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| wooden box camera |
If we don't take a hand in the making and growing of things and the creation of music or poetry, and the passing on of these gifts, we have shirked our responsibility to humanity. These simple things, making, growing, writing, and performing can serve as the foundation of a meaningful education.
Children, given their druthers would rather be engaged in self-directed learning than to sit idle as we have them do in school. Minds must wander, cycling between the known and unknown in order to organize information into useful, and meaningful form. When the schooling is not of direct interest to the child, or when schooling does not touch upon personal experience, and has no direct use, the student's mind wanders and does not come back. But engage a child in the real rhythms of life, making, growing, and performing; he or she will be attentive in school and the teacher's time and the school districts dollars will not be squandered in meaningless procedures.
It is a simple thing. One has to be intellectually present for effective and efficient learning to take place. Engage students' hands in crafting objects of useful beauty and they must be. Their hands will call their minds and hearts to a state of attention and engagement.
I've completed a sketchup illustration of a wooden pinhole camera as shown in the drawing above.
Make, fix and create...
“If it can’t be reduced, reused, repaired, rebuilt, refurbished, refinished, resold, recycled or composted, then it should be restricted, redesigned or removed from production.”― Pete Seeger
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