Eureka Moment
It happened in my second-year teaching in a classroom, it was late fall, it was a beautiful day, it was lunchtime, and I was standing impatiently beside one of my grade five/six classroom benches. I was attempting to hurry my students through lunch because I had a lot of preparation to do.
One of my students approached me pleading her case to use our classroom tools to finish her project. Grudgingly I told her she could, as long as it doesn’t take too much time.
Out of curiosity I observed her from the corner of my eye remove a small piece of cardboard from her binder, walk over to the tool wall, put on a pair of safety glasses, positions herself in front of the scroll saw, set the hold-down fingers, flips the power switch on and cut the cardboard to size.
I have had that image permanently etched in my mind forever. I was dumbfounded! How could I have missed this? How could I have not seen this? My mind froze. The lunch-time recess bell rang. The students put their things away and went outside to play. I remained in “a state of awe, thinking”.
I immediately looked back a couple of months, to the first weeks of the school year. Back then, that same student walked up to me, a worried look on her face, and said she was scared of the scroll saw but she wanted to cut her piece of wood for a project she was constructing. I could have told her to use a hand saw but I could tell she wanted to learn how to use that machine.
I looked at her; nothing to it; piece of cake; I’ll help you out. That’s my job. Let’s do it together. Relief washes over her face. She’s still a little apprehensive because the scroll saw is a bit of a rackety, noisy machine! I need to give her a little confidence. Let’s do this job together; let’s show this contraption who's boss! Cut completed; big smile! Mission accomplished. Job done. On with our work.
I’ve been thinking-designing-making things all of my life. I design and make many of my own products including furnishings. I think of an idea, create the visualization, draw what I envision, improve, and finalize. It's what I do.
Orthographic projection helps me do this. It’s a skill I learned when I took Industrial Arts in grade nine. It sets down a set of standardized drafting rules, rules that are understood by people who design things to be built throughout the world; a common tech language. To build something, materials are needed; materials that can be manipulated into a shape and match what you have visualized and drawn.
In the beginning of the year we observed, calculated, measured and drew everyday. As the weeks moved on, the metric based drafting blocks we drew became more complicated, more difficult to understand, but that didn’t diminish my students' pleasure in drawing. To help them, I constructed the drawing blocks out of wood. My students did not have the materials, tools or skills to make them. Their thinking and drawing skills were improving exponentially, but something was missing.
Imagining something, that, is a level of thinking; drawing something, that, is a level of thinking; constructing something, that, is a level of thinking; imagining, drawing and constructing something in sequence, that’s a stratospheric level of thinking and is difficult to teach because a teacher has to integrate different parts of the brain, then connect those parts to a student’s hands.
After my student cut that piece of cardboard, overnight, life for me, as a classroom teacher, changed dramatically. Before this moment everything that I designed and made used wood or metal; expensive materials.
But now a new path was open to me. These kids could cut cardboard. Cardboards cheap! For a period of time, cardboard became my obsession. My mind raced with ideas which led to a flurry of activities; finding a supply of cardboard, cutting cardboard, folding cardboard, assembling cardboard, and finishing cardboard.
About a month later, after finding an endless supply of cardboard, I redesigned the tool wall. With my new tools organized, silhouetted, things were in place. So, we went back, as a class, to the first week when I introduced technical drawing. But now we constructed the first block, the second block and on and on we constructed. I was now organized. I now could visualize my career as a classroom teacher.
A couple days before the end of the school year, I had my back resting against the door frame to my classroom, one eye on the hallway, one eye on the classroom, observing my students work. I was discussing with one of my students his summer grass cutting enterprise. He wanted to use the class printer to make fliers advertising his lawn mowing service. He didn’t have a printer at home. I was thinking about it as he stood there, waiting for my response.
I watched a couple of girls in the hallway painting Africa red on the big globe, I turned my head slightly to the right and watched a couple of guys working on fixing a tire on one of their BMX’s. My eyes turned back and looked far down the hallway, close to the secretary’s office. There was my student, her back to the wall, knees propped up, drawing board resting on her lap, drawing tools on the floor to her right, calculator in hand and I wondered because she was leaving my classroom soon; I wonder what is going to happen in her life?
So, ok you can come in next Wednesday after lunch. It’s a PA Day. I’ll be refinishing the benches for next year. You can do the final sanding with the palm sander. It won’t take long. Don’t forget to bring a permission note from your parents. When we are done, we’ll print those flyers, you can go home and I’ll get a roller and finish the benches.
This simple negotiation over PA Day chores and flyer printing was a direct result of my "cardboard epiphany." That moment taught me to value all forms of creation, not just those using expensive materials or standardized plans. It was no longer just about orthographic projection or the scroll saw; it was about allowing students to solve their own problems-whether that was cutting a shape for a project or starting a summer business. My true job wasn't just to teach them how to use the tools, but to teach them they had the know-how to apply those tools to their own lives, ideas, and futures. I still wonder how he made out in his business? Burt Savage
One of my students approached me pleading her case to use our classroom tools to finish her project. Grudgingly I told her she could, as long as it doesn’t take too much time.
Out of curiosity I observed her from the corner of my eye remove a small piece of cardboard from her binder, walk over to the tool wall, put on a pair of safety glasses, positions herself in front of the scroll saw, set the hold-down fingers, flips the power switch on and cut the cardboard to size.
I have had that image permanently etched in my mind forever. I was dumbfounded! How could I have missed this? How could I have not seen this? My mind froze. The lunch-time recess bell rang. The students put their things away and went outside to play. I remained in “a state of awe, thinking”.
I immediately looked back a couple of months, to the first weeks of the school year. Back then, that same student walked up to me, a worried look on her face, and said she was scared of the scroll saw but she wanted to cut her piece of wood for a project she was constructing. I could have told her to use a hand saw but I could tell she wanted to learn how to use that machine.
I looked at her; nothing to it; piece of cake; I’ll help you out. That’s my job. Let’s do it together. Relief washes over her face. She’s still a little apprehensive because the scroll saw is a bit of a rackety, noisy machine! I need to give her a little confidence. Let’s do this job together; let’s show this contraption who's boss! Cut completed; big smile! Mission accomplished. Job done. On with our work.
I’ve been thinking-designing-making things all of my life. I design and make many of my own products including furnishings. I think of an idea, create the visualization, draw what I envision, improve, and finalize. It's what I do.
Orthographic projection helps me do this. It’s a skill I learned when I took Industrial Arts in grade nine. It sets down a set of standardized drafting rules, rules that are understood by people who design things to be built throughout the world; a common tech language. To build something, materials are needed; materials that can be manipulated into a shape and match what you have visualized and drawn.
In the beginning of the year we observed, calculated, measured and drew everyday. As the weeks moved on, the metric based drafting blocks we drew became more complicated, more difficult to understand, but that didn’t diminish my students' pleasure in drawing. To help them, I constructed the drawing blocks out of wood. My students did not have the materials, tools or skills to make them. Their thinking and drawing skills were improving exponentially, but something was missing.
Imagining something, that, is a level of thinking; drawing something, that, is a level of thinking; constructing something, that, is a level of thinking; imagining, drawing and constructing something in sequence, that’s a stratospheric level of thinking and is difficult to teach because a teacher has to integrate different parts of the brain, then connect those parts to a student’s hands.
After my student cut that piece of cardboard, overnight, life for me, as a classroom teacher, changed dramatically. Before this moment everything that I designed and made used wood or metal; expensive materials.
But now a new path was open to me. These kids could cut cardboard. Cardboards cheap! For a period of time, cardboard became my obsession. My mind raced with ideas which led to a flurry of activities; finding a supply of cardboard, cutting cardboard, folding cardboard, assembling cardboard, and finishing cardboard.
About a month later, after finding an endless supply of cardboard, I redesigned the tool wall. With my new tools organized, silhouetted, things were in place. So, we went back, as a class, to the first week when I introduced technical drawing. But now we constructed the first block, the second block and on and on we constructed. I was now organized. I now could visualize my career as a classroom teacher.
A couple days before the end of the school year, I had my back resting against the door frame to my classroom, one eye on the hallway, one eye on the classroom, observing my students work. I was discussing with one of my students his summer grass cutting enterprise. He wanted to use the class printer to make fliers advertising his lawn mowing service. He didn’t have a printer at home. I was thinking about it as he stood there, waiting for my response.
I watched a couple of girls in the hallway painting Africa red on the big globe, I turned my head slightly to the right and watched a couple of guys working on fixing a tire on one of their BMX’s. My eyes turned back and looked far down the hallway, close to the secretary’s office. There was my student, her back to the wall, knees propped up, drawing board resting on her lap, drawing tools on the floor to her right, calculator in hand and I wondered because she was leaving my classroom soon; I wonder what is going to happen in her life?
So, ok you can come in next Wednesday after lunch. It’s a PA Day. I’ll be refinishing the benches for next year. You can do the final sanding with the palm sander. It won’t take long. Don’t forget to bring a permission note from your parents. When we are done, we’ll print those flyers, you can go home and I’ll get a roller and finish the benches.
This simple negotiation over PA Day chores and flyer printing was a direct result of my "cardboard epiphany." That moment taught me to value all forms of creation, not just those using expensive materials or standardized plans. It was no longer just about orthographic projection or the scroll saw; it was about allowing students to solve their own problems-whether that was cutting a shape for a project or starting a summer business. My true job wasn't just to teach them how to use the tools, but to teach them they had the know-how to apply those tools to their own lives, ideas, and futures. I still wonder how he made out in his business? Burt Savage