longer a student spends in poverty, the more limited his or her educational outcomes. This affects drop out rates, college and community college enrollment, how early a student is forced to enter the job market, and their overall sense of potential for future attainment.

The second is class size. Small classes lead to better educational outcomes. This has always been true. It's been studied, but again the brain can tell you all you need to know if you are willing to take a fresh look at modern education. Small classes give the teacher more time to be responsive to individual student needs and aspirations. Is that so difficult for educational policy makers to understand? And if we understand it, the next understanding needed is to answer to the question, "why aren't we giving students what we know they need?"

The answer appears simple. The powers that be seem to have concluded that the purpose of education is to keep kids off the streets and under control. That's why, when my daughter was working on her masters in education degree, the primary focus of study was on classroom management. So it's obvious that the educational system cares more about the status quo of kids being controlled than it does about learning, and if that was not true, they'd do something about it. "What?" you ask? Number one is to eliminate poverty. Number two is to invest far more heavily in schools. More teachers in smaller classes, enabling teachers to be as free to grow as we hope their students will become.

We have a big, huge divide in America. There are those who care and want to do something about it, and those who would rather not care and are insistent that nothing happens to improve the lot of those who face poverty and are tied to an educational system that puts our teachers in situations that are impossible for students and teachers to thrive within.

And so we have the Clear Spring School and others like the Future School in Ft. Smith which we hope will serve as beacons for change.

The illustration is of Greek philosopher Anaxagoras, who said clearly that man is the wisest of all animals because he has hands. If you want to help, share this with others and demand change.

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

future school

Yesterday at the Clear Spring School we had the pleasure of guests from the Future School in Ft. Smith, Arkansas. Allison Montiel is the principal of the school, and Boyd Logan is one of its founders and currently director of operations. 

They are going through a seven million dollar expansion, so the difference in scale between our two schools is enormous. But the focus of our schools on the individual needs of our students is the same. And both schools are focused on bringing meaningful change to education at large.

Children need to learn in a concrete manner from the real world, not from a whole lot of canned and contrived stuff.  Real world learning involves two strategies. One is to do real things in school connecting the various abstract studies, and the other is to use the school as home base as students get out into the real world for directed learning. At Clear Spring School we use regular field trips to get our students out into the community to learn, and our hands-on approach using crafts and arts make the experience real for teachers and students alike. 

The Future School, built on the Big Picture model, uses internships to bring deep engagement to their students, and they are having tremendous success. The important thing to note is that children and young adults are capable of doing real things that are of benefit to their communities and to themselves and that lead to sustained growth. Sequestering kids from real life is a failed strategy and one that often leads to children leaving their home communities in disgust and failing also to realize their full potential.

A few years back, my friend Elliot Washor had told me that he was at work with a Big Picture School in Arkansas. The Future School is the result, and I thank Elliot for making the connection, as we intend to learn much from each other.

One of the challenges that all Big Picture Schools have is that it takes awhile to rekindle student interest in self-directed learning after they've spent 8 years sequestered in classrooms from real life. That was one of the issues we discussed. Student interest can be a fragile thing and as Otto Salomon had suggested in Educational Sloyd, education must start with the interests of the child. And that interest is best kept centered in our attention and nourished steadily from day one.

My student Grady is truly excited about woodworking. He sees something made of wood and he wants to make it.  He wrote me a letter that I got in my mailbox yesterday insisting that he be given the chance to make a pyramid box. He told me that with his dad being a carpenter, "It's in my blood," to make things from wood. The photo shows Grady making a sloyd trivet.

Make, fix and create. Assist others in learning lifewise.

getting caught up in things...

Last year, for the first time in my life, and as we were adjusting to the new reality of Covid-19 restriction, I discovered an interest in pulling weeds. 

My favorite to pull is commonly called cleavers. It grows in long frond like forms that lay on the ground or will climb up and rest upon other plants and it appears to have as its survival strategy the ability to entangle and to be carried along by animal life. It is only barely rooted and pulls up from the earth with ease. It's not one to cling desperately in the soil like a dandelion, so perhaps by pulling it, I'm enabling its spread. Why else would it come loose with such ease?

Galium aparine ('aparine' from Greek 'apairo' [απαίρω < από «from» + αίρω «pull to lift»] – "lay hold of" or "seize")^[2] with many common names including hitchhikers, cleavers,^[3] clivers, bedstraw, goosegrass,^[3] catchweed,^[3] stickyweed, sticky bob,^[4] stickybud, stickyback, robin-run-the-hedge, sticky willy,^[3][5] sticky willow, stickyjack, stickeljack, grip grass, sticky grass, bobby buttons, whippysticks and velcro plant,^[6] is an annual, herbaceous plant of the family Rubiaceae.  — Wikipedia.

Today in the wood shop my students will continue working on their pyramid boxes related to their study of ancient Egypt. 

Children are much more like weeds than corn. We hope they all grow up straight and tall like corn, but diverse, with each enabled with a variety of coping strategies. One of those should be to work with their hands, developing skill and exercising creativity.

Make, fix and create. Assist others in learning lifewise.

Elliot Eisner, non-linguistic intelligence

I realize that when I challenge academia for failure to acknowledge the intelligence expressed through the hands, some might be offended. After all, who am I, a simple teacher and craftsman to challenge modern education? My purpose is not to offend, but to simply assert the value, the intelligence, and dignity of hands-on work and hands-on learning. To that end, I quote the following from Elliot Eisner's the Arts and the Creation of Mind: 

"...a lesson that the arts can teach education is that literal language and quantification are not the only means through which human understanding is secured or represented. So much of schooling privileges discursive language and the use of number that types of intelligence and forms of understanding not represented in these forms are given marginal status. It must be acknowledged, of course, that the abilities to read, to write, and to compute are of crucial importance. Students who cannot read, write, or compute are in deep trouble. But important though these skills are, they do not encompass all of what people know or the ways in which what they know is given public status. We appeal to poetry to say what cannot be expressed in literal language. We secure from images ideas and other forms of experience that elude discursive description. We experience through music qualities of lived experience that cannot be rendered in quantitative form. In short, our sensibilities and the forms of representation associated with them make distinctive contributions to what we notice, grasp and understand. As Pascal said, 'The heart has its reasons that the head knows not.'"

According to Eisner, "The long term result of such deprivation is a diminution of the varieties of life that students are able to lead." Is the purpose of education to diminish and deprive or to enable? We hope for the latter. The purposeful engagement of the hands provides an answer to what ails American education.

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

for my own amusement

I have been compiling a list of educators and educational theorists who have had impact on my understanding of the teacher's responsibilities.... particularly with regard to progressive education. Elliot Eisner came to mind, and I had to dig back into old blog posts to remember why. 

https://wisdomofhands.blogspot.com/2009/10/educational-social-science-and.html

Eisner against the rising tide of standardized education, asserted that teaching much more an art than a science. As an art it brings the recognition that we're not at our best the first day out, and that we have no limits, except those we accept or that are demanded by others, for how good we might get.

Today, as my students are studying ancient Egypt, we'll be making pyramid boxes, a project repeated from 2013. The photo shows a student crafted pyramid box, complete with a mummy inside.

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

making our own mark on things.

Yesterday I finished a new bathroom vanity for our home to replace a mass produced oak cabinet of an unpleasing style. Next in the room will be the installation of a new countertop and replacement of floor tile that had to be pulled up from an earlier renovation. There's pleasure to be derived from making our own mark on things. And that applies to all things in human life.

A reader asked what tools he would need to begin box making, and there are a few basics, table saw, planer, jointer, band saw, router table, that I use very regularly in my work. But caution is advised. 

Not only are tools potentially dangerous, each requires a steadily growing familiarity and appreciation, and beginners can be quickly overwhelmed. Each offers a huge potentiality and it's useful to acquire them in a cautious one-at-a-time manner. For instance, buy a tool, learn what it can do, and the full range of what it can do and then buy another when you've pushed the first to its limits and your circumstances insist that you buy another. This may seem wrong headed to someone wanting to do what he or she sees me doing, but to establish a creative relationship with one's tools is a lifelong journey.

The wood in the new vanity is ash. Ash is available on the market at a good price these days due to it being harvested in advance of the advancing emerald green borer that's been killing ash trees across the upper midwest. The borer that kills it arrived in the US through international trade, just as did so many of the diseases that have had a devastating impact on our forests. It is a beautiful, strongly grained wood (as you can see). It will age to a darker honey tone in time and with exposure to light. Just as tools are best learned gradually through use and through time, the trees and woods are likewise.

And so, a word to those who might be the young among us:  it's good to choose a path with lots of deep learning ahead.

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

the value of woodwork....

Pete Moorhouse has been engaged in researching the value of woodworking in early childhood education and his ongoing study can be found here: 

https://irresistible-learning.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/The-Value-of-Woodwork-in-Early-Childhood-Education-Moorhouse-initial.pdf 

The results of woodworking in school are well known here at the Clear Spring School, measured in the joy our students feel in response to their own efforts and deep engagement.

In Matthew Crawford's book about the world beyond our heads, he dedicated his concluding chapter to the quote from this blog that he used as the opening quotation in his first 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

 There's a good reason that Crawford found my observation useful. It's true. Passionate engagement in learning is of primary importance, and passionate engagement comes from the empowerment to do real things. So there are two important strategies. Provide students real things to do in school that engage their imaginations and encourage the creation of useful beauty. The second strategy involves an effort to connect the school with real life. Field trips are useful, as are internships for the older students that lead them to real life experiences outside the school walls. 

And so of course there's value in woodworking. There's also value in sewing, and in building from cardboard, and in making art. Those things can form a backbone for schooling that keeps children passionately engaged. And passionate engagement forms the bridge though which all the other important subjects flow. It can be said, even if I'm saying it here for the very first time, that if you want a child to read, give him a hammer. 

This week I gave our lower elementary school teacher a big cardboard box. He asked his students to come up with ideas about what that box could become. One said, "a time capsule." Another said "a rocket to Mars." And in minutes each student had expressed ideas about what that box could become. But could they settle among themselves on a single thing? It was soon named "the magic box" because it could become all those things, serving the ideas of all in turn or even at the same time. And so I've been invited to come and see what it's become.

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

serendipitous

Serendipitous is a long word, but useful as it suggests flexibility and direct response to changing circumstances. It may be irksome to some teachers to have interruptions as they are trying to deliver lessons. Some teachers, on the other hand, welcome intrusions from real life... life that we know is real because real life is in flux and subject to change and offers the opportunity for discovery based learning. 

The other day I had a great big cardboard box and at my wife's suggestion, I delivered it to the lower elementary school classroom, where the teacher, Rigdon, noticing what a big beautiful box I was delivering, welcomed a 180 degree shift in plans for the day, and the next day as well. It is currently being painted to become whatever the children can imagine. 

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

tops

Yesterday I introduced my Kindergarten students to making tops. Each made one and then of course wanted to make more to share with their families. I have a small drill press set up for making wheels and it's safe enough that my lower elementary school students can use it without supervision. With the Kindergarten students, I supervised closely, making certain that each wheel blank was secure before the student turned on the drill and turned the handle to lower the drill into the stock. 

With hand crank drills mounted in vises, the students can decorate the tops with colored pencils and markers.

To mount the drills in the vise, I cut v shaped grooves in pieces of 2 x 4 lumber and then used u-bolts to secure the handles of the drills in the blocks.

The students left with pockets full of tops, some decorated and other to be taken back to class for further embellishment. And now with the students knowing how to drill the centers of wheel blanks, they're ready to make cars and trucks in next week's class. 

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

Making a sloyd trivet

Today I introduced the lower elementary students at the Clear Spring School to the new work bench to be used in their classroom. Grady made a sloyd trivet. He didn't know or care what a sloyd trivet was or how it's used. He wanted to make one because he liked how the parts moved in relation to each other. And of course he liked making it from a kit that I prepared during the time when due to Covid-19, the kids were not in in-person school. It is a pleasure for all of us to be safely back, and as new cases in Carroll County and Arkansas continue to fall.

An editor for my new book has been selected and will begin work soon.

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

finding beauty in everyday things.

A friend, Charlie Plant who coordinates the Big Picture School's Harbor Freight Fellows program, has written a lovely blog post about the beauty of everyday things. 

https://www.harborfreightfellows.org/post/travels-with-charlie-the-beauty-of-everyday-things

Charlie calls into question the artificiality of the line drawn between the arts, crafts and the trades. I'm reminded of the man, who used to do telephone installations here in Carroll County, working for Ma Bell. To see the insides of the junction box he installed was to witness his meticulous concern, with each wire left twisted and coiled in perfect shape. He left his own distinctive craftsmanship as a signature for others along the line to discover: the next lineman to open the box would discover not only that he cared about his work, but that he cared about himself and had respect for and pride in his own labor, and that he was there, making his own mark on things.

We build society in that manner.

As we've shifted things, outsourcing to machinery in foreign lands, we've lost too much.

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

moving toward an age of wisdom

The news this morning is like the news of too many other mornings: More people killed through gun violence as the enraged or insane deliver mayhem on the soul of our nation. If all politicians cared about people and not power they would have fixed things after Sandy Hook when teachers and kindergarten students were targets of wrath, but if that didn't move them toward action, what can? That they refused to fix things then still amazes me. This interesting editorial by David Brooks, "Wisdom isn't what you think it is," suggests that wisdom is more about listening to others than about what we can say. And I pray for the development of wisdom.

 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/15/opinion/wisdom-attention-listening.html

One of the rules I have posted in the woodshop at the Clear Spring School is Listen. The rule is not just about what I say in the form of instruction. It's also about the tools and the sounds they make that inform us of how they are interacting with the material, wood. For wood, being real, is one of the sources we draw upon to engage wisdom. One of the things that becomes clear is that while we may quickly know a few things, on a superficial level, practice is of enormous utility. And as Brooks points out you can quickly grasp other people's knowledge, it takes living and listening to attain wisdom. And true wisdom is less about what you can do, and more about the ways through which we enable others to act courageously and with wisdom of their own.

One of the most common notions of wisdom is that it "comes with age." And yet, we can spend a lot of time doing the same dumb things over and over and not necessarily get wiser in the process.

Knowledge comes from a variety of sources: conversation, books, radio, instruction, television, personal observation.
Knowledge may be acquired either directly or from a third party.
Wisdom emerges from reflection on personal and collective experience.
Wisdom involves understanding the relationships between seemingly disparate events and things and is expressed as action toward improvement of the lives of others. It's not about sitting on our hands, it's about putting them to work.

The following is from Charles H. Ham and his book Hand and Mind, 1880: 

"Nothing stimulates and quickens the intellect more than the use of mechanical tools. The boy who begins to construct things is compelled at once to begin to think, deliberate, reason, and conclude. As he proceeds he is brought in contact with powerful natural forces. If he would control, direct, and apply these forces he must first master the laws by which they are governed; he must investigate the causes of the phenomena of matter, and it will be strange if from this he is not also led to a study of the phenomena of mind. At the very threshold of practical mechanics a thirst for wisdom is engendered, and the student is irresistibly impelled to investigate the mysteries of philosophy. Thus the training of the eye and hand reacts upon the brain, stimulating it to excursions into the realm of scientific discovery in search of facts to be applied in practical forms at the bench and the anvil." 

And so, you will find that it is not enough to read about wisdom and the idea of wisdom may seem pretentious, unless you, too, are inspired to explore the wisdom of your own hands. Plant a garden, play instrumental music, make something of useful beauty.

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

Kindergarten woodworking

 

Yesterday my Kindergarten students made color wheels, a project that had some hammering for the first time.

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

color wheels...

Today my Kindergarten students will have their first weekly lesson in the wood shop at the Clear Spring School. We're off to a late start due to Covid-19 precautionary delays.

We'll make cool color wheels. Unlike the color wheels used by artists, these are made of wood and the wheels can be spun to visually mix colors.  The project includes sanding, nailing, drilling, assembly and decoration.

This was a favorite project introduced in 2018 and remains a project that even older students enjoy. 

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

Getting a grip

I've been thinking about Teacher Effectiveness Training and found this interesting article in the New Yorker, "The Repressive Politics of Emotional Intelligence," by Merve Emre. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/04/19/the-repressive-politics-of-emotional-intelligence The article points out the 25th Anniversary of the very influential book by Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence, that promoted the idea that we are each responsible for our own emotions and the effective management of them to thereby fit into the prevailing culture and economy. It suggests that those who manage to control their emotions manage to get ahead. Goleman's book starts with a quote from Aristotle that avoided an important part. I've highlighted in bold the important point that Goleman skips. 

Anybody can become angry-that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way—that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.

Are we to be stoic and repressed for the sake of the smooth running of things? Or would it be best that we recognize that emotions are not be be repressed but utilized to bring change and betterment, as well as a better and more cohesive understanding of each other? Can we offer training not in the control of emotions, not to squelch but to empower?

Emotional intelligence sounds like a wonderful term, a great catchphrase recognizing that how we feel is an important aspect of maintaining a grip on things, at both individual and collective levels. But emotions are best not kept in all bollixed up, but let out where they can be felt by others. We either set up a framework of active listening (one of the important concepts in Teacher Effectiveness Training) or we face times like we face now, with police on one side with their tasers and guns, and justifiably angry protesters on the other. We'd best get down to it, listen to each other get to know one another and develop empathy. And that should be what happens in school long before emotions hit the streets.

True emotional intelligence does not avoid sharing what we feel, nor does it disparage or marginalize what others are feeling. 

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

Small works of art

Today ESSA will offer a short video in which I'll demonstrate matching grain in making a mitered corner box. The video will go live at 10 AM Central time and was made in the wood studio of the Eureka Springs School of the Arts. My thanks to Darla and Hilka at ESSA for producing the video. This page has links to the auction and to the various demonstrations. https://essa-art.org/events/2021-hands-on-essa/

I was awake for a time in the night thinking about Teacher EffectivenessTraining and ways that we practice being more effective in our communication with each other. I was first introduced to Teacher Effectiveness Training as a younger man just out of college when working with kids at the Porter Leath Children's Center in Memphis, TN. 

I was a group leader in a summer program for kids who had been selected for the program for having emotional problems. In preparation we were given a three day class in Teacher Effectiveness Training developed by psychologist Thomas Gordon. There is no way that a three day class in such a revolutionary approach to effective relationship building can turn off and around patterns instilled and reinforced over a lifetime, but there's power in the model that would transform the ways we communicate with each other. 

Later, as a parent at the Clear Spring School, my wife and I took a class in Parent Effectiveness Training, and the subject has kept coming up again and again during my time at the Clear Spring School because it works. Two things are to be remembered, and as simple as they are, old patterns of communication are deeply engrained and difficult to reverse. The Effectiveness Training approach involves a strategy of active listening that came from Thomas Gordon's therapeutic approach, and the extremely powerful "I message." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-message  The I message is an assertion about the feelings, beliefs, values, etc. of the person speaking, generally expressed as a sentence beginning with the word "I", and is contrasted with a "you-message" or "you-statement", which often begins with the word "you" and focuses on the person spoken to.

The power of the I message is to claim power in social relationships through the admission of vulnerability. It is not to claim attention for oneself, but does enlist partnerships in the resolution of whatever problems we face. To say, "this is how I feel" carries ownership and responsibility, but also offers "caring others" an opportunity to help and to build bridges of empathy between us. It's odd that when we attempt to assert power over others by demanding, we seldom get what we want, but that when we offer sincerity and admit vulnerability we then have the capacity to change a few things, bringing others along into an effective relationship bringing the potential for change.

Throughout my time at the Clear Spring School, Teacher Effectiveness Training has provided a model for student engagement in conflict resolution, and interpersonal conflict resolution is probably the thing most needed now in this fractured world, and yet, even for us and for me, continuing refreshment and practice of the model is required.

Join us in raising scholarship money for ESSA.

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

Small Works of Art

Bidding starts today for small works of art to support the Eureka Springs School of the Arts. Please join us for this celebration of hands-on activities. Tomorrow at 10 AM Central time, I'll demonstrate online. A schedule of other free presentations, can be found at this link:

https://essa-art.org/events/2021-hands-on-essa/

Among the small works of art for sale are my own Postcards on edge. Each is made from vacuum laminated veneers and is stamped and postmarked by a clerk at the Eureka Springs Post Office. You will need to register to bid on these and many other fine works. Please join us. 

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

note to readers.

Some readers may notice that I've not been sharing as much of late. It's because we're preoccupied with getting back to school, home repair and I'm attempting to write other things. So I'll share an earlier post and a photo from that. 

https://wisdomofhands.blogspot.com/2016/01/beautiful-useful-and-that-can-last-ones.html 

In education there's a widely held belief that learning is something that centers primarily in the head, but nothing could be a more foolish view than that. 

ESSA, our school of the arts is having a fund raiser/ annual event, Hands-on ESSA and I urge you to attend on-line. 

https://essa-art.org/events/2021-hands-on-essa/

Among the activities are an auction and presentations from a variety of instructors. I will have a video demonstration on mitering the corners of a box, and paying homage to line.

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

long board

 

The photo shows Lucky with his longboard, a project we started before the Covid pandemic and carried proudly home yesterday where he plans to add trucks. He's welcome to bring it back later if he needs further help. It is exciting to get back to regularly teaching kids in person in the wood shop at the Clear Spring School. Covid case loads in our county have fallen to less than one case per week. So the horizon looks hopeful.

Lucky said he wanted his longboard to look like a surfboard. I think he got that effect. The project was a fun one. And even without the added trucks provides evidence of learning and pride of accomplishment. The students selected strips of wood of different species that I provided, glued them up in patterns that they arranged, and then designed their longboards.

Yesterday I presented my high school students with an alternate technique for grinding spoon carving knives, using an angle grinder and a wooden fixture held in the vise.

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

look first then see

Yesterday in wood shop I introduced my high school students to making spoon carving knives. I began with a short video on spoon carving and then a second short video, part one of making a spoon carving knife. Of course the problem I encountered is that in order to perform a task you must first have an idea of the finished object in order to assess whether or not you are getting the results you want. In order to see the results you want, you must look and shape with an idea of what you are looking for in mind. Øyemål.

I explained that in watching an instructional video, not merely to be entertained by it, they needed to watch very carefully, for very shortly they'd be attempting to do what they'd seen me do in the video. I had spoon carving blanks and spoon carving knives ready for them to use to gain a better understanding of the tool they were about to make, but they largely ignored the opportunity to use the tool. How can a person successfully make something if they do not know thoroughly and thoughtfully how it's used? You can see where the lesson went astray.

I'll likely discard their efforts from yesterday and have them start again. 

I'm facing the craftsman vs. teacher dilemma. As a craftsman, I want the students' work to be successful and for what they make to be useful. A teacher, on the other hand, understands the necessity of failure as a means to challenge the students to look more carefully, and to understand at a deeper level.

The teacher also understands his own need to fail in the delivery of lessons as that also has educational value.

Make, fix and create. Assist others in learning lifewise.