By Hugh Nolde

Collegiate’s woodworking room. Photo credit: Hugh Nolde.

Whirring sounds of power tools and sawdust fill the air in Hershey 145 as creativity flows. Collegiate’s Middle School woodworking class provides 8th Graders with the experience of learning how to operate both hand and power tools, creating professional-looking projects. The class gives students a break from their work-filled days, substituting chisels for pencils and sand paper for notebook paper.

Leading these woodworking classes is Collegiate’s Brent Miller (‘98). Miller has taught history and coached in the Upper School for a number of years. However, he shifted his schedule last year as he took over the role of woodworking teacher, on top of teaching his history courses. After the previous woodworking teacher, Steve Hart, retired, Miller was asked to step into the role, considering his prior woodworking experience in his youth and at Camp Rivers Bend. 

Students in the class work through a series of different projects throughout the course. For their first project, Miller gave each student 15 pieces of wood and tasked them with creating a final product without cutting the pieces. Through this process, students mastered the skill of gluing, a fundamental skill essential to woodworking. Learning what shapes, surfaces, and wood types glue together well will help students in the rest of their semester. This sort of project encourages the students to make a creation completely out of their own imagination and design. While Miller assists them when necessary, the majority of the project is done by the students, allowing them to reflect their individual creativity in their work. The stimulation of creativity and focus on fundamental woodworking skills that this project provides makes it a perfect way to begin the semester-long class.

On a recent Tuesday, I visited the class and observed the students working on cutting boards, their current project. The room was filled with differing designs. Some had intricate wood patterns, some had features like handles, some had beveled edges, and others were shaped like the Vineyard Vines whale logo. In this project, Miller required students to use more than one species of wood, cutting the different types of wood and using their glueing skills from the first project to assemble them. The students each seemed to be in different stages of their projects. While some students were still cutting and glueing their boards, others were sanding their assembled boards. Some students had even finished waxing and oiling their boards, adding the finishing touches. 

After completing their cutting board projects, the students will move onto a new project: making kitchen utensils. This project will require a higher attention to detail, as the students will work on smaller and more meticulous objects. Miller cuts out blanks for the students to work down to their completed utensil. Through this process students learn how to carve and shape wood using tools such as rasps, chisels, files, and palm tools. After their spoons and forks are completed, the students will begin their final project of the year. Within reason, anything that they can imagine, they can create. Miller said, “I try to guide them and say, ‘Okay, what you have learned so far in this course? Try to incorporate some of that.’ And some of them want to stretch a little bit beyond that. And that’s great. I really want them to try that.” In the past, students have made containers, household objects, decorations, and other items.

One aspect of the class that stood out to me in my time observing was the students’ independence in their work. Miller has properly taught them how to operate numerous hand and power tools, such as rasps, sanding blocks, planers, orbital sanders, and drills. Their ability to use these tools allows them to form their project in nearly every stage. A few tools are reserved only for Miller’s use, for safety purposes. However, Miller is sure to include the students in this process, allowing them to observe the operation of such tools. These are tools that students will learn to operate if they take Miller’s Upper School Woodworking class.

Miller’s teaching style emphasizes the importance of independence and creativity. Rather than giving them hyper-specific instructions, he leaves his projects rather open-ended, encouraging his students to make whatever they desire within his guidelines. “Woodworking is never something where you perfect it the first time around.” said Miller. He does not expect mastery with students’ projects in this class. Rather, he hopes to see students learning the fundamentals of woodworking and expressing their creativity. Miller said, “In both the Middle School and the Upper School classes, you have students who have not had woodworking before. So, you start with very specific instructions so that everyone’s on the same plane, as far as understanding what is expected.” Following this, Miller analyzes the students’ abilities and provides more specific instruction to some students when needed but also allows other students to stretch their skills independently.

When observing the class, I sat down next to a hardworking 8th Grader Sam B. (‘31). Sam was adding the finishing touches on his cutting board and sealing it with a coat of mineral oil. Sam said his favorite part of the class was, “being able to talk to my friends while I work.” While they work, they talk about, “after-school sports, Halloween, and really whatever else is on our minds.”

There seems to be an interesting dynamic difference between the 14 students in the class. Some are very focused on their work, gracefully operating their tools with calculated movements. Others attack their pieces of wood vigorously, as though the wooden planks had just beaten them in a competitive game of recess football. “Bro, don’t rub it on my sweatshirt!” exclaimed one student as another wiped their mineral oil-covered hands across his back. Taking a slightly less violent approach was Nathan S. (‘31) who has combined woodworking with Middle School music teacher Connie Tuttle’s music class, turning a few pieces of wood, a clamp, and the table into a professional drum set. Shep N. (‘31) took the class as an opportunity to experiment with new fashion, as he sported a plastic bowl as a sort of hat. 

Despite their occasional lack of focus, the young woodworkers are still very dedicated to their projects and end up producing very impressive final products. Through this class, they are able to learn new skills and create masterful projects, while also taking time away from their more academic classes to socialize and work with their hands. It seemed as though every kid was thoroughly enjoying their time in class, which can be accredited to Miller’s easy-going personality and independence-oriented teaching style. 

Featured image credit: Dreamwood Carpentry via facebook.