Festools in the classroom

[rnt80]

I teach World History and AP American History to sophomores and juniors in high school.  My American history class is getting ready to look at the Gilded Age (the age of industry - think Carnegie, Morgan, Rockefeller).  I started off today's class by showing them a powerpoint of some of my work and explaining to them what I do when I'm not in the classroom.  The last slide I show them is of a bookcase that has a dovetailed drawer in it.  We talk for a bit about different joint possibilities, the pro and cons of each and then I explain to them why dovetails are so appealing to many.  I walk them through the process of what it takes to cut them by hand and explain how long that takes.  When we're done with that part of the discussion we cut some half blind dovetails in class.  I brought my Akeda jig, 1400 and CT22.  I have the entire class come up to the front of the room.  I give them a brief intro to the router and explain to them how the jig works.  I then use two volunteers to cut the pins and tails respectively.  When it's all said and done we talk about the advantages of using the jig over hand cut.  These are AP (advanced placement) kids so they are pretty astute and articulate.  Outside of time saved, we talk about things like consistency, ease of use, productivity, etc.  We then relate all of this back to the relationship we see in the Gilded Age between the emerging industries and their approach towards production and their employees.  The kids get a kick out of it and it serves as a great jumping off point for our unit.

 

[johnsonri]

What a great aid to the discussion. I bet that a majority of students will remember the lecture for life!!

 

[rnt80]

I did have quite a few female volunteers.  I have three sections of US history and I think I used one guy and one girl for each class.  The kids did a really good job with relating this demonstration to some of the issues that we'll end up talking about in this unit.  Among other topics we talked about how easily one could produce good looking dovetails without much practice and how that related to what amounted to disposable or expendable labor during this time period.  It's so  hard to get kids engaged these days that I'm willing to do just about anything to get them on board and thinking about things.

 

[Brice Burrell]

.....It's so  hard to get kids engaged these days that I'm willing to do just about anything to get them on board and thinking about things.

Yeah, even that means you have them make your kitchen drawer boxes. Yep, you're a dedicated teacher. ;D

 

[Dave Ronyak]

Tom Sawyer reincarnated?  Will you have them painting picket fences in the Spring?  Kudos to you, teacher!

Dave R.