Student Knives Complete

Well, it's time for my yearly brag about my student knives and the school that I am principal of. Our school is a public school called the Maple Ridge Environmental School. Basically we do everything hands on, outside and in context every day. We meet in a number of different places through out our district and all of our learning is about the places we are in. Real life hands on learning every day. Things like Math, reading, writing, science etc comes out of what we are learning about. So if we are studying salmon and the river/watershed in the fall the kids are reading and writing about it, learning about the history of the fish and place, calculating the speed of the river, figuring out the average number of eggs in a salmon and dissecting salmon numerous times. It is rich, deep, engaging learning.
So with our model kids use shovels, hammers, nets, saws and knives quite regularly. Many of my students carry pocket knives and if you ask for one about 30% of our students would be offering theirs to borrow. There is a protocol for a student to use their knife that has been developed over a lot of time and development of trust with the kids. They only use them with permission from a staff member and supervision. If they blow it, they won't be able to carry or use a knife for a long time. There is the odd child who has lost the privilege over time. But the vast majority have done it perfectly. We also have class sets of carving knives that we use with the children. In 9 years of using carving knives and children carrying/using pocket knives we have only had 2 children need a couple stitches each. Both times they got their finger with the carving knife because they had their finger too far around a smaller item they were carving.

This year's knives are AEBL and were designed and ground by me. They were cut out and ht'd by JT Knives. It is a good way for me to continue to learn to grind better. The children found their wood for their knives in the bush in grade 6 and cut blocks that I sent to K&G to stabilize. All of these handles are the wood that the children found except one handle is Koa and that child traded me their block for it.
The children put their handles on their knives, shaped and finished them with files and made their own sheaths. They are incredibly proud.

Again, I want to say how thankful I am for everyone here on this forum that has helped me in my knife making learning journey. You haven't only blessed me, but you have also blessed a whole lot of children too.

 

I interviewed some of our former students when they were in grade 12. Their complaint was that everything was "rote learning" in high school. Read or watch a video about something, answer some questions, write a test. They said it was difficult to remember what was on the test 2 weeks later. They said the thing about the learning in our school was that they still remembered it years later because they had lived the learning. One pointed out that we were using grade 11 trigonometry to calculate heights of trees when they were in grade 7 and he understood it because it was part of what they were doing.

Students still use digital technology in our school, but it is a tool for figuring out our real life learning and sharing what we have learned. I would argue that we go way beyond the basics of memorizing things and into much richer, deeper understanding.

You would be impressed our student's ability to problem solve and their resilience.

 

My son is 3rd year Math major with a 4.0 gpa. Wound up at university because he had a soccer scholarship. Basically hated high school and did enough to get by with reasonable grades. Then first year university he got a Calculus Prof who was relating what they were doing to practical applications that Liam related to because he loves the hands on part. He reads these out there Math things for fun too. He has a leg up on many of the other students because he has a practical level that he understands the concepts on as well as the theoretical.
I think this is partly what our kids get here too. Deeper understanding of things. It was cool last fall when some of my grade 5s were looking through Salmon eyeball lenses and wondering why images were inverted and reversed. A week of theories, research and building different models and they completely understood a grade 11 physics concept and could explain it to you.
Our kids are scared crapless when they go to high school because it is so different than here, but after a couple months they are fine and do well there too. They just are very disappointed and disenchanted by the dull delivery of rote assignments and testing.

 

I think understanding how to approach learning is massive. That drive to learn more, approach other sources and dig deep is so key. Most of you have learned to make knives without taking a formal course. You've done a combination of research (reading, listening to others, asking questions, reading forums) and practical hands on activities that have allowed you to arrive where you are as makers. You built on previous knowledge and took it deeper.
One of our major focuses is teaching the children how to approach learning. Understanding themselves, ways to approach new problems, and how to develop understanding. Having topics that are interesting and engaging make the learning and follow through easier too. We spent a month studying maggots growing in salmon one warm fall, and another month studying mushroom when it was rainy. The learning that happens when we spend two months at the BMX bike park is pretty cool too. There is a ton of physics, math, statistics, rates ratios and graphing to be done there. Pretty motivating to have professional racers work with the kids and share about the focus and commitment it takes to compete at an elite level.

We do a lot of things to help transition like having former students in to share their experience, visits to the high school, examples of "high school styled work" etc. But when your entire experience of school has not been "conventional" it is scary at first. Almost all of them do very well and get over their worry by the end of the first term.

I just know I wake up every morning and am excited to go to work and I have a blast every day at this.