Job opportunity and hope for advice...

[michaelknauf]

At the end of this post is a help wanted ad for a summer camp, I'd love it if one of you is interested and qualified to teach woodworking or woodturning to children, and is available in the summers. If so, by all means contact me and apply for the position, but I have a bigger question: Where are the qualified enthusiastic woodworking teachers? I've placed adds, I've posted in forums, I've contacted the colleges that offer degree programs, none of it has even so much as gotten me an application.

We're an amazing place to work, incredible things happen everyday, and many of my highly qualified staff return, year after year; some for 20+ years, and some re-arrange their "real" lives to make coming to camp possible. I can find musicians, athletes, theater professionals, magicians, and artists in every field but woodworking... is there somewhere else I should look?

To keep this post on topic to your forum, we don't currently do woodturning, but I'd like to add it to the program... I don't have a problem with budgeting for the tools, but I need someone who can set up and run a program.

Any advice or leads will be greatly appreciated.

Add follows:

The French Woods Festival of the Performing Arts, one of Americas top summer camps, located in the Catskill mountains of upstate NY is looking for a Woodworking department head and woodworking instructors.

The position is a live at camp position with room and board supplied, plus salary. Families may be accommodated.

Our woodworking department is part of a large fine art program, where children from 7-17 come to learn about any aspect of woodworking you would be most excited to teach. You would organize projects, materials, tools and program, teach classes and develop staff for the program.

Our program is based on individual choice, so you will only work with children who choose to pursue woodworking. The kids are creative, enthusiastic and eager to learn.

For more information see www.frenchwoods.com, call 1-800-634-1703 e-mail admin@frenchwoods.com

 

[Jred]

You might try to contact these folks. they are a very active woodworking club in the Albany area with an offshoot that meets near Kingston. There just might be an interested party amongst them. Follow the link for info about the club.

http://www.nwawoodworkingshow.org/

or

www.woodworker.org

 

[woodwish]

Opportunity sounds interesting, but I couldn't make it work into my summer at this point. But where did all the woodworking teachers go? I graduated 31 years ago with a degree in Industrial Arts Education, my wife graduated a year later with same degree. Our goal was to teach "wood shop" or a related course for our whole careers. She taught abut 15 years of it in middle school before they replaced the "shop" with a high-tech lab for Technology Education, and after 10 more years she nows teach math. There are no woodworking classes in middle schools around here.

I taught high school woodworking classes for about 16 years, and they closed that shop also. Today I teach video productions. There are a handful of woodworking classes left in the country, but that are definitely on borrowed time. So for the most part any woodworking teachers you find today are retired, or doing something else for a living. Good luck with your search.