Foxfire Virtual Tour

The Museum Cabin houses a large collection of traditional woodworking tools, including planes, saws and a shaving horse. In early communities, trades were passed from generation-to-generation through apprenticeships. The trade master instructed apprentices in the different tools and skills required to create materials and structures needed for everyday life. Apprentices had to follow the schematics and understand the physics of the materials under construction.

These early apprenticeships were forerunners of Foxfire’s second and seventh Core Practices: the teacher’s role in the classroom. This second Core Practice states that the teacher serves as both a facilitator and a collaborator. The teacher’s role as a collaborator impacts the classroom, as classroom work includes peer teaching, small group work and teamwork, which is reflected in the seventh Core Practice.