Welcome to woodworking, where "You start out basically with nothing, and before you know it you've got something."
By LOGAN NEILL
Published October 23, 2003
BROOKSVILLE - With meticulous strokes of his brush, Danny Burns applies the final coat of urethane lacquer to the smooth pine block on the workbench before him.
The 13-year-old's care in applying the finish is indicative of the effort he has been putting into the project since he began working on it.
Once assembled with the other pieces, Danny hopes to have a handsome CD rack that not only will look good in his bedroom, but also will reflect the earnest effort that went into its creation.
"The coolest thing about this class is that everything you do you do for yourself," said the Parrott Middle School eighth-grader. "You start out basically with nothing, and before you know it you've got something. It's a lot of fun, especially if you didn't think you could ever do something with your hands."
For the past nine years, Rick Homer has known such truth. He has seen literally hundreds of kids walk into his woodworking class without the slightest clue of how to hammer a nail or measure a board cut or operate a disc sander and leave with well-constructed works of pride.
Standing amid a symphony of whirring power tools, the 41-year-old wood shop teacher explained his simple secrets to success in his classroom.
"Any kid who learns the basic knowledge needed to work with wood can be creative," Homer said. "Here, they have all tools to do it, and with a little guidance they can become good craftsmen pretty quickly."
Homer is a third-generation carpenter who knows the joy of working with wood. His popular elective class typically attracts more than 200 students per semester. Many who go through the basic classes tend to stick around for more advanced levels. In addition, about one-third of Homer's students are also members of the Wood Wizards team, a business enterprise for advanced students that makes and sells items for profit.
Of course, paramount to having success in the wood shop is the need to learn the fundamentals. Homer makes sure that each student receives proper training before ever picking up a power tool. In his classroom, safety always comes first.
"I tell the kids that this isn't the place to be turning their brains off," Homer said. "A saw doesn't know whether it's cutting wood or fingers. It's their responsibility to keep themselves safe."
In his long tenure at the school, Homer has experienced only two injuries to students that required medical treatment. Safety is such a prime concern that even advanced students are periodically refreshed on proper procedures.
Beginning students are apt to spend weeks in the classroom studying things such as wood types and grades and learning the theory behind the art of woodworking. Once they become proficient, students are allowed to choose a personal project. Popular choices range from parquet chess boards to birdhouses to jewelry boxes. However, Homer said some students have built fairly complex things, including chairs, cupboards and tables.
"Once they decide, the responsibility is all theirs until it's finished," Homer said. In fact, he said, students are responsible for designing their own plans and must provide a materials list and an outline of how they intend to build it. Materials can be either new lumber purchased by the student or scrap lumber that has been donated to the school.
Eighth-grader Josh Lewis, an advanced student now in his fourth semester in Homer's program, has become quite enamored with the process of building things. He sees it as a wonderful opportunity to express himself.
"I've always watched my Dad and Granddad build things, but now I'm good enough at it that they're asking me for help," he said. "I'd much rather do this than play on a computer. That gets boring; this doesn't."
Although woodworking had primarily been an activity aimed at boys before he arrived at Parrott, Homer has sought to make it attractive to girls as well. Girls now make up about 30 percent of his classes.
"Probably the biggest attraction about woodworking is that kids get to put a lot of the things they've learned in other classes into practical use," said Homer. "A lot of those math formulas they learned to do on paper are the same ones used to measure lumber and figure square footage. They're always a bit amazed to see that stuff actually has a purpose in real life."
Three years ago, Homer decided that his students might like to see their woodworking skills put to other real-world situations. The idea behind Wood Wizards was to allow advanced students to make and sell small items, such as name plaques and small gift items. Though the program is not a huge moneymaker, Homer believes it has helped instill a sense of value to the diligence his students put into their work.
Not long ago, the program got another boost, through an arrangement with the Southwest Florida Water Management District, to produce permanent wood sign markers for its Weeki Wachee park complex. Over the next few weeks, Homer's students will work to create about two dozen engraved wooden directional signs that will be placed throughout the park.
In exchange for the students' labor, Swiftmud donated about $1,500 in new power tools and equipment that will become a permanent part of the program. But Homer said the real satisfaction will come with the students' knowing that their work has merit.
"They'll be able to go out there with family and friends and show them what they've done," he said. "And that's one of the great things about woodworking - at the end, there's always something to be proud of."
