03 Jun What is Sloyd? And Why is it a Valuable Tool in Home Education?

Any homeschooler who follows the Charlotte Mason philosophy will recognize the word sloyd. Miss Mason incorporated several forms of sloyd throughout her broad curriculum. But, I’ll be honest, even after homeschooling for several years, I still found myself asking “What is sloyd – and why is it a valuable tool in home education?”

A deeper dive was necessary to clear this up for me once and for all. I knew that sloyd was a system of education focused on manual training in certain types of handicraft, using such things as paper, cardboard, wood, and metals. But what was the difference between paper sloyd and origami, for example. Or wood-working and carpentry?

What is Sloyd?

The word “sloyd” comes from the Swedish noun “slöjd,” which means dexterity, manual skill, or artistic skill. Some of these skills are:

• Paper folding
• Cardboard work
• Wood work, such as carpentry, whittling, carving, turnery
• Work with metal, such as brass, iron, and wire
• Work with leather
• Other occupations such as brush-making, straw-plaiting, basket-making, and book-binding

A Short History of Sloyd

The sloyd movement began in the late 1800 in Sweden. Originally it was more of an economic movement, with the purpose of teaching children to love a home industry from which they could make their living. Trade schools began to open in the 1870s. These schools taught such things as wood carving, turnery, saddlery, weaving, spinning, knitting, sewing and cookery. Then, fairly quickly, sloyd was introduced into elementary schools and the focus of it changed from economic to educational.

Why is Sloyd a Valuable Tool in Home Education?

The teaching of sloyd can have beautiful and useful results. My children have made beautifully bound leather journals, which they gave to their father for Christmas. We’ve also made adorable crocheted baby clothes which we gave away as gifts. But these products were not ever the purpose of the exercise.

As described by Otto Salomon in The Theory of Educational Sloyd, the real purpose of sloyd – and what makes it so valuable in home education – is:

“It gives a taste of rough labor as distinguished from clerky accomplishments; it cultivates manual dexterity, self-reliance, accuracy, carefulness, patience, perseverance, and especially does it train the faculty of attention and develop the powers of concentration.”

Sloyd also serves to develop the powers of observation, it helps to train the imagination, and it helps develop language. It instills the habits of best effort, as the children learn to be exact in their work, and it and encourages cleanliness, as the student learns to work in a neat environment and clean up after themselves. .As they progress, children will learn independence, as well as a respect for honest and hard work. As it turns out, the qualities and skills developed while learning sloyd have a great influence on many of the other subjects in school..

How to Teach Sloyd in Your Homeschool

As a homeschool mom, I initially found the idea of teaching sloyd to be somewhat overwhelming. After all, I am not a skilled artisan or tradesperson! In fact, I imagine most of us have never even thought of doing many of the skills involved in sloyd. The good news, however, is that sloyd is taught with a well-organized system. This makes it much easier for us all to follow. So, instead of automatically saying “I can’t” (or even thinking it), I decided to learn along with my children. As parents, our enthusiasm and involvement will have a great influence on our children.

Here are some elements of the system that I found to be of help:

• As with most systems, you should start with the most simple and easy and progress to more and more difficult and complex. Since we know that paper sloyd is the most simple, we started with it. I recommend getting an instruction book – we used Paper Sloyd: A Handbook for Primary Grades, which includes written instructions and diagrams.

• Initially, younger students especially, may find the diagrams confusing. Have them create using your model first, and use your judgement as to when to introduce the diagrams. This does mean that this subject may require some preparation on the teacher’s part in making models for the students to imitate.
• Start with materials, tools and instruments that the child is already familiar with and advance as needed. Paper sloyd requires little more than a ruler, and maybe scissors, a compass, a hole punch, and some paper.
• Keep your children interested by introducing a variety of tools, exercises, and models.
• Be prepared to demonstrate the use of the tools, but do not use them on your student’s models. Encourage independence, and demonstrate the skills, using your model and allow the student to imitate you.
• This subject must be personalized to the child, based on their abilities, talents, and understanding.
• Insist on accuracy and exactness, as appropriate, from your students. Laying a good foundation in this habit is so important, as it will be very difficult going backwards to fix.
• Children will improve as long as they are interested. Adjust their work so that you never allow boredom. Advance to the next model before their work begins to suffer.
• If your child has failed in the creation of a certain model 2-3 times, move on to the next model in order to avoid frustration. Allow them to go back to it later, if they choose.
• Sloyd is a valuable tool in home education, and will generally take more time than the more academic subjects. There will be some set up and clean up time required, and I have found that once the children get going, they don’t want to stop. So we schedule sloyd in the afternoons.

Find the Joy

Sloyd is an opportunity for children to express their creativity though the development of a variety of skills – many of which they will grow to love and appreciate. Even now, I have watched my daughter set her alarm clock so that she could get up early on the weekend and get in a little extra sewing time. I’ve caught my son staying up far after midnight because he was unable to put down a crochet project. Developing this passion is just as important as developing the skills..

Children will appreciate and find joy in their work when they see value in it. It is very important that they believe that their efforts are being put towards something that is useful. It may be as simple as creating an envelope to mail a letter in, or a hat to keep them warm on a winter’s day. Understanding it’s usefulness will maintain their interest and will also serve to drive the habit of best effort.

Children will also maintain interest when they know that what they create is theirs. I will never forget Christmas, several years ago. My daughter had been asking for a certain doll – you know the kind that talks and eats and poops and pees… She was so excited when she opened it on Christmas Day. She fed it and changed it’s diaper over and over again for about 2 days. Then she never touched it again. She abandoned that beautiful doll for something that she had made herself – a doll made from a discarded face cloth bunched together with some yarn glued on it’s head. That was about 7 years ago. She still has the face cloth doll – the yarn hair has been replaced a few times. I think the face cloth itself has been replaced a couple of times – but she still loves that thing.

My point?

Children are going to love what they make. So let them create. And let them have ownership of their creations. They will take pride in their work, and as they grow older, I know they will continue to find joy in hard work and beautiful creations..

If you find yourself still wondering “What is sloyd – and why is it a valuable tool in home education?” it may be time to dig a little deeper. It may be time to learn why Charlotte Mason was such an advocate of this subject. You may find that it’s benefits are worthy of your efforts!

Since This Article…

By the way – since writing this article, we’ve become much more dedicated to sloyd. We’ve even started a YouTube channel, called Happy Handicrafts, which shows our different sloyd projects. We are beginning by working through the book Paper Sloyd for Primary Grades by Ednah Anne Rich. The videos of our projects will also be here on our blog, starting with How to Create a Paper Sloyd Envelope.

We have designed our videos so that a busy homeschooling mom can set her students up with a video, and we’ll take it from there! We’d love to have you join us!

References:

• The Slöjd in the Service of the School by Otto Aron Salomon
• The Theory of Educational Sloyd: The Only Authorised Edition of Lectures of Otto Salomon by Otto Aron Salomon
• The Teacher’s Hand-book of Slöjd: As Practised and Taught at Nääs ; Containing Explanations and Details of Each Exercise by Otto Aron Salomon
• Sloyd: Or, Educational Manual Training with Paper, Cardboard, Wood, and Iron for Primary, Grammar, and High Schools by Everett Schwartz
• The Sloyd System of Wood Working: With a Brief Description of the Eva Rodhe Model Series and an Historical Sketch of the Growth of the Manual Training Idea by Benjamin B. Hoffman and Otto Aron Salomon
• Paper Sloyd: A Handbook for Primary Grades by Ednah Anne Rich