Doug Stowe is an artisan who specializes in making small boxes. He also teaches woodworking and records his thoughts on the melding of education and craftsmanship on his wonderfully reflective blog, Wisdom of the Hands. For example:
In his introductory remarks published in the Teacher’s Hand-Book of Educational Sloyd, Salomon notes the difference between a trained artisan and a teacher. While the trained artisan is focused by necessity on the qualities inherent in the finished product, the teacher must be concerned with the qualities developed within the child. An artisan might step in to make sure the child gets the work right, while the teacher might step back to see that the child learns. In other words, the predisposition of the artisan vs. teacher may be leading in completely different directions.
— Doug Stowe: beyond craftsmanship on Wisdom of the Hands (blog).
I really like the core message here. I’m an advocate for apprenticeship learning: how better to learn to think and act like an experts. But the key lesson for the expert is that students need to be given the opportunity to experiment, and even to make mistakes, in order to learn.
After my own, rough, experiments with making a slide holder, I’d love to take a lesson from someone who knows what they’re doing.
P.S. Hat tip to Karin Niehoff of the Crescent Montessori School for the connection.