Rethinking Craft in D&T: Beyond Skills to Capability

Subscriber-only episode

In this episode of Talking D&T, I explore the nuanced role of craft in design and technology education. I reflect on a recent conversation with Nicky Dewer, which prompted me to examine the complexities surrounding hands-on learning in our subject.

I argue against the notion of teaching high-level craft skills in schools, as we simply haven't the time to develop true craftspersonship. Instead, I propose that we focus on providing pupils with opportunities to engage in hands-on making as a means of developing their understanding of materials, processes, and embodied learning.

I discuss the benefits of incorporating craft-like activities, including fostering resilience, appreciation for handmade objects, and insight into the therapeutic nature of making. However, I also address the challenges we face, such as time constraints and limited resources.

I emphasise the importance of thoughtful planning, suggesting that teachers carefully consider the essential learning outcomes when incorporating hands-on activities. I also question the appropriateness of assessing practical skills in D&T, given the subject's broader aims.

Finally, I highlight how craft-based activities can be used to promote sustainability and environmental awareness, teaching pupils about responsible material use and product life cycles.

Throughout the episode, I aim to provoke thought and encourage D&T teachers to reconsider how they integrate practical skills into their lessons, moving away from the idea of separate 'theory lessons' and towards a more holistic approach that aligns with the subject's aims.

(Text generated by AI, edited by Alison Hardy)

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Chapters

• 0:54 The Role of Craft in Education
• 13:35 Craft Skills in Education Integration

Transcript

Alison Hardy: 0:55

talking with nikki jewer about the place of craft in design and technology and, more generally, in education was really interesting. I see lots of conversation online, on facebook in particular, about the place of craft and this claim that the subject is moving away from craft skills. And what was interesting talking to Nikki was it was more holistic in terms of our conversation and nuanced as well, in that we were thinking about the place of hands-on activity. I don't like always using that word activity, because it sort of feels like we're just talking about busy work, keeping children busy, when actually I think more it was talking about hands-on, in a way of learning and learning about materials and processes through that very act of doing them. And this is something I've spoken about quite a bit is that to me, learning involves the whole body. There's embodied learning that we learn habits, we learn how things feel, we learn the understanding of some of the words in reality when we're able to touch and do and develop and make things and develop and make things. So I thought our conversation was more nuanced than this very blunt way of looking at craft, as in a well, we're teaching them to have craft skills. Eddie Norman and I have had conversations about this and we think it's actually quite insulting to talk about teaching children craft skills and to be to have good craft skills in schools, because people who are real craftspeople and I was out walking the dog this morning past a ceramics shop in Upingham where I live, goldmark Pottery and I looked in the window and I looked at the things that the people were producing there and they're highly skilled, you know. They're really built on years and years of experience and understanding of the materials and the processes and the trial and error, and we just don't have time for that in schools.

Alison Hardy: 3:08

Debate about that is is that the place of schools is to teach children to handle and use materials to a high skill level. Actually we're thinking about general education. You know what? What is general education? And it's it's developing them as an educated citizen. That's what the national curriculum aims say in england and they say something similar in other countries as well. But it's in design and technology. Developing their design and technology capability and their ability to think about and engage with and critique the made world as an educated citizen is kind of what the aims of the national curriculum say in England and in other places as well. And so I think if we focus too much on teaching craft skills, then actually we're losing the very essence of design and technology.

Alison Hardy: 4:02

So I want to explore a little bit about some of the things that craft, in its many different guises, in the way Nikki and I explored and talked about it, does have a place within design and technology, maybe some of the the missed opportunities that we have in design and technology around craft. So after now clarifying that I'm not talking about teaching children to have high levels of craft skills, to be able to make a perfect dovetail joint or to sew a perfect French seam or to make the perfect macaroons, what does craft actually mean in design and technology? So let's have a think about what this, what this could be okay. So I think when we're teaching children and children have that opportunity to do hands-on making, I think what we're giving them the opportunity to do is to think about that we. The opportunity we do offer in design and technology is through the resilience and the kind of therapeutic aspects of the repetitiveness of some craft skills, because doing craft isn't always particularly exciting. Some of it is quite repetitive, but actually we then hone and perfect.

Alison Hardy: 5:17

So I would say that when we're taught children a practical skill, a procedural piece of knowledge about what to do with a piece of material. We need to give them space and time to practice it, to evaluate what they're doing, to reflect on it, to make it better, to get better. This is the skills that we are teaching that relate to craft, I think that we are teaching that relate to craft, I think, and that does then give them an appreciation of the work that goes into handmade objects, crafted objects, so that they do have that appreciation, in terms of the cultural aspect, of people who have got that high level of skill. And it's also giving them an insight into if they don't become a craftsperson, about the therapeutic nature of making things and using their hands and that it doesn't have to be perfect, but actually that having space and time to practice which they don't have in a design and technology lesson to do is important and is valuable because it contributes to them as the whole person. So there's a number of different layers there again to explore. There's this aspect about giving them an insight into what it's like, it's giving them an opportunity to practice and reflect on the development of their own skills and it starts to give them a little insight into the therapeutic aspect of doing hands-on and that kind of to use a very um, current word mindfulness. I'm not claiming that's what I'm talking about, I'm just using that as an example. So I think when we're so, those are kind of some of the aspects around the benefits of craft. It's's learning, it's reflection, it's getting better and it's an insight and it's an opportunity.

Alison Hardy: 7:12

But we do have challenges around that, as I've just intimated that there are time constraints in schools around it. So I think, again, teachers need to be aware in schools around it. So I think, again, teachers need to be aware when you're planning, you know, units of work, planning for progression and planning pupils' developments in that procedural knowledge that comes with hands-on making, being aware of how much, how often, revisiting previously taught and learned skills so they can develop them because of the time constraints, so do they need to know it all? And actually are there some more conceptual ways of thinking about it that you as teachers can think about? That when they are cutting something, actually it's a wasting technique and there's accuracy that can be brought into all of that. And just while I'm thinking about that word accuracy, that used to be a word that we used to use an assessment, you know a high degree of accuracy and again, you know we don't have the time. We don't have that luxury time and children need to practice. And if we're saying that you know that, therefore, to be able to do it, to get a high grade, is that they're accurate and we haven't given them time, then we're saying that actually you can do it without practice. And then we know that's not true and actually we're saying to children then you can't get better with practice. You've either got it or you haven't, and and so I think we need to be really careful when assessing pupils skills, practical skills.

Alison Hardy: 8:45

There's a question whether we should even be assessing practical skills in design and technology. That's not part of the aims of the subject. So why are we assessing it? And if we haven't given them space and time to do that well, we're actually penalising them then, and we're also saying to them that you only get good marks at this if you are a natural, and that's wrong, and we know the evidence says that actually it's about children's mindset in their approach to these things, about developing new skills, new techniques, new knowledge, being able to do things better. It's their mindset, but we have to give them time and we don't have those luxuries in lessons. So it's again a teacher thinking about in their planning what's, what's the real piece of learning that's crucial to their development and design and technology.

Alison Hardy: 9:32

And then the other challenge obviously around around craft and making things in design and technology, is about resources. It's about money, um. So you know, I kind of I look back at some of the many lessons I've observed and and lessons that I've taught when we've asked children to make things out of, for example, acrylic. Now, children love working with acrylic in many ways because it comes in all those gorgeous colors and it's got different thicknesses and you can heat it and bend it. You can also burn it, um, if you overheat it. It's not a hugely forgiving material but to get a high quality product it has to be, you know, cracky, cross filing and draw filing and wet and dry paper to death almost, um, that's not true, but it's a high level of skill.

Alison Hardy: 10:21

And so if we're thinking about children developing their practical skills and we're having to give them time, if we give them a piece of acrylic and we want them to produce a finished product and they've never used acrylic before, acrylic, acrylic is not a forgiving material. It's brittle, um it. It blisters. When it's overheated, um, you can't. You know three, five, six mil acrylic, you can't put a really tight, acute angle on it, no matter how good your former is. So are we setting children up to fail when we give them projects where they're using certain materials? So so again, I think we have to think about what are we wanting the children to learn when they're having this hands on experience with this material? And so I think that then is the way we can get around the fact of limited resources. If you start thinking about what are they learning? What's the purpose of this? And then that does bring into it.

Alison Hardy: 11:20

I think the final aspect that I want to just talk about is that, through doing craft, hands-on, practical making, one of the things that we can really promote in this subject is sustainability and environmental awareness. You know, what are the ethics of us? Even producing this project, this product, using this material? We can discuss with children, you know, get them engaged, and that's that critical appreciation of, you know, technological developments in the made world. Let's have those conversations, should we? Should we even be making this product? But then, on the other level, there is the other aspect that we're teaching by teaching them practical skills, is that appreciation of waste and life cycle and what can we do to repair. And so, being explicit with children is that you're learning this skill. You're not going to have a huge amount of time to practice, but I'm you know you're going to do the basics, you're going to have a couple of opportunities to practice so that actually you can repair things and prolong the life cycle, the the life of a product.

Alison Hardy: 12:26

Um, belinda von mengesen wrote about this and did a paper on this back in 2013 at the new zealand pack conference, and I'll email you a link to that as well. Um, and so I think there's that. That's another aspect. You know, nikki and I talked about this, about promoting sustainability and environmental awareness. Um, with children to teach them about responsible material use. Um, you know, I've been watching sewing bee in in england at the moment, you know, and I was watching with a friend and we were like and she's she's not a design and technology person, she's a friend from a completely different sphere of life and she just said there's nobody to think about how they're wasting materials and the placement of the pattern pieces and it's all of that, isn't it? It's just that subtle little bit of teaching. But then you know there is upcycling and creating products with minimal environmental impact, thinking about as the life cycle. So I think those are things that we can teach children through hands-on making and exploring the benefits of craft in education. So I hope that's been useful.

Alison Hardy: 13:36

Might have been a bit provocative in places. Yeah, I am making a claim quite clearly that we're not teaching children craft skills. We are teaching them about and giving them an opportunity to experience in a very non-expert way. I can't think what the opposite to expert is. At the moment my mind's gone blank. But anyway, hopefully you found that interesting. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts'd be interested to hear about, if you're a dnt teacher, how you integrate craft and practical skills into your lessons. If you've listened to me before, you'll know that I'm quite uh, vocal about my language. You know the use of the theory lesson um in design and technology technology. So how do we break down that idea of a theory lesson and think about using hands-on making regarding craft in design and technology? That's helping meet the aims of the subject and developed pupils expertise in design and technology. As ever, thanks for listening.