It's in Your Hands
Hands at Work, Mind at Ease
There is generally a stage during infancy when babies become infatuated with their hands. As they're laying on their back, they hold their fist in front of their face and stare intently as if to say, “Hello there, strange and unique creature! Where did you come from? What's your story?”
Whether or not they know that the hand is attached to their body and an agent of their mind's bidding is unclear. What is clear, however, is that hands are worthy of fascination.
The work that hands do is continuous, multifaceted, and non-conscious. Consider below the most exquisite tribute to the versatility of hands by the Japanese roboticist Mori Masahiro:
You can use your hands as a ladle to dip water. By opening your fingers slightly, you can convert this ladle into a sieve for sifting sand or pebbles. When you lift your hand to shade your eyes, it becomes a visor. When you point in a particular direction for someone, it becomes an instrument for communicating knowledge. When you test the water in your bath, it serves as a thermometer. When you count on your fingers, it is a type of calculator . . . Try watching people holding glasses of water. You will find that a majority of them do not use their little fingers. Does that mean that the little finger is superfluous? Not at all. When we put a glass down on a table without looking, as we often do, we unconsciously use the little finger as an antenna. (1974, 19–20)
When it comes to learning hands-on skills, hands are a mimic. They copy the movements of the teacher – awkwardly at first, then more and more fluidly until they become habituated. This can be a slow and painful process, if the learner is offered little to no scaffolding or aid. Or it can happen expeditiously, if the following conditions are met:
1. Actions and movements are presented in a manner that's clear, visible, and repeatable.
There is no question that written instructions are wonderful resources. But when it comes to following them, those who have the most success are the ones who already have a framework in place to understand the information being presented. An experienced cook may read the directive “chiffonade basil leaves” and know exactly what to do without needing an image or video, but an inexperienced cook might not.
2. Instructions are hands-free.
You're in the middle of installing your first floating shelf. Your hands are balancing both bracket and level as the previous instructions described, and you're ready for the next step. But darn it all, now you have to stop what you're doing, wake your mobile device to scroll down the page, decipher the next set of instructions, then go back to the bracket and level. It's time-consuming, it interrupts the flow of work, and it's all too familiar an experience to everyone reading this.
From Home Depot
It's fairly obvious that for a novice learner, a looping video with hands-free instructions is where it's at. (Why isn't this a thing yet? That's for another week.)
Hands are magical. When we let them do their work with clarity and without interruption, they will surprise us with what they can do.
