The sixth-graders were working—loudly—with simple wooden boat models they’ve been building. The assignment: Hammer a small nail into the deck exactly one inch from the bow.
“We are a boatbuilding class, not a hammering class,” cautioned Katie Wilkins, who teaches talented and gifted students at Northumberland Middle School.
The students were learning that it takes more than a stack of lumber to build a wooden boat. It takes math, engineering, reading, critical thinking, team-building … and hammers.
The boat-building project is a collaboration among the Northern Neck Wooden Boat School, the Reedville Fishermen’s Museum and the Northumberland County school division. And it couldn’t be in a more appropriate place—on Virginia’s Northern Neck, where making a living and a life on the water extends back generations in some families.
But why should contemporary students learn traditional boatbuilding skills?
David Clark, co-founder of the Northern Neck Wooden Boat School, acknowledges that com...