Peter N. Herndon
Gandhi was a middle-aged man when he first asked his wife Kasturba to teach him to use the spinning wheel. Once he had mastered the wheel, he practiced spinning every day for the rest of his life. Home-spinning became a symbol for independence and self-reliance throughout India under his encouragement and direction.
The spinning wheel has a central place in my teaching unit. The culmination of this unit will be in giving my students a hands-on experience where they will be shown how to actually operate a spinning wheel. In the Lesson Plan section below I further explain how I plan to guide my students step-by-step through Dr. Jules Prown’s process of Object Analysis that instructs students how to Observe, Describe, Deduce and Speculate about an object or artifact. By employing this “O.D.D.S.” method of analysis, students should learn important techniques that are transferable to the analysis of other artifacts or art objects.
Observation. Briefly, the teacher shows them the object (or an illustration of the object) and proceeds to ask specific questions about what they can observe. (What materials went into the manufacture of this object? What are the various lengths and widths of the parts that make up this object? What two-dimensional shapes or configurations does this object contain? What parts are stationery and which parts seem to be moving?) Next, I plan to have them write a Description, based on our common Observations, which will include the various measurements of the pieces that make up the object. For the Deduction part of this exercise, the students will be asked to take their Observations a step further and begin to form tentative conclusions about how the object functions and how it may operate. (There are eleven grooves in the horizontal cylinder which is held fast by two leather pieces; if some grooves are more worn than others, what can you deduce from this? If the leather pieces that attach the cylinder to the two supporting pieces are relatively new, what does this reveal about their function and use? What about the way the pieces are fashioned indicates that this object can be quickly disassembled? What purpose is served by the six-inch piece at the end of the long dowel containing a hole large enough for a person to insert his finger?) Finally, students are encouraged to Speculate about the object. From the teachers’ experience in Dr. Prown’s seminar, this is the part the students have been eagerly waiting for. If this wheel can be turned, which way? how fast? would it make a difference? why or why not? Were the people who used this object nomadic or farmers? What kind of training would be necessary to operate it? What about the carvings: do they represent the natural or supernatural world? Is this object one-of-a-kind or mass produced? The teacher should encourage students to be imaginative in their discussion at this point. Their assignment will be to write an imaginary story about a person or family of another culture who had one of these objects in their possession and how this object might have influenced their lives either for good or evil.
Students will learn more about the spinning wheel the next day when I plan to demonstrate how spinning wheels like the one we have analyzed actually operated. A friend of mine, Paul Thompson, a wood-working teacher from Norwalk, using plans from Gandhi’s book, Wheel of Fortune, has helped to reconstruct a working model of Gandhi’s Charka wheel. The students will be able to see first-hand how this contraption actually was supposed to work!
To enhance the students’ learning experience I plan to invite a local spinning and weaving instructor, Joyce Brockway from Clinton, CT, to demonstrate for the students how a real spinning wheel works. She lived the “simple life” among the moose and bear in New Hampshire for many years, and has the ability to “spin yarns” about living and surviving in the near-wilderness. Presently Ms. Brockway is part-owner of a handicraft shop in Clinton where she gives spinning lessons and uses authentic homespun wool to make hats, sweaters, scarves and mittens.
In preparation for Ms. Brockway’s visit, students will read a three-page article, “The History of Sheep,” published by the American Wool Council, which explains the important role wool has played in various parts of the world since ancient times. Students will read, for example, that the first wool spinning took place in central Asia in about 3500 B.C. The Romans established the first woolen “manufactory” in England in 50 A.D. In the twelfth century, captured Greek weavers taught the Italians in cloth-making regions such as Florence how to weave wool more expertly. Christopher Columbus imported the first sheep to Cuba and Santo Domingo in 1493; offspring of these sheep were bred for meat that helped Cortez and his men to survive their campaigns in Mexico. In the American colonial period restrictive trade laws were designed to protect England’s superiority in woolen manufacture; by 1664 a Massachusetts law required the youth of the Commonwealth to learn how to spin and weave, proving the ineffectiveness of England’s trade laws. Sheep herding and wool making were an important part of the Westward Movement during the 1800s; today, sheep are kept in each of the fifty states. This lesson on wool and spinning is important of students not only from an historical perspective but also to give them an appreciation for the many elements that are necessary in order to manufacture a raw material (wool) into a finished product, in this case articles of clothing. Spinning and weaving are timeless occupations. I feel privileged to instruct my students in these traditional skills that remind us of simpler and quieter times. The fact that some people can use these skills today for pleasure and profit hopefully will not be lost on my students. This lesson on spinning should lead us naturally into our next topic, Gandhi’s advocacy of home spinning as a way of helping the impoverished farmers in India to lift themselves from poverty.