It doesn't help to call a professor if your washing machine is leaking

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to create a holistic understanding of society’s need for developing and safeguarding children’s knowledge and skills regarding handicrafts. An investigation of a fourth grade class shows that over half of the students had not learned to tie their shoes. The Norwegian educational guidelines from 2006 divide each course into five basic skills to be developed. The five skills are reading, writing, arithmetic, verbal expression and use of digital tools. Arts and handicrafts is a practical-aesthetical discipline that makes use of several tools to help develop students’ basic skills. As arts and handicrafts teachers at the college level, we have seen an increasing trend towards the hand’s fine motor skills being underdeveloped in favour of the computer keyboard. The study concludes that children have underdeveloped fine motor skills in handicraft techniques and are not getting enough training in this area; therefore, the hand’s formative abilities appear to be forgotten.