Building to Teach

I get asked these questions a lot. Everyday I go to work and try to figure out  better answers. When somebody calls me for advice, they usually want to know how to get started building boats with kids. Being a former history major, I answer these questions with a question, “Why does your community need a boat building program?” A lot of times this brings them up short. They’ve been thinking about their potential work as being a boat building project rather than a community program. This kind of thinking can lead to the fatal mistake of building a boat and then not knowing what to do with it. I have a checklist for starting such a program. (See below)  The first points are to identify your community’s needs, forge partnerships and establish goals for the project. Essentially, start a program because it’s needed and try to address specific problems.

Check List for Starting a Program

• Identify the group you want to serve and its needs
• Find your best partners (Co instructors, initial funders/ sponsors, leaders of the selected group)
• Establish goals for the project
• Decide what type of environment best serves your goals (part of school system or not, apprenticeship, entrepreneurial, camp, community center, etc…)
• Select a boat that meets your goals
• Take care of the boring stuff (Insurance, materials, tools, space, etc…)
• Build the boat
• Get Press coverage for building and launch
• Teach the young people how to use the boat they built
• Celebrate the accomplishment with all parties involved. Do it in such a way that emphasizes the accomplished goals. This reenforces what the young people have done and learned.