The world is changing, how do we adapt?

Shop projects have not changed much in the last 60 years. Depending on the instructor, some teachers do the same projects year after year. When siblings have the same teacher… well, a family of 5 can only use so many bread boxes.

Change is not always bad thing; back in 1996 if you wanted to search for a new woodworking project, you would start by making a trip to the library and flipping through books from the 70's and realistically, you might find the experience underwhelming. Now with the greatness of the internet, you can have videos sent to your phone the second they are posted. And that's just YouTube.

I have a love hate relationship with the internet. There are so many great ways to use the internet and so many more ways to misuse it. I like being able to search "new ideas in wood working" and get over 15.5 million suggestions, but at the same time, how do I sift through so many sites to find the top 100. (On a related note if you have a list of the top 100 woodworking sites, please post links in comments.)

Let’s shift gears a little bit and look at housing construction. In the context of “our needs”; in the 70's homes were built with grand dining rooms for entertaining, 4 plus bedrooms for the kids and storage, and a kitchen table for family meals. 20 years later in the 90's family's got smaller, that extra bedroom became a home office because mom and dad were both working now and they needed to bring their work home with them. (Side note my first computer 1.6 gigabit hard drive). Let’s jump ahead another 20 years to the 10's, those houses from the 70's are coming down fast and in their place are monster homes that are built to maximize square footage and come with price tags that are laughable.

The results are that in 50-60 years, things have changed. We have smaller homes, and smaller families. More people living in apartments and town homes rather than detached homes. And in those town homes, that underutilized dining room has disappeared. Mom and Dad are still working, but they are opting to not bring their work home with them; so that home office is gone as well. After all why would you need a computer room at home when you have one in your pocket that can hold 64 Gigabits of data, and the family has shrunk again just a little bit. On top of all of these factors; It is now possible with the aid of a large scale 3d printer to print ten 400 sqft one level buildings made of concrete in 24 hours. 24 hours. Granted the roof would have to be put on manually but still, think about that. 3D printers have only become mainstream since 2010 in 6 short years, 3d printers can print machine parts, functional organs, and for now tiny homes. And the future? Well 2 story homes, town homes, 3 story apartments, sky scrapers, the possibilities are unlimited.

To build a 2000 square foot home requires a team of about 40 special skilled individuals, and about 6 months of time. Those jobs will be gone in about 30 years. To be replaced with 3 people to set up a printer and about 1 week of time. Granted there will still be a need for finishing work, but those jobs already exist, and fewer of them will be needed with a precision printer. Imagine walls that are actually square and flat… what a concept.

So where am I going with all of this? Well, as the title says "the world is changing" The way we deliver Tech Ed must change with it. In September 2016 the Tech Ed curriculum of BC will be going through a change. For better or worse I can’t say, it’s too large of an idea for me to quantify. On the plus side, the way the new system will be running is in line with the way most of my colleagues already run their shops. More on the new 2016-17 BC curriculum another post.

But the problem still remains and these rules I have used in teaching are simple:

Be passionate about what you are teaching- Our passions become our students’ passions, if projects are designed in order to be completed and then forgotten don’t be surprised if kids aren’t interested. I still remember the aluminum cube that I had to complete in metalwork. The assignment was to use the milling machine to face off one side, drill a hole and tap a thread into the block and hand in for marking. I got 100% on the project, I learned how to use the mill, use a tap and die chart, and once complete I tossed the cube in the recycling bin. For those of you that don’t know me personal, I have attachment issues with projects that I make, at the very most, I might give my completed project to someone as a gift (what better way to avoid the malls at Christmas time) any who, I tossed the cube because I was not passionate about the project, and once more, my teacher was not passionate about the project either, it was just a means to an end.
The cane I made for my grandfather; now that was a challenge, the cane was made of black walnut with a thin strip of maple in the center, the cane was made in 2 pieces with a brass  threaded insert as well as a casted brass handle. Sanded, oiled, waxed and buffed to a glossy shine. I loved making that project, I spent exactly 30.5 hours getting it perfect. The project was fun, creative and meaningful I was connected to that cane. 

5 years and retire- To be clear, retire the project, not the teacher. We need to be innovative, it’s not enough to develop a project that teaches a student all the requirements, but the student has no need for the project. Back in my day, I was assigned to make a complete set of fire pokers, I asked the obvious question “is there an alternate project?” to which I was told “If you can design a project that teaches you everything you need to learn in metal work then you can make that”. I did not have anything against the project, but this was Burnaby BC in the 1990’s; fireplaces were non-existent, and more than 50% of Burnaby’s population was made up of visible minorities who found the idea of camping a little backwards. When I asked my dad why we don’t go camping he said “well, I worked hard and moved to Canada so that you wouldn’t have to sleep in a tent”.   
As an instructor, I spend weeks designing projects, and then sets of plans, then prototyping, and marking criteria sheets, all to develop projects that;

1.      -Meet all the learning outcomes,

2.      -Use all the machines in the shop,

3.      -Engage students in learning

4.      -Teach students concepts and make connections to the world

Once the project was complete and I was ready to show my students there next project, I had a student asked me the same question I asked my teacher so many years ago, “Is there an alternate project”? It was then that I realized that I was designing my projects the wrong way. I should have had my priorities as follows;

1.      -Teach students concepts and make connections to the world

2.      -Engage students in learning

3.      -Use all the machines in the shop

4.      -Meet all the learning outcomes

Like many learning opportunities once I saw the better way, I couldn’t believe that I didn’t see it sooner. This shift in priorities changed everything for me. Kids were now buying into the ideas and concepts more, students were also making additions and modifications to create better more efficient more unique, personalized projects.

Be clear on your intentions as a teacher- I want my students to learn hand skills that will help them now and later in life. Too often people look at hand skills as low brow or what you do when you can’t make it as an academic. Well unless you have been living under a rock, you will know that Trades pay bills and then some. Mechanics now a days are boarder line engineers, think about it, the complexity of the modern automobile is nothing compared to the first Model T’s that came off the line. People seem to have all these misconceptions about Trades or skill based jobs; that if you know that one skill then that is all you know. And again they would be wrong. Skill based jobs are highly transferable. Take spatial reasoning; a highly sought after skill in trades, business, and the service industry. The jest of spatial reasoning is to be able to look at a problem or situation and find a solution, like a chess player looking 7 moves ahead. I do possess this skill to a minimal level, but I am always looking to improve.

Above all else, spatial reasoning is what I want my students to learn. I want them to be able to look at a situation, assess it, determine possible outcomes, develop a solution, and implement the solution. Sounds complicated, and it is but it can be simplified and managed like any task.

I often look at the space that my next project will envelope and visualize what will soon be there, the material, the joinery the finish, then dimensions and then possible challenges that might arise, or areas that I would like to complete in stages.

 Project ideas don’t always come out and smack you in the face, sometimes coming up with the idea is the hardest part, I can replicate anything I can see, that’s not much of a challenge for me, but coming up with new innovations, new techniques, and new projects that’s the future, that’s the challenge. But we don’t need to go at it alone, make a new friend online, see what others in your field are doing, any issues you are having have been faced by others at some point. I couldn’t even imagine what it would be like looking at every problem on my own, not that I couldn’t eventually solve the problem, but task just becomes daunting. It’s important to use the resources at your disposal and the world is just that.