A Nice Surprise

[Dodge]

Well I have shown you some of my lads work in the past but I got a nice surprise from my daughter when she came home from school today

A box she has made me during her DT lessons in Red pine, with a nice rebated lid and groove mounted bottom. The mitres at the corners are nice and accurate with an "eye" carved in the lid as it is intended for storing my contact lenses in.

One chuffed dad!!

 

[Paul Chapman]

Very nice =D>

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[Roughcut]

I think that box looks rather tidy.
Your daughter deserves to be pleased with herself. =D>

 

[graduate_owner]

Hi Dodge,
indeed a very nice surprise. I'm sure you are one really proud Dad. At one time children studied subjects such as woodwork, metalwork, pottery, cookery etc. They were really taught the skills to produce top quality work. Then, along came Technology!!. My own daughter studied 'Food Technology' and actually cooked TWICE in the two years leading up to GCSE. The rest of the time was spent creating a folder of design ideas, possible solutions, evaluation etc. full of nice pictures and pretty borders. The same applied to 'Resistant Materials Technology' - far more emphasis on theory, design, problems and their solutions etc than actually developing practical skills in woodwork and metalwork.

This is certainly not the fault of the teachers. At my daughter's school, they still managed to get the children to turn out some superb artifacts, (we saw them on open evenings) but not quite like in 'the good old days'

I think it's called PROGRESS.

K

 

[mailee]

She has made a really nice job of that Rog. Her mitres look better than mine. :lol: isn't it nice when the kids make you proud? :wink:

 

[marcros]

i thought it was going to be that snake again!

 

[paulm]

Nice work and a thoughtful idea

Cheers, Paul

 

[MARK.B.]

Nice piece of work, you have every right to be a proud dad.

 

[bodge]

That is uber cool! You must be very proud. 8)

 

[devonwoody]

Looks to me if she can give her dad a few tips. :wink:

 

[riclepp]

Very nice ideed

 

[andersonec]

The real surprise is a school that has the guts to let children near something sharp, good for them, who knows, maybe they will start competitive sport again, I think maybe they have realised that it takes more than that sort of stuff to traumatize children although you wouldn't think so listening to some of their parents.

I think she is trying to get on the payroll Dodge!

Andy

 

[richburrow]

Looks really nice!!!
I bet you are very proud and happy

 

[Hudson Carpentry]

The real surprise is a school that has the guts to let children near something sharp, good for them, who knows, maybe they will start competitive sport again, I think maybe they have realised that it takes more than that sort of stuff to traumatize children although you wouldn't think so listening to some of their parents.

I think she is trying to get on the payroll Dodge!

Andy

Ay, ill second that in bold. We have been looking at schools for one of ours, every one I have been to I have asked the same question in the workshops, are the kids allowed to use the machines and tools etc. One one allowed the use of the machines that could do some real damage and thats the answer I was looking for. The only machine they are not allowed to use at that school was the Bandsaw which is understandable.

Box looks great, you got a real quality family firm in the making.

 

[graduate_owner]

The staff at the school where I worked would allow pupils to use the Hegner scroll saws, but any other power saws were definitely not allowed. I think it was LEA instructions, but probably very wise all the same. They did use wood and metal lathes though, plus portable tools such as angle grinders. They also did MiG welding. The trouble was that they had to spend so much of their lesson time on meaningless development work. I'm not suggesting they shouldn't design and develop etc, but those aspects had to be taken to such a degree that it seriously cut down on the time spent developing practical skills and actually making things.

K

 

[SammyQ]

I'm a teacher with 32 years experience, not in 'Heavy Crafts', but Biology and Junior Science; having said that, I'm quite often 'juking in' to CDT to use the big boys toys! All you parents have a legitimate grouse in complaining that the 'hands on' skills we all experienced are declining. What you may not realise is that CDT means what it says on the cold-rolled, corrugated, tin-plated piece of iron with the paper wrapping.....Craft (our memories) Design (concepts, ideas, development) Technology (gadgets, electronics, pneumatics). Some schools have gone too far and are just DT. This is progress fellas. My own son is halfway through his Mechanical Engineering course at Bath and he needed exposure to all the facets of combined CDT in order to be versatile enough to gain a place and secondly, to apply for and get an appropriately hi-flying firm for his gap year. Like it or not, employers in the graduate stream want adaptable (experienced in several disciplines) bods to fit straight in. There is therefore pressure on schools - who subsumed the 'old' Techs by and large - to create said bods. They do that by widening their curriculum = CDT.

What this means too is less experienced men and women with time-served backgrounds on the tools. Add to that the outcries of modern times when a child is even mildly hurt, with the sometimes incredibly hyperbolic protestations of Press and parents, it is little wonder education boards - thinking of litiginous expenses as well as child experience - ring fence potentially harmful practices. It's prudent to do so.

I put it to you as well, with the declination of British industry and more of what is left being CAM-based, there is not the same demand for workshop floor apprentises, chippies, engineers (in the lathe and welder sense), "craftsmen" in general. My Grandfather was damn near the last blacksmith in County Londonderry, possibly Northern Ireland, some 35 years ago; our shipyard went from 10,000 to 3,000 and then down again in my working lifetime. I am sure others will have similar tales.

I am very supportive of the central plank of the above posts 'isn't it a shame we are no longer teaching crafts', I have skills my children marvel at - and I'm a rank amateur - but I am also a realist a propos the passage of time and the evolution of our industries/society.

Sam, who seems to have gone for a ramble, or maybe a manifesto?

 

[devonwoody]

I think it would be an opportunity to have out of school subjects for older students it would give them an interest in evenings as well..( Particularly if the ladies joined in)

Much better than street corners.