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* The class was fun! It is cool how we get to use different tools and we can make anything we want.

* I enjoyed woodworking because you could make things that you wouldn't be able to do otherwise.

* I loved woodworking because I worked hard but also had a friend in the shop.

* I had a lot of fun working, helped a lot of people. A lot of people helped me. I really liked the environment.

* I really like being creative with wood.

* I like the smell of wood.

* Woodworking is really different from my other classes. It gives me a good break
from the pressure of some of my other classes.

* I enjoyed working on my project this quarter because it was different from making a spoon or a boat. It was more challenging than my normal projects.
Why Woodworking?    

    It's a popular class, but why?   I'll let some students offer their answers.  At the end of each quarter, students write reflections on their experience in the shop for their families and me to read.  Some write just a few sentences while others go into great detail. Here are some recent responses:
Jojoo's car

Home Why Woodworking? What are classes like? Projects 1 Projects 2 Projects 3 Projects 4 Who teaches this?

 
    Woodworking is totally individualized, which means that, with my guidance, each student is expected to choose an appropriate project he or she wishes to work on.   For inspiration, students find ideas all over the room in the ongoing work of other students, sample projects on the shelves and in our book collection. The computer slide show, which is always on display in the shop and in the hallway, shows hundreds of student's projects.  The shop setting is informal and inviting so most students find it both comfortable and exciting, full of opportunities.

    I designed our program to serve students of many different interests, talents and abilities. 
There are projects that are accessible to students of almost any level of ability, and I work hard to find ways for everyone to be successful.

    In every class there are students building a variety of different projects.  In this busy, productive shop community I hope students notice and appreciate what other kids are doing, which can inspire them to try new things themselves.


Mentorship

Burned Hex Box
    I believe that throughout our lives we strive to find mentors: knowledgeable and inspiring individuals who can lead us to learn skills and gain competence. Most of us can cite a favorite teacher, friend or neighbor who opened doors we may not have imagined existed.  Learning how to work with a mentor, or to collaborate with someone more knowledgeable than ourselves, is a life skill and is central to how I teach.
   
    Students find that they can have success working with what, at first, seems a difficult, stubborn material. The key is for each child to accept me as a collaborator in planning a project, trusting that I will lead them through it. 
Some students walk into the shop and immediately grasp how I can help them, but the advantages of such a mentoring relationship aren't immediately obvious to every student.  It may take a while but once they finally get it, some students really catch fire!

    To me, learning how to use a mentor is one of the most important things students learn in the shop.


Hand Tools (and Safety)

    Students in our shop use only hand tools. They use hand drills, spokeshaves and planes, gouges and knives, scrapers, files,  sandpaper and lots more. We have two foot powered lathes and a foot-driven scroll saw.  It is a unique and well equipped hand tool shop.  I use our power tools to help students' projectsBellaBoat along.  I cut shapes out on the bandsaw and size wood on the power saws and thickness planer.  But the important part of the work on any project is done by hand by the student.  For any project made in the shop, I can tell you which part of the work I've contributed with our electric tools, and what a student has accomplished on his or her own.  As I plan a project with a student, I always try to keep a good balance, to make sure the student has plenty of interesting, meaningful and productive work to do. (Projects pages begin here.)

    Safety is a good reason for using hand tools, since power tools can do a lot of damage if not used with skill and constant vigilance.  Injuries with sharp hand tools, should they happen, are likely to be a lot less severe than what can happen when using a major power tool.  Parents who visit the shop for the first time often seem relieved to learn that, at the middle school level, their children will not be working with electric equipment.

    Safety is implicit our shop atmosphere and through the years, our record has been very good.  I am clear about behavior expectations and teach safety with every process I introduce to students.  I am quick to react when I see a situation develop that could be dangerous.  Using hand tools is just one facet of keeping the shop safe.  It needs to be upmost in our minds the minute we walk through the shop door.

    Hand tools offer an intimacy with the wood that appeals to many students.  They are quiet and controllable.  Students get a valuable experience in hand-eye coordination.  There is a historical aspect to hand work that is not often explicitly expressed but always implied.  In our busy world, saturated with incessant information, students learn that they can get a lot done using old, quiet methods.  I think that for some students, working by hand is a welcome refuge.

    Working with hand tools is part of our shop culture which students know and appreciate. They don't seem to miss using power tools and they know that there is plenty for them to to do in woodworking without them.


What else do they learn?


    Each student comes to the shop with his or her own skills and abilities, energy and ambition.  My job is to find a way to keep each student working, learning and being creative.  Essentially, I create a lesson plan in my mind for each student and modify it frequently.  I adjust my goals as I see the student growing and changing.  Woodworking is very much an individualized learning experience.

    There is a wide variety of kinds woodworking projects available in the shop. 
I don't have a preconceived plan forPatrick's guitar which specific skills a student must learn. That is up to the student, though I will often push individuals in appropriate directions.  Students can learn woodcarving at various different levels of difficulty, wood turning on our foot powered lathes, furniture construction using a number of different techniques and lots more.  Which specific skills they learn, and to what degree they learn them, depends on who they are and what they choose to create.  Sometimes the actual woodworking skill they leave with is minor compared to the value of the experience of working in the shop.

    On the other hand, some students choose to specialize in a specific area of the craft and may become very skilled.  Knife work, wood burning, or wood turning, are possible examples, as you will see in the project pages that follow.  I celebrate when a student goes deep, since he or she may have developed a life-long passion.  Even when this does not happen, most students learn about what they are capable of doing and what opportunities are available to them in the real world.  They learn a lesson about their own creativity, reinforced by the many creative options offered by other RMS electives they have taken.  A few may choose to pursue woodworking as a profession, but many more will adopt it as a life-long avocation.

    The few students who build real guitars in the shop take home fine instruments but they do not leave Richmond School as capable luthiers. They could not build an instrument independently without a great deal of additional training.  This is true of almost any project in the shop; we don't usually teach finished skills in middle school.  But their hands and minds have done a wide variety of valuable things. They take home an impressive object that represents memorable effort, time and caring.  They have had a tangible experience at a time of their lives when it can make a huge difference.




Home Why Woodworking? What are classes like? Projects 1 Projects 2 Projects 3 Projects 4 Who teaches this?

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