Why Your Teenager Can't Use A Hammer

As I was running through my blogs, I came across this article about how many of today's teenagers have never learned how to use simple tools. 

Why Your Teenager Can't Use A Hammer

As humans developed, "The conversation between hand and brain grew more complex, too. We advanced to the unique ability to visualize an idea, then create that vision with our hands."

The article discusses how some engineering students at MIT can't estimate a problem without their computer and the college had to build remedial courses into their curriculum.  It discusses how even architectural courses have had to add back to basics courses.

Our local Jr/Sr High School, due to a shrinking budget, cut shop class last year.  How many of our children will never learn the skills necessary to build a simple birdhouse?  What does this do to the thinking and reasoning process?  What happens to the paths between hand, eye, and brain?  And how can I combat this loss of skills in my own children?  

Easy Carpentry Projects For Children by Jerome E. Leavitt can get us started.  The book lists all the tools required to complete the projects.  Every project is made from entirely from hand tools.  Will it help a child learn patience and lose the need for immediate gratification when they must cut out the base of a simple sailboat with a coping saw?  What about the intense pride of watching your own project float?  The projects in this book are simple and do-able.  It includes 15 easy-to follow-plans for projects like a bird feeder, clock shelf, candlesticks, a cart, and more.

Wouldn't a handmade candlestick holder, bird feeder, flower box, book rack, or shoeshine kit make great Christmas presents!?!   

Lefty loosey, righty tighty?

Clabbered Dirt, Sweet Grass

Clabbered Earth, Sweet Grass by Gary Paulsen is a poetically written nonfiction work that describes four seasons of living on a farm about 70 years ago in an age when tractors are just beginning to be used on the farm and most work is done with horses. 

Paulsen writes this book almost like a continual run-on sentence to give you the feel of the farmer's never ending round of relentless, grinding work - except for short, but incredibly sweet, respites of dances, picnics, or fishing.  

"The garden.

But not one, not just a simple garden, but almost a separate farm, a separate life.  There are four gardens, four completely different plots.  the potato garden, the corn garden, the kitchen garden and the garden garden.  

They are life.  More than the farm, more than the crops and the animals, the gardens are life -- all food.  There is never money, not ever, not even small bits of change, not one extra dime to waste and food from stores --"store boughten"-- is simply too expensive except for flour, sugar, salt and pepper and canning spices.  It is unthinkable to buy meat or potatoes or other produce, totally outside thought."  

~ excerpt from  Clabbered Dirt, Sweet Grass.

I've written and re-written about how Clabbered Dirt, Sweet Grass makes me feel and can't quite put it into words.  I love any kind of book about sustainable living and homesteading and this book gives a wonderful hands on account about early century farming.  

Reading this book makes me realize that as hard as anyone in today's time period works, we're really kind of soft and live a life of relative ease - and I thank God I don't have to toil so hard for every bit of food or drop of money!  


At the same time, Clabbered Dirt, Sweet Grass inspires me to live more simply and closer to how these people lived because they really enjoyed life and relationships, but I won't  take for granted the modern conveniences that make my life so much easier!


I got this book at our local Coudersport Library, but you can get it here on Amazon.