A practical guide to craftsmanship: creating the craftsmen and women Britain needs.

A Practical Guide to Craftsmanship, the latest piece of research from Professor Bill Lucas and Dr Ellen Spencer from the Centre for Real-World Learning seeks to revitalise the idea of craftsmanship by discussing how its qualities and attributes can be taught. Contrary to popular belief, the research asserts that people are not born demonstrating excellence in a particular area. What craftsmen have developed instead is a mindset and a set of qualities that enable them to improve their skills and become expert through practice and focus. The researchers have focused on the concept of developing a ‘craftsmanlike attitude’ and identified three strands of thinking around the concept of craftsmanship: it’s learnable; it’s about ‘becoming’; it’s about the culture.