While doing the recent Finding Those Roots articles, a number of the responses were quite interesting. Some who participated can remember their first days back at a very young person working side-by-side with their dad in a workshop. Others could vividly recall their high school shop class instructor lighting their woodworking fire many years ago.
Whether you were a little one or considerably older, there was that moment in your life when you chose to become a woodworker. That’s usually considered the time you started laying money down for tools, establishing some kind of work area and spending Saturday mornings hard at work. In this week’s poll, I’d like for you to look back into your past and remember just how old you were when you started woodworking.
Now, remember, I’m looking to see when you got into the craft seriously, not when you were first exposed to it. For instance, I had a wood shop class in middle school when I was 12, but I didn’t get seriously involved in the craft until I was in my late 20’s. So, I would vote in the 25 – 30 range…
[poll id=”87″]
I loved woodworking in seventh grade and by senior high I had won awards and made a sailboat in the high school shop.
But here’s my question: With school shops no longer the norm in most schools, how can young people learn about this great hobby? If us older readers had a mentor (a school program or caring person), then don’t we have some responsibility to do the same for young people today?
Please do a poll asking what activities your readers are currently undertaking to introduce young people to woodworking. If they aren’t passing their craft with kids, ask why. Ask what they feel they need (for example how to get their children/grandchildren started, how to contact and work with groups of kids (church/scouts etc.) whay project ideas are appropriate to certain age groups, safety information, general how-to procedures, etc.
Skilled woodworkers do not necessarily know how to teach or how to work with young people.
It would be nice to identify your readers who are actively working with young people and share what they are doing and how they are doing it. Perhaps others would be inclined to work with the kids if they were encouraged to do so.