by Professor Dr Jeffrey Yee
Professor and Deputy Dean,
Faculty of Business and Management, QIU
The world has seen an upsurge in artificial intelligence (A.I.) in all spheres of life. From virtual assistant technologies and chatbots (e.g., Alexa, Siri and Gemini) to generative A.I. (e.g., ChatGPT, Midjourney and DALL-E), its influence in our lives is set to expand and deepen. Few would contest the positive impact of advanced technology in our everyday lives, such as it is used in the medical, manufacturing and banking sectors.
However, the widescale adoption of advanced technology in teaching and learning is a more contentious one. The initial trend saw many jumping on the educational tech bandwagon. The oft quoted evidence, conducted by The Karolinska Institute, that digital tools hinder rather than help with learning, suggests jumping off the bandwagon instead. And this was what the Swedish government did. After an 8-year initiative to digitalise schools, they are instituting screens-free classrooms and reintroducing physical books. Finland, known for having the best public education system, have had some of their schools shunning advanced technology and reverting to physical books, and pen and paper!
Is there a middle ground? Where is the compromise? Fundamentally, how do we educate our children for a future we cannot yet foresee?
As an educator in a tertiary institution and novice hand tool woodworker, I was intrigued by James Arnold’s description about ‘craftsmanship’ in his 1968 book “The Shell Book of Country Crafts”. He compares the craftsman that relies on hand tools with the industrial craftsman that operates machines: “(a hand tool) craftsman, by nature of the work, produces in small quantity work of high quality, both in choice of materials and in the design and finish … (a)n industrial craftsman is actually not a craftsman in the strict sense, but a skilled operator, fully qualified to give expert supervision to machine processes, or production in quantity.”
Craftsmanship and technology are not two distinct ideas. Craftsmanship – the skill of making things – is synonymous with creativity, mastery and finesse. Technology, from the Greek word téchnē, refers to art and skill, and to the principles or methods employed in making something or attaining an objective.
Pivoting off what James Arnold wrote, the question that concerns us is whether our children will end up as merely skilled operators of technology as or will they be able to finds ways to apply themselves broadly to a range of work, technology-based or not?
I teach at the tertiary level. I also counsel teenagers entering tertiary education. I have talked to students, parents, educators and reflected on my own learning to woodwork using predominantly hand tools.
Here is my one big idea, what I think will best educate the next generation for the unforeseeable future. My version of the middle ground.
Opt for low tech during the initial learning phases of any skill.
The idea may seem counterintuitive. But I say this not despite but because of an impending tech-filled future.
Here are my justifications.
The hand tool woodworker can build a table with a few basic hand tools such as with a saw, a hammer, a chisel and a hand plane. In so doing, he develops a sensitivity to the wood and the tools he uses. These are important basic skills for the woodworker that that he will gloss over if he learns to woodwork using motorised manoeuvrable tools like computer numerical control (CNC) machines. Instead of merely adjusting machine settings and letting machines do the work, the hand tool woodworker develops his own skills to manipulate the qualities of wood. Along the way, he also finds self-esteem.
Making an item using only hand tools limits the woodworker. But these limitations are precisely the situations that offer him the opportunity to improvise and to be resilient. He will employ his imagination, redesign the project, and, importantly, make mistakes and learn to work around them. With time, his skills will improve, fuelling greater intrinsic motivation to build more sophisticated items. His sense of ownership and for quality in his work will deepen.
The trained hand tool woodworker is also versatile. If need be, he can more readily shift to employ advanced technology, although the opposite is less likely. Without foundational hand tools skills, the industrial woodworker’s heavy reliance on industrial machinery makes him ill-equipped to employ basic technology. In the absence of industrial machinery, he cannot be productive.
In sum, the hand tool woodworker’s experience with hand tools in the early phases of his learning accelerates his acquisition of important foundational woodworking skills, applicable in a wide range of products and settings. Since there is no limit to hand tools skills, it can become a lifelong pursuit. And with basic skills honed, he can be adept at industrial machinery, improve its processes and even develop novel technology.
Just like the novice woodworker learning woodworking with hand tools, our children should begin learning any skill using basic technology. An effective learning environment is one that gives its learners the opportunity to master the basics, to be inquisitive and to make critical connections for themselves. An ineffective learning environment is one that is inundated with unnecessary sophisticated technology, emphasise certainty over curiosity, and thus short-changing learners of doing or thinking for themselves.
Our children are already spending copious amounts of time with generative A.I. and advance technological tools outside of education spaces. The fear of them being left behind their peers because they delay their use of advanced technology is unfounded.
The Future of Jobs Report (2025) by the World Economic Forum forecasts that creative thinking, resilience, flexibility, agility, curiosity and lifelong learning will be even more valuable so as to complement growing technology-related skills. These are the very outcomes associated with the use of low tech in early learning phases. Let us raise a generation that engenders pride, passion, ownership and versatility to navigate future work challenges. Let us raise craftsmen.
