How blacksmithing classes make me a better tech trainer
Lenore blacksmithing with varying levels of success. I’m pretty sure the metal rod I was working on burned like a sparkler on the next heat after this photo was taken.
Jamie in his native habitat, looking cool and absolutely kicking my keister in blacksmithing class.
A couple years ago, I started taking blacksmithing classes with my younger brother, mainly as an excuse to spend more quality time with him. Jamie lives in Harrisburg, PA and I’m just outside of DC in Greenbelt, MD. Through sheer dumb luck, Ms. Caitlin’s School of Blacksmithing happens to be in Frederick, MD, smack in the middle.
If you’re wondering if you should take a blacksmithing class, the answer is yes. And you should definitely take it from Ms. Caitlin.
Caitlin’s a damn good blacksmith, but I’d argue she’s an even better teacher. She brings a level of empathy, forethought, and enthusiasm to her coaching approach that I now borrow often in my own presentations and trainings.
A class with Caitlin involves roughly the same three stages I now build into my trainings and workshops: Concept, Demo, and Practice. They usually go a little like this:
Concept:
Begin with an end in mind: Introduce a final version of today’s project, often pointing out a few different variations you can try to meet the end goal and providing a pep talk along the way.
In the data world, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by different software options and strategies. Blacksmithing can be similarly overwhelming—particularly if you’re also ever-so-slightly-terrified of dropping hot metal on your pantleg. When planning a data project, forget the noise and the marketing—start by getting crystal clear on what you’re trying to accomplish. Give your end goal a good long stare, then find the simplest steps needed to take your raw materials from rod to candlestick (erm…data warehouse?)
I’ve always loved Ms. Caitlin’s furnace, which is committed to stating the obvious and saving all our fingertips
Use relatable (and often memorably silly) metaphors, not technical jargon, when introducing new concepts: Blacksmithing is a time-sensitive activity, and hot metal doesn’t care if you know your horn from your peen. Mostly you just need to remember the “Splat theory of moving metal”—basically, that whacking hot metal right in the middle will send that metal in all directions like hitting a cow patty with a baseball bat.
If you’ve ever seen one of my training slide decks, you know that I practically use memes as a teaching tool to lighten the mood and help folks remember key details. That’s Caitlin’s influence. You’re welcome.
Learning something new is always intimidating. Even when there isn’t a forge involved, a little silliness can go a long way. When I’m first introducing interns to dimensional data modeling concepts, they have a much better time remembering what dimension tables are when I initially introduce them as “short and fat tables filled with yummy descriptive data” than when I use a more formal description that loads them up with more details than they’re ready to absorb. A silly description makes them laugh—and it sticks better than “a data set composed of individual, non-overlapping data elements, which provide structured labeling information to otherwise unordered numeric measures.” (Source: Dimension (data warehouse) - Wikipedia)
Be honest, you’re not going to forget the “splat theory of moving metal” any time soon, are you?
Behold: the teaching doodad
Teach the “Whys” not just the “Hows” Caitlin’s studio has this wooden teaching tool that’s basically physics for the anvil set; it demonstrates the degree of force a hammer can wield based on how high you lift it. Two main takeaways from this doodad: 1) gravity is downright amazing when you let it do the work, and 2) even when your aim is sub-par, a good whack from a higher altitude will still do you better than many aggressive, targeted taps using your comparably puny forearm muscle power.
Ms. Caitlin didn’t have to build an instructional tool to demonstrate this—she could have just said “You need to lift your arm up higher to get more force”—but then we’d just know how we were supposed to do the thing, without any idea why it was a good idea. Instead, Caitlin uses the equivalent of a mini science experiment to provide us with concrete evidence for why lifting the hammer higher up will give us more oomph. I think about this all the time when my form is slipping—it’s an incredibly effective way to communicate both the how and the why of a good hammer swing.
So many data-related trainings focus on the “hows” but leave off the “whys”. I think this is primarily due to limited bandwidth; if you’re trying to fit an instructional video into five minutes or less, for example, it’s a lot easier to provide a series of steps than it is to explain what makes those steps work the way they do. I’m increasingly convinced, however, that the “hows” just won’t stick if they don’t have “whys” that go with them. More importantly, understanding the “whys” makes room for innovation and creative problem solving that can take people further when those “hows” fall short.
Demo:
One of Jamie’s metal knots—a side quest Caitlin has taken to putting Jamie on when I’m behind, which is always.
Demonstrate the steps individually, at the learner’s pace(s): Ok, so listen—I’m not a very good blacksmith. While I don’t really mind being below the bell curve in our two-person class, Jamie’s usually finished his project twice and moved on to crafting some sort of Gordian knot by the time I’ve finished getting my own to a nice even point.
What I’ve always adored about Caitlin’s teaching style is how she finds subtle ways to adjust her approach to ensure we both know what we’re doing at every stage of the process. I’ve attended other blacksmithing classes where the teacher would demo the whole project from beginning to end, then just left us to figure out the different steps as best we could on our own. Caitlin makes a point of breaking down the demos to align with each step of the process, giving her students a chance to focus on the specific mechanics of each stage without feeling overwhelmed by what comes next.
This is every bit as critical when tackling detailed data work as it is when you’re working on an anvil. I now employ a similar strategy in demos, applying about 15 seconds of “how to” instructions right before the “practice” segment where students apply what they’ve learned, though this is usually in addition to showing the full process at the beginning of a module. In the past, my biggest worry was often that I would bore my students, so I erred on the side of going to quickly. With my blacksmithing teacher’s example in mind, I’m making a point to slow down my teaching approach and keep an eye out for students who seem confused or frustrated. An extra thirty seconds to repeat a demo more slowly won’t break the training schedule, but I know first-hand how much it can help a student feeling lost.
And on that note…
Ms. Caitlin (left) helps Jamie (right) with some hole-punching on his latest project at Ms. Caitlin’s Blacksmithing School.
Be ready to demo—enthusiastically!—more than once: Can you show me that again Caitlin? “Heck yeah, I can!”
Demos usually happen several times in Caitlin’s classes—first in clay, then often demonstrating the full project if it’s a smaller one (like nails), and then finally step by step in pace with the students. She’ll often have a backup iron or two in the fire ready to go if someone (when I) need clarification on how to do the next step.
Want to see a demo step again in one of my trainings? Maybe a little slower, with the steps explained in a slightly different way? You got it. Ohana means family. Family means no one gets left behind.
Practice!
Incorporate risk-free practice time before you apply new concepts: The first half-dozen blacksmithing projects you make start with practicing on cold clay to give your brain and your hands some time to work through the mechanics. This isn’t all that different from a sandbox environment when testing out a new data tool or process, and it yields roughly the same result—greater confidence and fewer screw-ups where it counts.
I’ve tried focusing on just learning the concepts, and then going in to apply them using a new technology without the hands-on practice to go with them. It goes…poorly. Hands-on practice with real-world examples (or as close as you can get), is the best way I know of to help new learners connect the dots.
Cheer enthusiastically for progress, self-correction, and perseverance: This goes with the earlier “learning new things is intimidating” comment—as a rule, our brains don’t like to learn new things without some prodding. Doing something new and unfamiliar is cognitively expensive, so it helps to have someone going “yeah, you got it!” rooting for you and reminding you that it’s ok if what you’re doing still feels strangely taxing.
Cheerleading becomes especially important once the novelty of a brand-new skill has worn off, and you fall into that delightful Dunning-Kruger stage known as the “Valley of Despair”. Maybe you’ve mastered the basics of Power BI and have discovered—with some horror—the sheer magnitude of other tools available within the broader data ecosystem. Or maybe you just watched several seasons of Forged in Fire, and you’re still just struggling to make that cute symmetrical Ginko leaf shape you’ve been trying for over the past few months. The deeper you are in that Valley, the more you need someone to cheer you through it.
I reached out to Ms. Caitlin for her feedback, and she gave me this gem around how she approaches supporting newer blacksmithing students:
“The learning process is challenging. Beginners work a LOT harder than experts. Experts have had a chance to process and understand the variables and see how everything works together. They’re doing the hard part of the work unconsciously.
Beginners are still trying to consciously remember all of the things. And conscious brain processing power is limited. So it’s NORMAL for folks to drop skills as they start to realize that there are other important variables. For example, we learn at the beginning of class that we need the metal to be glowing while we’re working on it. And everyone is really good at watching the color fade the very first time they hit the metal. But once we move on to the more challenging skills like making a point, they are so focused on the other 8 variables at play that they forget that the metal still needs to be glowing.
It’s not JUST a matter of cheering enthusiastically, but that it’s important to cheer someone on even if they have just made glaring errors, because they probably made those glaring errors because they’re paying conscious attention to something else that is ALSO important. ”
Emphasize curiosity, not dismay, when something goes wrong: We’ve all heard that mistakes are something to learn from, but how often do we really follow suit?
In blacksmithing, metal doesn’t always go where you intend for it to go, though the resulting changes do give you a nice roadmap of how the metal moved so you can assess it after the fact. For me, the post-mortem is usually somewhere between “…how did I twist this?” and “I was aiming for symmetry but this side didn’t budge and the other just kinda looks pregnant?” Then Caitlin and I will stare intently at whatever it is I’ve done this time like we’re reading tea leaves and forge a new plan of attack.
Like with data systems, there’s usually some practical limitations to consider when some aspect of a project goes wrong. Data projects have budgetary constraints, capacity limitations, and staff capacity to consider. Metal isn’t infinitely malleable either—overworking a section can result in brittleness and overheating a section can lead to your hard work burning spectacularly like a 4th of July sparkler. With both, however, there’s usually also a path forward to make use of what you’ve made and learned.
Takeaway:
One final lesson for my fellow trainers, just in case they haven’t discovered it already: learning something completely foreign to you is one the best things you can do to become a better teacher. You will be terrible—or at least you’ll feel like you are—and that’s exactly the point! Being a newbie in any skill helps me see old familiar concepts with fresh eyes, making my trainings more comprehensive and my teaching style more sensitive to the challenges that come with wrapping your head around truly novel concepts.
So go be brave enough to suck at something new—for your students, and for yourself😊
Jamie and I at the end of a successful blacksmithing class, projects complete, ready for coffee.
I have never looked derpier, but man were we proud of our roasting forks!
