Back to Basics: Middle School Flex Block Offers Practical Skills

Before we had apps for every task, people knew how to build, repair, and create with their hands. At the Middle School, that spirit is making a comeback. One of the options offered to students during Thursday flex block is a “Makers” session — a chance to work with their hands and find balance in a world increasingly reliant on AI and technology.

Here, students are learning practical skills once considered essential — whittling and carving cedar and other wood, stitching and mending with fabric and leather, weaving with natural materials like leaves and bark, and later this year, working with metals and mixed materials. The focus isn’t on rejecting modern tools like computers, laser cutters, or 3D printers, but on maintaining balance — valuing both technological innovation and the timeless satisfaction of making something real and purposeful.

During a recent session in the library, Middle School Math and Science teacher Zyoji Jackson guided students through the careful art of whittling cedar. Students first practised with potato peelers to master safe technique before graduating to Scouts Canada pocket knives — a milestone handled with care and respect. Around a blue tarp scattered with shavings, students shaped chopsticks, tools, and simple carvings. Nearby, others explored sashiko stitching, a traditional Japanese form of visible mending once used to reinforce and decorate fabric.

For Jackson, teaching how to use tools, sew, or repair something isn’t just about craftsmanship — it’s about independence. He hopes that by developing these skills, students learn to rely less on technology and more on their own resourcefulness.

Upstairs, Middle School Humanities, Communication and Media Design teacher Amy Stark led another group of students through lessons in embroidery, crochet, and needle felting. The room buzzed quietly with conversation and focus as students threaded needles and experimented with colour and pattern.

“It’s really about slowing down,” Stark said. “Students today live in such a fast-paced, digital world. Embroidery and needlework give them a chance to focus, to use their hands, and to see something tangible take shape from their effort.”

Across both classes and others like them, the goal is simple: to reconnect learning with the physical world. Inspired by the First Peoples Principles of Learning, the “Makers” approach emphasizes learning through experience, relationships, and reflection — taking time, being patient, and connecting with place and community. For Jackson, it also means modelling openness and curiosity, showing students that expertise matters less than the willingness to learn alongside them, and that these simple, hands-on skills can build the self-reliance and resourcefulness they will carry throughout their lives.