Crafts and learning – as seen through Embodied cognition

Abstract

This article aims to provide insight in the research area of embodied cognition and shows how it can emphasize how we understand the skills taught in sloyd education and thus create new arguments for the didactic relevance of sloyd. This is relevant since the practical competence in the Danish public school has diminished over the past 20 years, on behalf of an increasingly theoretical public school. We need strong scientific arguments for the maintenance and further development of craft as a school subject. The article is a theoretical contribution without practitioner empirical parts, and the method used is a review of embodied cognition research, put in perspective to the author´s experience with sloyd education and general woodworking. As such, it should be read as an essay. Embodied cognition differs from traditional brain research, in the understanding that the brain is plastic: cognition is shaped by the brain being embodied in our body, embedded in our surroundings, extended through tools, and enactive through the necessity of human movement. The fundamental structures of wood and tools are highly functionally coded. Therefore, techniques and working methods in sloyd are taught, learned, and stored through repetitive practice and training, corresponding to the design of the tools and materials. At the same time, the way our brain governs our actions with the tools, is highly dependent on the surroundings in which we learn. The background and prerequisites for embodied cognition as a research field are pointed out, explaining why the neurological hierarchy of amodal thinking demands that tools and techniques in sloyd must be gradually introduced and learned, so the pupils can use them in the best conceivable way in a free, creative design processes. Simultaneously, our modal perceptual impulses in the neural network are inextricably connected to our body’s earlier experiences. This perspective review shows that hierarchy of amodal and modal learning processes in sloyd is extremely dependent one another. Therefore, the teacher must take into consideration that every time we introduce a tool or technique to a student or pupil, we consider, and take notice of, the impact of the corporeal learning environment. Further research in the field of sloyd, as seen through embodied cognition, can contribute to understand the importance and necessity of a thorough and precise introduction of tools and materials to pupils in the public school.

Keywords: Sloyd, Embodied Cognition, Craft and Design, Brain plasticity, Practical Competence.