North House Folk School

This past month has been a wonderful whirlwind of exploring new crafts and learning about what it means to be an effective teacher. 

A few weeks ago I officially took my first class at North House, learning to turn bowls on the spring pole lathe! While it was great fun, I was genuinely surprised at how physically demanding the class was—I was sore for about a week! After two days of focusing hard on trying to keep track of my body parts, I finally saw the satisfying curly ribbons of wet birch rhythmically stream off the tool. I'll never look at a bowl the same.

Although I don’t envision pivoting from basket making to pole lathe turning, my main objective in taking the class was to spend time with the teachers, Jarrod Dahl and Derrick Brabender, craftspeople who are well known in our community for chasing—if not perfection—a very high level. They've also done a lot to spread the gospel of beautiful handmade objects. I wanted to see their approach to teaching a difficult skill. 

What drew me to the Artisan Development Program (ADP) is the emphasis the program puts on equipping us to be teachers. North House, and the donors who support our program, are investing in the future of handcraft—a future which is wholly dependent on excellent instructors who can inspire, captivate, and effectively transmit technical knowledge. North House has found many amazing instructors that fill the pages of the course catalog. They also help make some of them in-house, via ADP. 

A week after turning birch bowls, I found myself in another class, ‘tattooing wooden Norwegian-inspired calendar sticks,’ or in craft jargon, ‘kolrosing a primstav.’ This class was taught by the spectacular Liesl Chatman, the ADP cohort’s pedagogical instructor and coach. 

Kolrosing by Lisel Chatman

Divided into two parts bookending the kolrosing class, the ADP’ers had a magical five-day seminar entitled ‘The Craft of Teaching: Teaching as Craft’ with Liesl. In this seminar, we went on an inspiring, challenging, and shenanigan-filled learning journey, refined by Liesl's decades of experience working with educators and educational institutions. We workshopped how to communicate ideas effectively, talked pedagogical research, passed around a purple felted pig named Hen Wen, practiced teaching, and offered feedback to each other. It was a revolving door of challenging, silly, rigorous, and ‘ah-ha’ moments.

The seminar was perfectly paired with having the opportunity to take Liesl's three-day kolrosing class and to see her practice the techniques we spent days discussing. As with any form of mastery, when the master does it, it appears effortless. Jarrod and Derrick don't seem belabored when they turn beautiful bowls. And when Liesl teaches, it's easy to say to yourself, “Well geez, Liesl sure is a naturally good teacher.” It seems so deceptively easy. But being an excellent instructor is just like any other craft—marked by diligent study, practice, thoughtfulness, and commitment. She, like any good teacher, has put in many hours of work behind the scenes. 

At the end of each day of Liesl's classes, she has students reflect on a few questions and then share their thoughts to consolidate the day’s learning:

• What did you learn? 
• How did you learn it? 
• What's still challenging or confusing? 
• What are the implications of what you've learned? 
• What are the next steps for you going forward? 
   

The final part of the exercise is to give a name to the day. On the final day of our five-day seminar, she asked us to do this exercise not just for that day, but for the entirety of the intensive. The name I gave to the week was: The Extraordinarily Difficult Task of Effortless Teaching. I was reflecting on how, up until that week, I never imagined how much careful thought and planning a diligent teacher puts into preparing for a class. My reference point was moved miles. It's humbling. 

Going forward, I feel more motivated than ever to take steady, sure steps toward becoming a really good basket teacher. It's a worthy life endeavor—one I don’t believe has a finish line, but is a neverending opportunity for growth and refinement.