Come as a little child

I recall these words from time to time and dwell on them for reflection. Quotes taken out of context somehow become diminished because the value relates to the whole and written text usually gives a context by which the words find meaning.

The quote above has a certain expectation to it for me. Children soak in information , good and bad, like a sponge takes up water from any source surrounding it. Like the sponge, the brain of a child retains the nutrient-rich water for future use. This quote was spoken for many reasons not the least of which is the reality that children somehow carry unconsciously within themselves what we older generations see as hope. Presenting truth to children is critical. They take information, store it and draw on it for life. The younger a child is, the greater the potential for them to absorb.

Becoming a child at 60 may not seem so easy. The body doesn’t quite flex the same and the mind seems less elastic too. I know, believe me. When students with silver hair stand around my bench on the first day of class there is a certain childlike innocence about them. An expectancy if you will that somehow, by an unknown grace, they are indeed translated back to a childhood dream to accomplish something they always wanted to but never could and it’s this ingredient that makes it possible for them to learn late what could not be learned at the perfect time in their life.

Sharpening a chisel seems a small thing to me, as is setting the plane, but without these simple concepts, woodworking by hand is impossible. This single one hour lesson transforms awkwardness into potential and even power. Hence the term, “Cutting-edge technology.” To be on the cutting edge is to be cutting through that which opposes progress to discover the yet unknown. I believe that to learn anything we must go back to being like children who somehow manage to know that that they don’t know.

My classroom is a workshop and my desk a workbench. Students young, old, men, women stand equalised by their lack. Gender and age seem diminished as they listen and watch my hands sharpen and my voice explain the simplicity that creates a cutting edge. The surface preparation of two obliquely opposed surfaces that unite along a definitive line to cut and sever wood. Inspired by what they see their spirits are heightened, they engage with the newfound knowledge and inside they are running and twirling, twisting and jumping as only a six-year old can. Becoming as a child, no matter the age, enables the disengaged and dormant side of the brain to begin working to its full potential. At first it seems sluggish. Bit like starting to run after a 30 year gap. The mind is willing, the body lacks. Exercise and training releases the chemicals in the brain and the dormant right side begins to grow in the sense that an emerging potency assumes its rightful place and intuition begins to replace mere logicality. In a few hours the chisels cut exactly to lines hitherto unknown. Accuracy and sharpness become heightened and a new genre woodworker is born.