26 Trips Out, 26 Trips In; 23 Trips Out…

Recently for the umpteenth time (25th? 30th?) over the past four decades I taught my Introduction to Historic Woodfinishing workshop, this time at Joshua Farnsworth’s Wood and Shop School near Charlottesville.  I have already related the transition from teaching at The Barn once my insurance underwriter yanked the plug on liability insurance for students, bringing the “school” component of The Barn on White Run to an end.  Joshua graciously invited me to teach at his place, for which I am very much appreciative.  I’m teaching a Parquetry workshop in a couple weeks, there are openings.

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The odd thing about teaching workshops at The Barn is that I still have personal liability insurance, the building and its contents are insured as before, but no insurance for students attending classes.  The underwriters would never say why that insurance was being canceled, but my agent thought it was because the nearest full-service hospital is almost 90 minutes away.  Oddly enough I can still host visitors for one-one-one learning experiences, and in fact I have one of those upcoming as soon as we can work out our scheduling hiccups.

One of the great benefits to hosting all the workshops in my own Barn classroom was that everything I needed was right there.   When I teach elsewhere I have to pack up everything for the course.  Everything.  All the supplies, tools, workpieces, everything.  I learned my lesson the first couple times I taught almost forty years ago and sent the students a detailed list of everything they would need.  Every class there was a student or two who arrived unprepared, saying “I didn’t think you meant that,” or “I decided to substitute this or that.”  In every instance the whole class was delayed repeatedly while I tried to come up with a reasonable substitute, but it never worked out to my satisfaction.

Now I just bring everything necessary for the full experience of my syllabus.  Yes, it takes me a week or longer to compile the pile, yes it takes a day to load my truck to overflowing, yes it takes me about four hours to get set up wherever I am teaching.  But it yields the learning experience I want to impart.

And the title of this post?  It took me 26 trips to move everything from my barn into the truck, then 26 trips from my truck up the stairs into Joshua’s shop.  Three days later I had only 23 trips from his shop to my truck as the students consumed the “missing” three tubs worth.

Stay tuned.