This year is the first year when CRAFTed is run nationwide. It allows craftspeople to develop custom planned craft workshops with local schools. Each craftperson works directly with teacher with whom the workshops are delivered.
After a series of preparatory meetings: such as child protection training etc, we finally got paired with teachers from our designed schools.
I loved the idea that both the teacher and a craftperson had the opportunity to meet and develop a theme round which the series of five 2 hour workshops will be run.
There are essentially two teaching approaches: one is whereby the craftperson is focused on teaching the skills and the process of making. Whilst it often delivers quality product it can sometimes be limiting for childrens creativity.
Say a good example is if i am making felted bowls, i will be giving kids set plastic templates, that are essentially one shape. Its better to allow kids to design their template and explore it from there. This approach is more difficult as kids are more likely to make some mistakes in the project.
But what mostly excites me about is the possibility to let the creativity grow and flow. More importantly is to run such a project in a wider perspective, that is to explore the main theme and process so it seamelesly fits in the curriculum.
Ie: feltmaking can be treated as an example for science of materials, where juxtaposition between soft/ coarse wool and dense,sparse could be used to exemplify different properties of the material and design possibilities.
The project can also touch upon math ( say calculate the cost of materials and work used to create the item versus the hypothetical price). History, English and Geography can follow in the same manner.
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