An Ethic of Excellence: Building a Culture of Craftsmanship with Students

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. An ethic of excellence : building a culture of craftsmanship with students / Ron Berger. p. cm.time classroom teacher in a public school. In order to make ends meet for my family, I've worked during the summers, vacations, and sometimes weekends, as a carpenter. In the classroom or on the building site my passion is the same: If you're going to do something , I believe, you should do it well. You should sweat over it and make sure it's strong and accurate and beautiful and you should be proud of it. In carpentry there is no higher compliment builders give to each other than this: That guy is a craftsman. This one word says it all. It connotes someone who has integrity and knowledge, who is dedicated to his work and who is proud of what he does and who he is. Someone who thinks carefully and does things well. I want a classroom full of craftsmen. I want students whose work is strong and accurate and beautiful. Students who are proud of what they do, proud of how they respect both themselves and others. When building a complex roof frame, some carpenters are adept at trigonometry and use calculators to figure rafter angles. Others never paid attention during high-school math and rely on a tape measure, spatial intelligence, and an experienced eye. In the end, as long as time and budget are reasonable, these differences don't matter. What matters is clear: a well-built house. In my classroom I have students who come from homes full of books and students whose families own almost no books at all. I  Ethic of Excellence pgs. 6/24/03 2:02 PM Page 1 have students for whom reading, writing, and math come easily and students whose brains can't follow a line of text without reversing words and letters, students who can't line up numbers correctly on a page. I have students whose lives are generally easy and students with physical disabilities, and health or family problems that make life a struggle. I want them all to be craftsmen. Some may take a little longer to produce things, …