My seventh- and eighth-grade shop teacher, Mr. Weisbard, has been an unconscious
influence in my life.
I say unconscious because I can't remember much of what I learned in elementary
school, but I know Mr. Weisbard influenced me because he was the first and
only male teacher I had in my first eight years of schooling.
I'm not aiming at any sexist statements here, but a boy needs male modeling
in the early grades, and Mr. Weisbard, dressed in his white smock and calmly
but firmly enforcing safety rules in the woodworking shop, set some balancing
tone for my growth and development as the lone male model in my early schooling,
the one teacher providing practical lessons that would be valuable and handy
to a future husband and father.
I confess much of what I garnered from elementary school was absorbed without
awareness, as it is with most, I think, and as it should be. Teaching isn't
really something that's actively done by teachers; they rather set the tone
and atmosphere for learning, then guide and correct.
There wasn't much a boy could
do to model himself after most of my teachers -- even the good ones, because
the elementary faculty, from principal and vice-principal down, was female
dominated.
Mrs. Bjornsen, whose constant motto was "self control," provided
aromas akin to witch hazel and a jangle of about six thousand silver and
pewter bracelets on each wrist as she strolled the aisles between our permanently
anchored desks and seats.
Mrs. Williamson, who had a heart for pupils that other teachers harangued,
appeared to have gorgeous red hair. Alas, it always was imprisoned in a
melon-sized bun that hung from the nape of her neck like a small beaver
tail.
Mrs. Convery, a short authoritarian, stuck her chin in her chest when she
spoke and wrapped her arms across her bosom before delivering her disciplinary
warnings. World War II was long past, but thanks to Mrs. Convery, we had
a decent idea of how a Gestapo interrogator sounded and acted.
Sadly, I cannot readily recall
a single idea, moral perspective, or intellectual tool these women communicated
to me in the years I spent with them -- though they did, I'm sure.
Mr. Weisbard, on the other hand, left me with lessons I recall each time
I pick up a screw driver, hammer or hand saw.
For one thing, I learned the word ferrule, which for a seventh-grader is
a marvel akin to learning that real men don't eat quiche.
A grown, smart man holding a screw driver and speaking about its ferrule
provided a lesson in the acquisition of knowledge I cherished. My father
had boxes of tools to which my older brothers and I had access, probably
ten to twenty screw drivers among them, and I never heard him or my brothers
use the word ferrule.
This may have been my first awakening
to the power of words and of knowing something my parents didn't know. Some
children took pride in acquiring a vocabulary of profanity; I found pride
in understanding the word ferrule.
In Mr. Weisbard's classes we built things, but I don't remember what we
built. Mostly, I recall endless planing of pine boards that dropped florets
of curled pine all over the floor and endless try square checks in our quest
for the perfect edge.
Our classes were models of order. Running resulted in banishment to the
principal's office. Tools were never to be carried in a cavalier swinging
motion, and each tool had its place on a shelf or on a wall hook. Every
curlicue of wood and every speck of sawdust had to be in the trash bin before
the bell rang to end our class.
The hall pass, which we needed with us each time we left the room to go
to the bathroom, was embedded in a three-foot length of four-by-four wood,
a cumbersome but wise way to control pupils out of the classroom.
I learned to heft a hammer by its handle near the head when carrying it
from one workbench to another and to always hold it upright before me when
walking.
In contrast, I learned that in using a hammer power is lost if one hefts
it close to the head and that striking a nail has more to do with one's
eye-contact with the nail head than with the force of one's blow.
Power tools did not exist in the
shop of P.S. 154, except for an electrically powered grinding wheel that
we used to sharpen chisels and plane blades, but even in that we were instructed
more in the use of a whetstone than in the use of a power grinding wheel.
Mr. Weisbard taught us to use a variety of hand saws -- rip saws, cross-cut
saws, coping saws, miter-box saws.
Learning to use a rip saw or a cross-cut saw provided subtle lessons in
power and control: The cutting power of a handsaw is in its forward thrust,
not in its retraction. One can save much energy by avoiding frantic back-and-forth
"sawing," half of which doesn't cut.
The rhythm of sawing isn't "push-pull-push- pull-push- pull";
better cutting and energy conservation comes with a rhythm of "PUSH-retract-PUSH-
retract-PUSH- retract," and the retraction always is slightly relaxed.
Control with a hand saw can be
had by pointing the index finger of the cutting hand along the side of the
grip rather than wrapping the hand forcefully around the handle as if it
were a joystick or ski pole.
How a person grips a hand saw is a good indicator of whether he or she has
been trained in proper saw technique.
Girls in my elementary school did not take shop class; instead, they went
to "home economics" to learn to bake and cook.
"Home economics" is a crazy and gender-biased term. What I learned
in shop class concerning the use of a screw driver, hammer or saw is as
much "home economics" as anything learned behind a kitchen stove
or cutting board, and when minor home repairs become my necessary duty,
I have Mr. Weisbard to thank.
The girls in my school probably learned equally subtle and important lessons
in home economics class, such as how to make a quiche that a real man would
appreciate, but I doubt they learned that several kitchen utensils have
a ferrule.
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Allan R. Andrews can be contacted at allan.andrews@reporters.net