Re: Some form of assemblage


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Posted by Jeremy Kriewaldt on April 05, 2005 at 20:01:07 from 147.10.215.193 user JeremyKriewaldt.

In Reply to: Re: Some form of assemblage posted by John Nichols on April 04, 2005 at 17:36:39:

When I went to a NSW State selective (and gender segregated)high school in the 1970s (sort of equivalent to a UK grammar school of the same period, I suppose), even though the school was unashamedly academic in its focus (you could even study Latin and Classical Greek to matriculation), both Art and Woodwork/metalwork were compulsory in the first two years. I also was lucky to have a father who was "handy".

However, my view on this is that these are skills that are often better taught in the home or by private experiment - the woodwork shop at school had great equipment that no-one who didn't become a joiner would ever be likely to be able to use again - huge bandsaws that could make light of John's 10" oak planks, proper lathes that were accurate to fractions of millimetres (my young cousin who goes to the same school says that they now have all sorts of computer controlled machinery!!!). The lathes meant that some of us did a roaring trade in "black market" two piece pool cues that the teacher was told were going to be table legs. The real life of home carpentry - as John's weblog of the boat shows - is making do with substandard or not quite the best tool and using your brain independently to solve problems (including how to do the best job with the tools to hand). This can only be learned by doing it on your own - and schools (less now than in former times) don't like leaving you to experiment unsupervised or to do a project that is outside their curriculum straitjacket.

So what do I say to John's list? I agree with all of the things on it. But don't ask schools to teach it all. In fact, give kids more time out of schoool and support organisations and families (By giving parents time outside the demands of work) to provide these additional experiences (many of which used to be done by the Scouting movement). And leave schools to get on with trying to teach the minds of the children - they are going to need to know basic things like maths, English, science, history and languages even more in the current world (and the world that appears to be coming) than desirable accoutrements to life like woodwork. Besides, give them the chance to learn something for themselves by independent discovery without being always told by teachers how to do it.

And to bring this to AR: no-one taught the S, A and D's to sail at school. The teachers were parents (Commander/Captain Walker; Uncle Jim (CF) who was in some ways in loco parentis) and other children who already knew how to do it (Tom Dudgeon; Port and Starboard; D&G's) and in the end remember that this meant that the Callum parents were going to be taught by their children).


Here endeth the rave...



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