Joined
·
2,034 Posts
I like bushcraft activities, but I'm not a real fan of wood smoke.
To be honest, I mostly cook over a stove while outside. Not only easier and what with all the burn bans – well, it's just easier.
OTOH, being able to make a fire under trying circumstances is certainly a survival requirement of the first stripe.
So, I have been working with my oldest grandson.
The now not so little guy is now old enough to demonstrate the needed responsibility to carry/use a pocketknife and such. This also presents the opportunity for some lessons – the very first being that that responsibility must be demonstrated over time to build and earn trust. While trust must be earned, it can help build into greater relationships...
To make a fire requires some effort to gather materials, after all, not just anything will do. This offers a chance for not only a lesson in gathering fire making materials, but also a lesson in making choices and how the choices made will have a real impact on an outcome.
Tools are needed to prepare, lay and make a fire.
So my grandson now has a pocket knife (SAK). With that, we assembled a 'fire kit'. This went into a small tin that is easily carried.
As before, a lesson can be had on both the safe way to sharpen a knife and why working to keep your tools protected and in top shape is important. A person's mind is a tool, school and study is but one way to keep it sharp as well.
Lessons on different types of tinder and how they work offers a chance to carefully explain how using alternatives to reach a goal vs 'just one correct' way to do things shouldn't be missed.
Then, there is actually starting the fire.
Not with matches or lighter (tho I ensure he has both). I've taught him how to start a fire with flint and steel. You know - Old School, the hard way.
And knowing the hard way that might just save your life when all the technology goes poof... Harder isn't always better, sometimes it's just…harder. Still, you should at least know the hard way to do things. In that, finding or learning an easier way is seen as worth the time and trouble to learn.
Starting a fire with flint and steel offers a lesson in perseverance and is a real life skill that has a reward that can be seen immediately, when fully mastered. This immediacy is important to young people, for they lack the experience that tells them work leads to reward in real life.
The other lesson to this, hard or nearly impossible things can or may, actually become easy (or at least easier) with practice. Practice is essential in so many other things in life as well.
Finally, keeping a fire going is a continuing process. Just like a relationship – it has to be fed, cared for and always monitored if it is provide the warmth you seek. Monitored, because if it gets out of control, it can destroy so much – and even take your life and the lives of others. So a related lesson is that useful things can become dangerous if care is not used…..
Starting a fire. Such a simple thing. Mundane. And yet, so full of lessons for a young person.
To be honest, I mostly cook over a stove while outside. Not only easier and what with all the burn bans – well, it's just easier.
OTOH, being able to make a fire under trying circumstances is certainly a survival requirement of the first stripe.
So, I have been working with my oldest grandson.
The now not so little guy is now old enough to demonstrate the needed responsibility to carry/use a pocketknife and such. This also presents the opportunity for some lessons – the very first being that that responsibility must be demonstrated over time to build and earn trust. While trust must be earned, it can help build into greater relationships...
To make a fire requires some effort to gather materials, after all, not just anything will do. This offers a chance for not only a lesson in gathering fire making materials, but also a lesson in making choices and how the choices made will have a real impact on an outcome.
Tools are needed to prepare, lay and make a fire.
So my grandson now has a pocket knife (SAK). With that, we assembled a 'fire kit'. This went into a small tin that is easily carried.
As before, a lesson can be had on both the safe way to sharpen a knife and why working to keep your tools protected and in top shape is important. A person's mind is a tool, school and study is but one way to keep it sharp as well.
Lessons on different types of tinder and how they work offers a chance to carefully explain how using alternatives to reach a goal vs 'just one correct' way to do things shouldn't be missed.
Then, there is actually starting the fire.
Not with matches or lighter (tho I ensure he has both). I've taught him how to start a fire with flint and steel. You know - Old School, the hard way.
And knowing the hard way that might just save your life when all the technology goes poof... Harder isn't always better, sometimes it's just…harder. Still, you should at least know the hard way to do things. In that, finding or learning an easier way is seen as worth the time and trouble to learn.
Starting a fire with flint and steel offers a lesson in perseverance and is a real life skill that has a reward that can be seen immediately, when fully mastered. This immediacy is important to young people, for they lack the experience that tells them work leads to reward in real life.
The other lesson to this, hard or nearly impossible things can or may, actually become easy (or at least easier) with practice. Practice is essential in so many other things in life as well.
Finally, keeping a fire going is a continuing process. Just like a relationship – it has to be fed, cared for and always monitored if it is provide the warmth you seek. Monitored, because if it gets out of control, it can destroy so much – and even take your life and the lives of others. So a related lesson is that useful things can become dangerous if care is not used…..
Starting a fire. Such a simple thing. Mundane. And yet, so full of lessons for a young person.
