A Brief History of Sloyd
Personal & Professional Connection to Sloyd
As a technology education teacher, especially one that teaches primarily woodwork, I found myself drawn to the concepts and teaching practices created by Otto Salomon called educational sloyd. Developed in mainly Sweden and Finland, the modern sloyd system is very similar to what is taught in most technology education classrooms, focusing on knowledge and skills rooted in traditional hand work, such as manual skills, aesthetic/design skills, and tool management skills. The biggest difference between the two is sloyd’s heavy focus on personal development and learning (Hallström, 2017). These skills and concepts, which would normally be considered apart of the hidden curriculum in BC, come to the forefront in sloyd. The sloyd system, developed over a century ago, has continued to evolve as technology changes, exploring new ways to challenge students while holding to its core principles.
What is Sloyd?
Sloyd was developed originally as a woodworking program in the late 1800’s in a pushback to the education system of the time which was teacher centric and generally focused on students memorizing information for later regurgitation. Salomon based sloyd on basic ideas he took from Comenius, Locke, Rouseau, Salzman, Pestalozzi, Fröbel, Cygneus and Spencer. He mixed those ideas with his own experiences and created a system that he felt was appropriate for the time (Thornton, 1911). Salomon felt that hands-on skills, discipline, and independent learning were key to a well-trained student. The sloyd curricular concept can be generally broken down into four distinct categories:
| Concept | Meaning |
| Learning about sloyd | Theory and content knowledge |
| Learning in sloyd | Experimenting and reaching new goals |
| Learning with sloyd | Using learned knowledge in new ways outside original context |
| Learning through sloyd | Using new skills (ie developed motor skills) in new ways outside their original context |
(Wiklund-Engblom, Hartvik, Hiltunen, Johansson, & Porko-Hudd, 2015)
The sloyd curricular concept also focus’ on teacher development, expanding educators’ content specific skills, ability to plan, create, and implement designs for teaching, and grow overall professionally (Wiklund-Engblom, et al, 2015). Many of these concepts can be seen today in the BC’s technology education curriculum. For example, the Woodworking 10 and sloyd curriculum both focus on learning outcomes such as, understanding the function and use of hand tools, and employing project design opportunities (BC’s New Curriculum, 2020; Thornton, 1911).
The Sloyd Method of Teaching Woodwork