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 th...

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. ...

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.

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 hav...

  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...

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 car...

Øyemål is a Norwegian word meaning "eye measure" and is related as a concept to a phrase used by boat builders when they describe building a boat by "the rack of the eye." The word "rack" is related to Norwegian and Swedish as well as Scots Gaelic meaning straight or direct, and is related it seems to both the ability to discern proper form by eye, and the process of building direct without being encumbered by plans... to go from the mind to the finished form. This is important, as developing a sense of form is related to math in the form of spatial sense. Spatial sense is an important part of mathematics that lies deeper and more foundational than the manipulation of numbers and number sense. In woodworking,  "godt øyemål" or good ...

I am beginning a  project with my high school students in which they will make their own spoon carving knives as shown in thisvideo and two more to come. Make, fix, create and assist others in learning likewise.