Student Knives Complete

[Horsewright]

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.
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Just really, really cool Randy!

 

[Randydb]

Another cool thing is I am a learner in all this too. The first 4 years Triple X Knives supplied us with blanks at cost and the kids found wood, did the handles a we learned to make sheaths from Shane Alexander here.
As I have learned more I built my own grinder and am learning to do stock removal and grind my own blades. JT cut and heat treated all but 2 of these and then I ground them. It helps my learning curve when I am putting bevels on 16 at a time. Plus it doesn't cost me anything! School is paying for the steel...I get to practice grinding for free.
I think it is important for the kids to understand the learning process people go through and know that their teachers are still learning too.

 

[JaneAir21]

This is what you can do and learn at the same time, and I spent all my time studying, it took a lot of time. It's good that now at least [spam and spammer removed.]

 

[Fiddleback]

Neato! Great job!

 

[Policeman22]

It's cool when you have the opportunity to do something with your own hands. The main thing is that there is enough free time for this. I tried on myself how difficult it is to constantly spend time on homework and not do what I really like. Friends recommended a site to me writingjudge.com. I read reviews of some writing services here and started using one of them. And I'm happy. Now I have time to make wood products and sell them. And I had a dream - to carve a masterpiece out of wood and sell it at an auction for a lot of money.

 

[Randydb]

I was interested in reading your discussions on this topic

It always amazes me how much more capable children are than we give them credit for or allow them to do.
We did a number of sessions of campfire cooking with the students this spring. First day meals tended to be hotdogs and marshmallows. But each day the children had to do some planning/research about other things they could cook on the campfire. I also brought something each day....3 or 4 salmon with onions and lemon in tin foil one day, asparagus butter and garlic in foil another day, potatoes on a nail to cook quicker etc. By the end children had gourmet meals going. Marinated beef cubes, roasted corn on the cob, peppers mushrooms and onions, bacon, bacon wrapped duck breasts, trout with mayo based sauce and more.
Keep in mind these were 10 year old children working in groups of 3. All they got to start their fires was a ferro rod, knife and cotton ball with a bit of vaseline on it. They would gather their fire starting materials and all have their fires going within 15 minutes with no help from the adults. It was pretty amazing standing back and realizing how self reliant they were. With a bit of support and pushed to find new ideas they were making better campfire meals than most adults every come up with.

 

[Arnestion]

To be honest, I read all the comments with tears in my eyes. I am crying with happiness that there are such excellent teachers as you are and there are schools that train truly independent, intelligent and fully prepared people. I am very sorry that I did not have such an excellent school, and even now it all comes down to reading and writing various essays. These essays are not easy for me, so I use a useful source with many examples. With the help of a useful resource, I solved this issue for myself and now I have more time to study and interact with this world.
We read and then write paper work and I sincerely do not understand why we are doing this while we could study this world, learn to light fires, calculate the height of trees, we would learn to interact with the world, and not read about some kind of forbidden love.
This frees up a lot of time and I spend my free time studying plants and animals in my area. Thank you for being here, I am very glad to realize that there are wonderful people in the world and an excellent school to which I really want to send my future children Thanks lot

 

[Randydb]

Thanks for the kind words Arnestion. What you say is so true about studying our world, interacting with it and ultimately connecting with it in a way that the children will want to be a meaningful part of it and care for their surroundings. Being out in the natural world brings up a million wonders every day. I have to say I learn every day too. It's a blast, and I keep looking over my shoulder and feeling guilty for having so much fun every day and getting paid for it.