We've repurposed that box as a temporary pay what you want shop for students to sell things they've made in woodshop and gain some insight into the world of small business.
Today the kids moved inventory into the box. You can drive by and shop. It is unmanned but open 24 hours. At night you'll need to bring a flashlight. The kids are very excited about this project and I hope you'll join in to make it a success. Select objects you want and put money in the box.
The Pay what you want shop is mounted to the railing in front of the Clear Spring School office, 374 Dairy Hollow Road. To provide feedback or to request items you would like to see our students make, feel free to contact us.
Make, fix and create...
https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2021/nov/07/city-of-the-arts/
Next week's paper will likely have a column about the Clear Spring School. Watch for it.
Make, fix and create...
Make, fix and create...
I hope this increases awareness of our great school. ESSA-art.org
Make, fix and create...
We know what's wrong with education in America, but what are we willing to fix? The answer, of course, is "Not much."“The division into subjects and periods encourages a segmented rather than an integrated view of knowledge. Consequently, what students are asked to relate to in schooling becomes increasingly artificial, cut off from the human experiences subject matter is supposed to reflect.” (John Goodlad, A Place Called School, McGraw-Hill, 1984, p.266)
It should be noted that kids are not as dumb as typical schooling assumes they might be. They are not empty vessels ready to fill with whatever beliefs and facts we can pour into them. Instead, because they are smart, they realize the differences between what we try to cram in and what they've already learned about life and reality. The artificiality that they see while sitting at desks, does not compare favorably with the real world outside the classroom walls. In other words, they know when facts and beliefs have been contrived to suit their conditions of containment and knowing that schooling is unworthy of their full attentions, they tune out.
The simple answer of course is to use the real world and projects within it to provide opportunitiies for concrete (rather than abstract) learning.
On Tuesday our outdoors study class came to my home to hang one of the bat houses we made on my barn. The installation involved my having to climb a 16 ft. ladder sliding the bat house up as I climbed to mount it on a French cleat. With the house mounted, I'll observe to see if we get bats nesting within. I'll mount a board below so I can observe the accumulation of guano and report back to the kids.
Yesterday I had my Kindergarten students in the wood shop to practice hammering nails. I provided blocks of 2 x 4 lumber and sheetrock nails for them to practice with. They asked, of course, "Can we take these home?" To carry home actual solid evidence of student learning (bent nails and all) is an important thing, and each of the students was proud of what they'd done.
Yesterday, also, we began making a bat mobile. Not the kind that Batman drives, but one that hangs from the ceiling and celebrates bats.
Today I'm meeting with video crew and producer from Ozark Public Television to do an interview at ESSA.
Make, fix and create. We live in a real world. Let's learn like it.
A friend sent me an interesting link to Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guidonian_hand on the Guidonian Hand. Used in Medieval music, the Guidonian hand was a mnemonic device used to assist singers in learning to sight-sing. From Wikipedia:"Some form of the device may have been used by Guido of Arezzo, a medieval music theorist who wrote a number of treatises, including one instructing singers in sightreading. The hand occurs in some manuscripts before Guido's time as a tool to find the semitone; it does not have the depicted form until the 12th century."
Most of us have heard of the idea of tying a string around a finger to help us to remember something we might forget. The Guidonian Hand suggests the potential for our hands to be used to remember important things. It would be interesting to see a demonstration of how it was used. Perhaps by touching with the fingers of the other hand.
Our own hands may be the most underutilized parts of our anatomy as well as the most underutilized resource in American education. The Guidonian hand is certainly an example of the Wisdom of our hands.
Make, fix and create...
One thing you'll notice is that the one the right is shaped for an adult grip and the one on the left is a lighter weight but with the proportions of a full-sized adult hammer. The diameter of the neck is an easy grip for a child.
Which one would be better to give as gifts during the holidays while the usual Christmas paraphernalia is tied up in transit due to shipping and distribution delays?
Of course the hammer on the left is the one I advise, not just because it is hardly more than half the cost but because with a real wooden handle of appropriate length, it's a better hammer to further the child's growth.
When kids (and inexperienced adults, for that matter) start out using a hammer they grip it close to the head as they learn better control. As their control develops and they see a hammer properly used by adults, their hand moves down the length of the hammer giving them greater strength and effectiveness in its use.
The stubby hammer on the right is designed for adults who never had the opportunity to mature in the hammer's use. It also results in more bent nails due to its shortened arc. So even for inexperienced adults, I say, "Avoid the stubby hammer and allow for your own growth."
Due to supply problems with the traditional Christmas junk, you might consider tools for this year's holiday giving, most particularly for kids. You will have the opportunity to participate in your child's growth, and your own at the same time.
I have two books in particular to recommend. One is my "Guide to Woodworking With Kids," and the other is "Making Classic Toys that Teach." Both can be found on Amazon.com.
Make, fix and create...
https://www.finewoodworking.com/project-guides/boxes
Boxes remain one of the best ways to learn overall woodworking techniques. My next box making article for Fine Woodworking will be photographed in the ESSA woodshop in December.
In the meantime, my new book, The Wisdom of Our Hands has made it through the copy editing process and will be headed to the printer on November 7. Hopefully, the paper supply problems will not delay the 2/22/2022 publication date.
Make, fix and create. Assist others in learning likewise.
It was also a reminder that I can lower my own stress level by having them paint outside rather than inside the wood shop where stray splatters of pain fall on our beautiful floor.
Note to self... Kids and paint need to be mixed in a carefully controlled environment. In any case, the bat houses (four of them) are decorated and ready for installation and occupation by bats.
Make, fix and create...
Naturally President Biden will be blamed as children are deprived of meaningless stuff that would have been intended to generate Christmas time delight but that then would have been thrown out as meaningless in the months to come.
How about taking matters into our own hands. We and our kids can make the things we need and my book, Guide to Woodworking with Kids can help. It is currently scheduled to be reprinted and I'm hoping that the shortage of paper doesn't interfere with a timely delivery.
If supply chain issues affect my Guide to Woodworking with Kids, https://smile.amazon.com/Guide-Woodworking-Kids-Projects-Lifelong/dp/1951217233/ I've been assured other books of mine are in sufficient supply. Making Classic Toys that Teach https://smile.amazon.com/Making-Classic-Teach-Step-Step/dp/1940611334/ provides instructions for making Froebel's gifts and explores his philosophy for teaching kids. While Froebel is known as the inventor of Kindergarten, his methodology of learning through play applies to us all. And even adults will love working their way through this book.
And then there's box making. I have a variety of books about that.
If you want to make the coming holiday season far more meaningful than others where crap was in abundant supply, try spending time with your kids in advance of Christmas. Make gifts and toys for each other. A few tools will help, and a new hammer under the tree will bring delight.
The photo shows a plane made by Veritas that I reviewed for Quercus magazine this last year. Sized for a child's hands and unlike the toys that go in the trash, this tool will perform for a century or more as your children grow up and share it with their kids.
Unhook from the supply chain. This is the year for it.
Make, fix and create.
“The sensational curiosity of childhood is appealed to more particularly by certain determinate kinds of objects. Material things, things that move, living things, human actions and accounts of human action, will win the attention better than anything that is more abstract. Here again comes in the advantage of the object-teaching and manual training methods. The pupil's attention is spontaneously held by any problem that involves the presentation of a new material object or of an activity on any one's part. The teacher's earliest appeals, therefore, must be through objects shown or acts performed or described. Theoretic curiosity, curiosity about the rational relations between things, can hardly be said to awake at all until adolescence is reached.” -- William James. Talks To Teachers On Psychology: And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals.
One of the principles of Educational Sloyd was that of moving from the concrete to the abstract. The idea was that by building and doing real things, rather than just engaging abstract material, students would develop both skill and deeper sustained interest. Back in about 2009 I was quoted by Matthew Crawford in his best selling book Shop Class as Soulcraft used a quote from my blog as the epigraph of chapter one.
“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 used the quote noting that in just a few words I'd summarized the dreadful situation we're in. It's the artificiality of it all that drives kids nuts. Some are able to sit bored for hours. Some rebel. Crawford did a later exploration of the same quote in a subsequent book, The World Beyond Your Head in his final chapter. So I'll go a bit deeper into it myself.
The first thing to note is that kids are smart and they know the difference between the artificiality of schooling and real life. They know that the teachers are presenting the things that the administration cares about, the students' own personal interests be damned. And since they know the curriculum has been manipulated and controlled based on things that are not real to them they need not pay serious heed.
For some schooling is made barely bearable by having goals that lie beyond graduation. But just because some manage to make it through schooling seemingly unscathed and find some degree of success beyond it does not make it right for any and certainly not for all.
So what's a guy or gal to do? Julie Wilson, in her Path to Learning Podcast episode laid things our pretty clear. You change things, bringing your own unique passions into the school environment. Julie said,
If school sucked for you, we really need you (to teach). Because you have a lens that we typically don’t have. The vast majority of people in the education system, people like myself, they did school well; therefore, I think we need more of the people who were not served by that traditional model. The more they can rally around this work and bring their different and innovative thinking to it, I think that will really help to turn things."
Yes, this will take time. But there are examples to examine like our own Clear Spring School and a very long tradition of progressive pedagogy to inspire us to move forward.
Make, fix and create.
https://one.bidpal.net/steampunkwonderland/browse/all
Some of the work was produced by teachers, some by students and some by members of our community. who have learned and grown through participation in classes. The proceeds of the auction will advance the school and its role in making Eureka Springs one of the most fabulous places to live in the US.
When we started ESSA, it was with the recognition that having an art school in such an arts-infused place, with a high concentration of amateur and professional artists would be inevitable. And so, choosing to apply some effort to the inevitable, we soon found many friends who shared our sense of its inevitability. Many hands make light work.
One of the great things about ESSA is that it's so easy to be involved. And it's easy to support ESSA by bringing the works of some of our wonderful artists into your own home.
The arts have an interesting effect. They develop the character of those who participate in them, providing us closer relations with each other. If you have money, and lots of it, you can choose to hide behind walls, and when life is done with you, you'll be forgotten. Participation in the arts assures that will not be the case. As you share in creative processes, you have effect that will linger and transform in fluid fashion and through the hands of others for far longer than we can imagine.
Make, fix and create.
The students now want to decorate them, naturally.
Make, fix and create...
"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 for literary study are often the most proficient in the workshop and the modeling-room. Nature has not left these neglected children without beautiful compensations. If they are deficient in intellectual power, they are all the more capable of being developed on their active side. Thus, manual training fulfills the one essential condition—it is interesting. It also fulfills the second."The notion of cultivating a strong will in students might not appeal to educators whose objective is to make students complaisant, and who think that some purpose might be achieved by making school boring and as much a test of the nerves as a test for the intellect.
"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."
Old Chris Columbus was sitting at a bar with friends after "discovering" the Americas. His pals were teasing him, that anyone who happened to have sailed that far would have simply bumped into this place. No big deal they insisted.
Chris then challenged his buddies to try to balance a hard boiled egg on its end and after they tried and failed, he tapped the egg on its end, making a slight flat spot and proceeded to balance it on its tip. "Anyone could do that," his friends roared. "Yes, now that I've shown you how," Chris replied.
And that's the story of the Columbus egg. Otto Salomon, in his development of Educational Sloyd referred to his systematic introduction of tools and techniques following a natural pattern of growth within the child as his Columbus egg. A thing as simple as tapping an egg on its end, but of enormous value.
Whether or not the story of Chris and his hardboiled egg is true, the consequences of his "discovery" of America were enormous. And here we are today. The conquistadors brought deadly diseases that preceded their conquests on both continents. And the indigenous peoples who had lived thousands of years in some degree of harmony with the land were pushed aside, their cultures nearly destroyed.
What was once celebrated as Columbus day, we now celebrate as Indigenous People's Day in the hopes that we can once again live with greater sensitivity to the earth and the plants and animals that share this lovely clouded blue dot in space circling around our sun.
Make, fix and create...
https://www.sciencealert.com/daycares-in-finland-built-their-own-forests-and-it-changed-kids-immune-systems
What researchers found surprising was that engagement in reality actually altered and strengthened the children's immune systems.
So the benefits of engagement in forests are not just intellectual and spiritual, they're physical as well, and every school in the world, even those in cities, should have their own forests.
In my wood shop I'm at work building walnut bases for Arkansas Quality Awards and inlaid boxes for an order.
Make, fix and create...
A friend, Elliot asked me if I'd studied Viktor Frankl and his book, "Man's Search for Meaning." Sometimes you get much of what you need from the name of the book, taken as an invitation to explore your own mind and your own experiences. As I explain in the introduction to my new book, some will get everything they need from the title alone as it invites them to explore the workings of their own hands and minds in the shaping of the world around us.
Yesterday as Rosie and I sat on the porch, a doe walked out of the woods to present herself not 30 feet away. Of course Rosie jumped up and chased the deer into the woods. When she came back her face was covered in burrs to the point that she could barely open her eyes. That forced me to cancel my classes for the day as Rosie was in dire distress. There were tight clusters of burrs distributed over her whole body. Jean and I spent hours grooming her and took her to another groomer for a bath and clip. The experience was stressful for us and for her. So chewing a good stick on the front porch is a good therapy. I cut the offending weeds in the woods and vow to keep them short forever more.
My dad had a favorite poem that I recited at his funeral service and that I found later in a collection of poems for teachers of manual and industrial arts. It goes:
Isn’t it strange that princes and kings
And clowns that caper in sawdust rings
All share this common destiny:
Each is given a set of rules,
A lump of stone
And bag of tools,
That each may carve as life as flown,
A stumbling block or stepping stone.
Man’s search for meaning is what drives everything, isn’t it? Money, power, and the attention of others. Having the right car or the right home or the right look of the dog. Then there's corresponding impulse to fit in, to be part of the in crowd, not sticking up to the point where someone else feels the urge to hammer you down. Within that matrix is the urge to build a legacy upon which others can build… a greater sense of purpose that gives life meaning beyond the mundane.
There are two aspects of self that can easily be mistaken for each other: A sense of purpose that connects us with the carving of stepping stones to lift others up, and a sense of self-importance that ultimately leaves us humbled and forgotten. What will your path be? You may choose, stumbling along as we all do.
Make, fix and create...
Asking the members of NEAWT about projects he could have his students do while he's out, I suggested paper sloyd. You can view and download the book free from this site: https://diyhomeschooler.com/2011/06/06/paper-sloyd-free-e-book/
His students may argue about being required to learn what students had once learned in Kindergarten and first grade, but they would benefit from it none-the-less, gaining skills they'll need for other things.
It is no longer surprising for teachers of design at the university level to learn that many of their students no longer have skills in the use of rulers, scissors and paper folding. Paper Sloyd, intended as a precursor to Educational Sloyd and originally intended for the younger set, can fix that. It also helps develop skills in utilizing instructions and plans.
Today my students will be making tiny house letter holders. If you are reading this on the blog and not on Facebook, you can use the search function at the upper left to learn more about Paper Sloyd. There are a number of reasons I want to encourage readers to go to the blog rather than facebook. The blog allows me to use more photos and offer richer content. So if you find facebook down or want to avoid it because it's eating away at our lives, go to http://wisdomofhands.blogspot.com
Make, fix and create...
Getting vaccinated is a reasonable way of helping each other be safe and the most practical way of assuring that life returns to normal.
This week the Guild of Oregon Woodworkers explained their board's decision to require vaccination of all those using their shop as follows:
I think that's rather well put. This week, also in their newsletter https://guildoforegonwoodworkers.org/resources/Documents/newsletters/2021/Sept%202021%20Newsletter.pdf is a review of my "Guide to Woodworking with Kids," written by a friend, Bob Sokolow."We are aware that not everyone will elect to be vaccinated, however the board approval of this measure demonstrates our commitment to maintaining safety measures protecting our membership. This measure will certainly have a negative effect on a few members, but we believe it will allow a larger number of members to, after 20 months of staying away, finally have enough confidence to take part in and contribute to valuable teaching and mentoring commitments, as well as ability to work on their own projects in the Guild Shop. It is not fair or logical for these constructive folks to be discouraged at risk of their lives from contributing to our Guild, in consequence of our hosting unvaccinated members.
Unvaccinated population is propagating continued spread of the virus, endangering lives by overpowering hospitals and healthcare workers, to the exclusion of life-saving treatment for other medical conditions."
Make, fix and create...
Artificiality and contrivance are the bane of effective learning. They kill it dead.
Students who want to be teachers should be launched into classrooms their first term at the university so that they are provided a means to test and utilize and be energized and awakened by what they are learning in class.
Froebel offered an understanding that what was taken into the mind needed to be tested through the outcome of the hands and in real life. Student testing of what is taught is the foundation for the development of critical thinking. That our nation has devolved toward idiocy is the consequence of our failure to develop critical thinking skills. Those are derived from scaffolding developed within the child through the following pathway. Start with the interests of the child. Build from the known toward the unknown, from the easy toward the more difficult, from the simple to the complex, utilizing the concrete to form the foundation for an understanding of abstract principles.
This is not rocket science, but is built upon observations from the 18th and 19th centuries on how children and adults learn best.
You can participate in a renewal of education by paying attention to the Kindergarten documentary film series, and by attending to the path to learning podcasts created by my friends Scott Bultman, Jay Irwin and John Pottinger. Path to learning can be found here: https://www.froebelusa.com/podcasts/the-path-to-learning-podcast
Make, fix and create...
We also did a rough estimate of the number of bat turds in the collection box. Students had made guesses about the number ranging from 50-60 to 150 individual poops. To attempt a more accurate count we tried using sticks to gather them in groups of 10 on the bottom of the box, but that proved impossible.
Our second attempt was to weigh a number using a gram scale and then extrapolate to the whole weight of the bat turds gathered in the box. But they were too light to measure accurately in grams. So our third try was to count the number of turds in a table spoon and then measure the number of table spoons in the box.
The resulting estimate was a surprise to the students as we found there to be 165 turds to a table spoon and approximately 7 table spoons in the box for a total of 1155, far surpassing student guesses.
With approximately 50 bats in the nesting area pooping over an 8 day period we learned that the bats while nesting poop about 3 turds per day. Each small turd represents hundreds of small bugs harvested from the night sky.
To make future observations easier, we marked a grid pattern at the bottom of the box so we can quickly observe the number of turds per square inch. We were first alerted to the presence of bats by the pile of guano left below their nesting site, and the box will allow us to observe a hoped for relocation to more permanent bat boxes.
Next week we begin assembling bat houses.
Make, fix and create...
My students practiced making straight and square cuts using two different kinds of saws as Bill observed. We had a great conversation about pedagogy following the class and I look forward to his return later in the year.
Today we'll check the game camera we're using to monitor bats and will run a count on the guano collection box to see if student estimates of numbers of nightly poops come close to the actual number.
We may have to reposition the game camera to get a better view. If lucky we'll get movies of the bats coming and going at night.
My old roommate from college sent me this photo of my younger studious self attempting to make sense of a sociology text book.
Make, fix and create. Assist others in learning likewise
Professional photographer Arshia Khan took the photo in 2012 for an article in Arkansas Life Magazine. In it I'm showing a student how to mark the center of a turning blank to mount on the lathe.
Make, fix and create...
In the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City there's carved Quan-yin in their Chinese exhibit that's a thousand years old. Inside a secret compartment the curators found a scroll with the names of the craftsmen who carved it. They are gone but what they did has not been forgotten.
I'll not claim there to be anything special about my work. But things that have lasting meaning will endure, and the meaning in this case reflects a partnership between friends. I made it in the hopes it would last, and my friends who have cared for it for these years made sure it did.
Make, fix and create...
In taking it apart I found a surprise inside. I'd used a page from our local Times-Echo newspaper as a backing for the mirror and there was a photo showing a candidate for Arkansas Governor visiting our city and a good friend Lucilla Garrett looking on. The candidate for governor is one others might recognize and not just in the state of Arkansas.
The mirror is reglued, reassembled and readied to hang for another 40 years. I left the paper inside to be discovered again.
Make, fix and create...
I've written before about Admiral Beaufort's wonderful scale that allowed common British seamen to become engaged in making accurate scientific observations and thus becoming a part of science.
On Wednesday we installed a game camera at the Clear Spring School to observe the comings and goings of bats that nest in a vent under the eaves of one of our classroom buildings. We also installed a long plywood box underneath the nesting area to be able to measure the amount of guano produced. I have no way of knowing how many poops a small brown bat can produce in a day, but now we have a means to measure. After just one day the 40-50 bats nesting during the day produced well over 100 small poops.
Yesterday I had an interview with an editor at Independent School Magazine interested in my 20 years of teaching at the Clear Spring School for their section on School News. A 300 word article is not going to tell much about the Clear Spring School, but a photo or two might help and I'll be selecting some to send today.
One of the benefits of wood shop is facilitating the advancement of science by getting students to look and see for themselves and to develop critical thinking skills. Having a simple frame of reference for such things as wind velocity (Thanks Admiral) or poop, thanks to our plywood box, can bring students to a better understanding of science so that instead of science being abstract and disconnected from our lives, we become a part of what advances our human understanding. It's what we learned from Dick and Jane. Look, see.
Make, fix and create...
In the woodshop at the Clear Spring School we've been at work making things needed for campus improvement. Yesterday we made sorting lids for recycling, and flag holders for class flags (more may be explained about that later.) Today we'll make book holders of a new design that will be used in our school library.
Make, fix and create...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial-position_effect
In wood working how we break down things into steps can have an affect on how the steps are remembered, and so in teaching wood shop whether with kids or adults, how we offer necessary information can make all the difference in the world.
In a list of items, steps or facts we have a greater ability to remember the first things and the last, and a greater tendency to forget the things in the middle. Test yourself in this. Head to the grocery store with a list in your head of things you need to pick up and then see which things have been forgotten, which in all likelihood will be things in the middle.
Remembering the first things on the list is called the primary effect, and the things mentioned last are called the regency effect. By avoiding overloading the middle steps in an order of operations can be better recalled. This can be help for a teacher planning lessons. Arrange things in groups of two or three ad suggest o the student, "ask me for your next steps when you've done the first two."
Another way teachers use serial position effect is to offer the most important facts or information first and last with things of lesser importance occupying the middle ground.
I was taking with a friend this morning about the challenge of training employees to be effective educators. They may not even think of themselves in that role. But they are, especially in sales of things that are complex and sometimes daunting to the user.
Teaching and marketing are a whole lot alike and the principles of Educational Sloyd can fit. Make sure your explanations for things fit the prior experience of the customer. Getting to know our customer and their prior experiences can help you to tailor your presentation of information to fit their needs. 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. And sometimes what the customer wants is not all that much complex information, but information that is tailored to their framework of understanding, along with the assurance that you care bout their success in the use of your product.
Make, fix and create...
Yesterday we finished the last round of edits to my new book before it gets turned over to the copy editor. I'll have one more chance to look at it after that, just before it goes to press. My editor said that they have a tight window of opportunity for the copy editor to do their work. So it's time for me to follow the new woodshop rule, stand aside, step back. And that means I do other things. I went to the wood shop to apply Danish oil to boxes.
The Wisdom of Our Hands is a book I envisioned twenty years ago and it's completion is finally in sight thanks to Linden Press. If I'm lucky it will sell well and make a mark on how we see education and how we see ourselves. I should receive advanced review copies of the book in the mail today.
Yesterday I was pleased to welcome two great art teachers to my Clear Spring School Woodshop. Robert Dancik and Sarah Doremus are our resident artists at ESSA for the month in a trial program to expand our outreach into the education community. They've been working with students in the public schools and in our own ESSA studios as well. You can learn about their work through these links:
https://essa-art.org/teachers/robert-dancik/I was reading this morning about Noel Gilbert, my violin teacher from when I was in first or second grade. I was thinking of him due to the important role that music plays in our lives and that the sounds of craftsmanship are not that very different from music. In woodworking there are textures and lines and punctuation points that help establish rhythm and meaning.
When I was in second grade my mother took me to audition for violin lessons with the director of the Memphis Symphony orchestra. I remember the audition in which he asked me to sing and then examined my mother’s fingers and my own. He noted that my pitch was OK and that my long slender fingers might be useful on a violin.As many are also doing this morning, I look back 20 years ago to the morning when much of our world changed. On that morning, 9/11/2001, I was just starting as a part-time woodworking teacher for kids at the brand new Clear Spring High School. As the news began coming from New York of the terror assault on the World Trade Tower, we attempted to gather around a large TV. We were all shaken. And then responding to parental desires that they be able to hold their kids close, we closed early on that terrible day.
Today is a milestone for our nation as it represents miles of twists and turns (many of them false and delusional) that followed from that day. Today also represents the start of my 20th year as a woodworking teacher of kids and marks the anniversary of the launch of my own efforts to reassert an understanding of the value of hands-on learning in our nation's schools.
I hope to use the coming school year to look back and reflect as well as to move forward.
Make, fix and create...
This is part of what a wood shop teacher does: prepare materials for student learning. In fact, it's what all teachers do.
Clear Spring School is starting classes on Monday and I'll begin having students in woodshop on Tuesday. I'll be preparing materials over the weekend and on Monday morning.
Make, fix and create.
We have a large colony of bats nesting in vents under the eves in one of our school buildings and while it can be a challenge to lure a colony of bats to a new location, luxurious new bat houses carefully engineered for their safety and happiness may help. Experimental designs my not.
A good source of information about bats is the Bat House Builder's Handbook, by Merlin D. Tuttle. https://batweek.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/BHBuildersHdbk13_Online.pdf
One of the tedious jobs in preparing the materials for making bat houses is that of grooving the parts that must be textured for the bats to get a good grip on the insides of the box and that allow them to climb around inside. I've been doing the grooving using the table saw in the school wood shop. We have been enjoying relatively bug free evenings on our deck this summer, and for that, I thank our bats.
The drawing shows the design of the bat houses we're making and detailed plans are available in the book.
Make, fix and create.
In the meantime, I have meetings this morning with the teaching staff the Clear Spring School as we plan integrated woodworking projects for the coming months.
A friend of mine asked me about my writing processes. Typical questions are like this: "Do you set aside a number of hours each day to write?" "Do you set a target for the number of pages you hope to write each day?" I tried to explain how much of my work I do at night. Caught in that space between wakefulness and sleep, I'm trapped also between poetry and prose. And I try to relocate myself between those points when I'm up and out of bed. So writing and woodworking are much the same to me. You dream it and let wakeful matters proceed from there.
There's a metaphor that asserts: "Time is money." But let's not get confused. Time is not money. It's meaning. It's art. And it's a whole lot more that money can't buy. And, yes, in the meantime, there are schedules to create and attend and cash flow, bills to pay, etc. I will get about $175.00 for a page and a half. So to write there must be other reasons to do it.
Make, fix and create.
This was one of at least 5 boxes Terry Tinnin made in class.
It is gratifying to see what I've shared about box making passed through other hands.
I have been preparing for this year's classes at the Clear Spring School by tuning equipment and sharpening knives. Sharpening plane irons needs to come next. Today I'll pick up material for building bat houses with one group of students.
Make, fix and create.
The other kind of scaffolding is within. It consists of knowledge gained through experience and is transferable from one environment to the next. It's built in the following manner. Start with the interests of the child, proceed from the known to the unknown, from the easy to the more difficult, from the simple to the complex and from the concrete to the abstract. If you've caught me repeating myself again and again, it's because what I've said is worth knowing.
The way that the two forms of scaffolding intersect is through forming of "islands of competence." The feelings of "I did this!" and "I can do that!" can carry forward from external scaffolding to the next learning opportunity.
My friend Kim Brand is putting maker spaces in Indiana schools and recently worked with Maplewood Shop to train 36 teachers from one school. Kim was amazed watching teachers learning as he noted that very few actually followed instructions but all the teachers loved it as their own distinct personalities emerged.
The purpose of a chemistry laboratory is not different from the purpose of a school wood shop. In either, you can do things that you are not able to do outside the laboratory environment. A shop or laboratory are forms of external scaffolding. Formation of the internal scaffolding is aided by the attention of the teacher who's job is to watch over the points I mentioned before, starting with the interests of the child.
Make, fix and create.
In planning school learning experiences that involve doing real things in a relatively short period of time with a group of students, it's important to keep an eye on simplicity. The adult mind can get overly complicated and abstract as we follow proposed threads of inquiry. Most teachers teach the what we were taught, while the learning needs of our students are often different from that.
Yesterday we were discussing making bat houses and spent 30 minutes doing so before we finally got around to actually look at where the bats nest on campus and learn a few things that would have been right before our own eyes had they been open and inquiring.
I'm reminded of the story of one hand clapping in which the young monk was challenged with the question, "what is the sound of one hand clapping?" The young monk ran all over and kept coming back with proposed answers. "It's the sound of water flowing in the brook." "It's the sound of a child laughing." "It's the sound of rustling leaves." And each answer led him no closer to the simple truth that could have been easily discovered by waving one hand alone in front of his own face.
This calls to mind a principle that I mentioned yesterday from Educational Sloyd. Move from the simple to the complex. Is it the teacher's job to complicate things, or is it best that he or she start simple leading the child to observe and reflect and to move from that point letting complications arise on their own, which they always do?
Make, fix and create.
Educational psychologist Jerome Bruner without offering such detail and a hundred years later called this “scaffolding.” Each new learning event if properly "scaffolded" is anchored by prior experience. It is in the failure to connect between the concrete and abstract that our greatest educational failings lie, and this is not only apparent in first grade, but in University training as well.
Where each new learning event is properly anchored it becomes part of what we call "a body of knowledge." A body of knowledge is more than disconnected facts. And it serves to propel students toward lifelong learning and service to others.
I'm busy planning my twentieth year of teaching at the Clear Spring School and will spend some time looking back on what we've done and learned.
Make, fix and create. Assist others in learning likewise.
