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Nailed
Down Tight
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Place schoolkids hammer 'em home
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“When
you run out of choices, you’ve failed. So, I try
to find ways of doing things that will work for any
kid in any situation. Then you’ve got some sort
of universal truth.” —John Vik, volunteer
carpentry teacher
At First Place School, it’s time
for after-school activities. In minutes, the small play
therapy room is transformed into a carpentry studio.
Sturdy planks of wood are placed on the floor with thick
nailing blocks on top of them. Kids dash in, laughing
and breathless. Hammers and nails of all sorts, as well
as a staggering variety of tools for removing nails,
are arrayed within convenient reach. Goggles are lowered.
And “nailing practice” begins. The sound
is deafening.
“I’ve had a lot of assistants over the years,”
John Vik, the volunteer carpentry club coach, yells
in my direction, “but usually the noise drives
them away.” Vik, who is now in his seventh year
of volunteering at the K-5 school for kids who are homeless
or at risk of homelessness, smiles serenely. He looks
as if nothing is likely to drive him away.
Joyce Scoggins, the volunteer coordinator at the school,
explains that the afterschool activities are organized
in six-week cycles. This is the third week of the current
cycle. In carpentry club, the students are about to
begin constructing the little wooden boxes that will
be the product of their efforts.
The four students in the club this time round are Sami
(age 9), and Christian, Daniel and Esther (all 10).
Esther literally sings out her thoughts as she hammers
nails into her practice block: “This is a good
way to take my anger out from this afternoon.”
Bang!
Christian hammers two-fisted.
“I saw a spark,” Sami announces.
Daniel is quieter, at least where talking is concerned,
concentrating intently on driving his nails.
Vik spends some time reminding the students about the
basics of nailing:
“If you’re looking at me or your neighbor,
you’re probably going to get your thumb,”
he warns.
“Make sure the nail’s right where you want
it, and THEN drive it home.”
“Practice makes perfect,” Esther interjects
happily, “or a little bit better!”
Sami cries out that she has indeed struck her thumb.
“Let me see,” says Vik. “Is there
blood? Nah, that’s not so bad.” Sami seems
satisfied and returns to her work.
After nailing practice and a brief “nailing contest”
that follows it, Vik dumps a pile of pre-cut cedar pieces
in front of each child. These are the components of
their boxes-to-be.
“Last week,” he explains for my benefit,
“we did a dry run on the boxes so we know how
all the pieces fit together. This week we’re going
to start building them.” Then, with an impish
smile, he indicates how the name of each student is
written in pencil on the base of his or her box.
“Do you know why I do that? In case I forget your
name, I can just look on your box.” The kids groan
in response.
As he prepares to demonstrate how to drive the nails
into the box components, Vik tells the students that
they will have some extra time to work today because
he doesn’t have to go over to the university.
“He’s a crazy professor!” Daniel exclaims
affectionately.
In fact, Vik, who worked as a carpenter for 19 years,
is now a full-time “building envelope technologist”
during the day and an architecture student in the evenings.
Once a week he leaves work early, races over to First
Place, coaches the carpentry club, and then races to
the UW, sliding into his seat at the very last second.
“The instructor usually gives me a look,”
he shrugs, “but it works out.”
The students begin to work on their boxes and Vik circulates,
checking on each one’s progress. Sometimes he
simply suggests a possible way of solving a problem
and moves on to the next child. Sometimes, he fixes
the problem himself and tells the student to proceed
afresh.
Vik later explains his teaching philosophy. He tells
me he’s trying to provide kids with a lot of different
problem-solving options (which is evidenced by the array
of tools spread across the floor).
“I let them make mistakes, and I let them fix
their mistakes. But when you run out of choices, you’ve
failed. So, I try to find ways of doing things that
will work for any kid in any situation. Then you’ve
got some sort of universal truth.”
During the class, I watch Sami, the youngest student,
get frustrated with her work repeatedly. Vik is watching
her too.
“Every class I learn more,” he tells me,
as he straightens out one of her nails. “You have
to step in at the right moment, the moment between challenge
and too much frustration.”
I ask the children what they are going to do with their
boxes when they’re finished. Christian volunteers
that he is going to give his to his Mom.
Scoggins tells me how proud the students always are
when they can present their boxes to a parent or a sibling.
Once, when one of Vik’s students finished his
box early, Vik started him on a more advanced project.
“In the end, he made a birdhouse and we hung it
outside the school. Everyone was so excited,”
Scoggins remembers.
Alternating with carpentry club, Vik offers a “polyhedron
club” in which students construct elaborate geometric
structures that can serve as mobile sculptures.
“That’s a quieter class,” Vik laughs.
Today at First Place, it’s time to clean up. Sami,
who has been frustrated and malingering for a good part
of the session, calls out that she just wants to drive
in three more nails.
She does. And they are perfect.
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Volunteer
John Vik makes a point while First Place students (clockwise
from top) Christian, Daniel, and Esther learn how to hit nails
at the homeless kids’ school’s Carpentry Club.
Photo by Mark Sullo.
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