Experiencing tools

A few weeks ago, at the slöjd (handcraft) conference in Sweden, I heard of a research project about how young students learn to cat “strait” with a saw. If you don’t think cutting a piece of wood is knowledge, just try to imagine a child finding out how to hold a saw for the first time, how hard to push and press, how to adjust the rhythm of movements to the own breathing, length of the arms and sprawling elbows. The task is actually quite complicated if we take in consideration that different types of wood, with different levels of moisture and structure, would respond differently, and that also the tools’ qualities would demand variations in strength, time, precision, patience... Yes, it seems easy to use a saw when you have done it before. When you know how to do it, the knowledge suddenly seems to be hidden, your earlier struggles forgotten, and the complexity of the task somehow becomes invisible… the knowledge becomes tacit…

My little friend, 2,5 years old, was taking part in constructing garden furniture from ready-made parts, no sawing was involved. Still there was much to learn. First we found out which parts should be screwed together, and then the construction was mostly about screwing the parts together with a little tool. Before I knew about it, he had observed the activity of my hands. I was holding the tool between my forefinger and the middle finger while I was twisting it around. He did not have to do it that way, I showed him other easier ways, but he did not want to give up trying to do it just the way I did. His fingers were working hard, the eyes were concentrated, the tool resisted – but he was fighting.

What he had achieved through his endurance and experience (through the coordination between his different senses and body functions, through his fight with the tool, through the experience of being an asset in the social context etc.) can not be compared to the number of screws he managed to fix. The invisible results were much more valuable than the visible! But seeing the screws disappearing in the white painted wood, was certainly also an experience that enriched his self-confidence, joy and motivation.

Slöjd - Learning through hands

On August 17-th and 18-th a “slöjd” conference took place in Linköping, Sweden. “Slöjd” is, among other things, a Swedish school discipline where students deal with handcraft with wood, metal and textile. In Norway the term “sløyd” is usually understood as woodwork and it is an integrated part of discipline “Arts and crafts”.

The conference was eleventh in the range of slöjd -conferences arranged each second year at the University of Linköping where people interested in slöjd: teachers, craftsmen, artists and researchers, gather to listen to the lectures, discuss at the workshops, view and experience at the exhibitions.

The theme of this year’s conference was “Slöjd – creating, keeping and extending boundaries”. Different types of boundaries were discussed, from preserving old techniques and design on one side, to dissolution of the boundaries of school-slöjd and merging with art, on the other; Here is the conference program: http://www.trippus.se/eventus/userfiles/17691.pdf . Marléne Johansson reminded us that slöjd is both ancient, modern and “cool”. Otto von Buch showed interesting examples of intersection between sköjd and contemporary arts. In his presentation, he focused on extension of aesthetic boundaries as for example in mutual influence between old techniques and modern design, while Lars-Erik Björklund spoke about tacit knowledge, the importance of experience, and relations between brain and embodied activities.

The participants at the conference were people who appreciated dealing with tools and materials: With their own hands they knew how valuable tacit knowledge was for them and their students. However, in a recent survey in Sweden, where students’ and their parents’ were asked to evaluate the importance of school disciplines, slöjd got almost the lowest ranking (Illum & Johansson, 2009). Teachers asked how this was possible when they frequently experience that their students enjoy the slöjd classes so much? I sensed the participants’ urge to convince school administrators, politicians and parents that human body is capable of learning in many different ways…. But what could they say? What should they say to explain and justify the importance of creating, crafting and experiencing with three-dimensional materials?

The fate of school-slöjd is in many ways dictated by contemporary educational philosophy, politics and values in the society. How much is learning by doing, learning through experience, senses and body valued in schools today? Possibilities for such learning are also bounded by teachers’, students’ and parents’ own expectations. Such expectations, which sometimes draw back to one’s own primary school education, can grow into harmful attitudes if one doesn’t start questioning them….

What can be done to raise the status of slöjd in the society? “We need more research!”, has been said many times during the conference.

Illum, B., & Johansson, M. (2009). Vad är tillräckligt mjukt? – kulturell socialisering och lärande i skolans slöjdpraktik. FORMakademisk, 2(1), 69-82. Retrieved from http://www.formakademisk.org/index.php/formakademisk/article/view/31/26

Mercedes in pajamas

Sorry for not writing sooner – I have been busy with writing articles, and that’s what I should be doing most the last year of my phd-study. But I also have to find some time for small observations. Besides my “properly conducted” data collection, my little friend, soon three years old, has constantly been supplying me with fresh puzzles to keep my mind busy. As my co-researcher, he has been reminding me that young children are complexity experts, capable of combining feelings, memories, experiences and imagination into poetic metaphors.

I have earlier on this blog written about children’s metaphors. This metaphor is brand new: In South Europe, where summers are hotter and longer, plants and houses are different than in Norway. The cars are much the same, but they are driven and parked differently. One hot day my little friend told me there was a car wearing pajamas. It was a Mercedes (we could see the symbol on the wheel). Why dress a Mercedes in pajamas? I would say to protect it from the sun.

My little friend, not unlike other boys, is found of cars: he likes playing with them, watching them and parking them on his pillow against his ear when he goes to sleep. He could reel of a number of reasons why the car was dressed in a light, soft, cotton garment:

• The car was parked, was asleep – of course it was wearing pajamas!
• He (the car) was put to sleep in the middle of the day - of course it had to cover his head and eyes not to get disturbed by other cars, people and the sun.

But why didn’t my friend suggest that the car was wearing a jacket or a hat? I think it was because he recognized the white, cotton flannel with specific soft texture someone had used to tailor a dress – sorry: pajamas for the car.

As someone who appreciates tailoring, dress-design and textiles, I was glad to hear how much embodied knowledge my little friend (my little poet) had about textile qualities!