The dimension of care in American woodshop class and wood play in schools

AbstractThis article posits that within American woodworking and wood play school curriculum—across time periods and age ranges—there is a hidden-in-plain-site dimension of care toward non-human things, like tools and wood. Analyzing American teacher guidebooks, curriculum descriptions, educational research journals, technical education magazines, newsletters, school textbooks, and other sources, this study describes how the dimension of care is revealed, despite not being named as an explicit educational purpose. An ethics of care is theorized in this study as quotidian habits of maintenance and reverence toward non-human things. Emphasizing this style of care provides a new way of seeing American wood shop class, and related lessons, away from their vocational backdrop, and provides current educators with inspiration on how woodworking and wood play could be integrated into curriculum concerned with promoting a less anthropocentric ethics in the classroom.Keywords: Careindustrial educationvocational educationwoodworkingethics Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 The traditional shop class style of woodworking arrived in United States’ public schools in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to fill the “middle-level-skill vacuum” (p. 47), and “society demanded it be filled, and by the schools” (Venn, Citation1964, p. 47). Woodworking and wood play shows up in many others ways before and after that, but the American woodshop imaginary is dominated by this association between carpentry and vocational education, as so many experienced woodshop class because of this.2 Because I use photographs in the public domain, the images here are largely only from the early 20th century.Additional informationNotes on contributorsElliott KueckerElliott Kuecker is a Teaching Assistant Professor in the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He teaches archival research, archival processing, and more. Some of his work can be found in the Journal of Childhood Studies, Qualitative Inquiry, International Review of Qualitative Research, Reconceptualizing Educational Research Methodology, and other venues.