The Maker Movement Creating Framework for New School Paradigm

Charles Tsai’s recent Medium article, The Education of a Revolution, inspired me to muse on the prospects for this approach to change public education. I’ve followed Charles since meeting him at SXSWedu a couple years back. He spoke on a panel discussion about alternatives to traditional schooling. As a Chicago Public Schools parent of two kids now for almost 8 years, I’ve become a grizzled participant/activist in the public education wars, touched off most recently by the 2012 teachers’ strike. But setting aside broader policy discussions for now, the personal toll of getting two kids up and ready for the long (mostly late) bus rides to school, then an almost 8 hour school day, followed by the ride home, after-school activities, homework, dinner, bathing (sometimes), homework, brushing teeth, homework, fun (rarely), homework, and the occasional meltdown, followed by more homework, and you might get a sense of what it’s like to be a public school parent these days. Nevermind that most research shows that homework has a minimal effect on student learning.

Before this school year started, we had a fairly relaxed summer. We got to the library regularly, where our local branch has its own makerspace. My daughter enjoyed working with 3D software, and futzing around with the various things in the lab, like the button maker. Combine that with trips to museums, parks, and street festivals, they were exposed to a bunch of things outside studying for tests, prepping for standardized tests, keeping reading logs, and doing lots of worksheets. The dominant thinking these days by educational policymakers seems to be all about “accountability”, with its main weapon of mass destruction becoming test scores. No one in the Beltway seems to be able to imagine a success model that doesn’t talk about being “college and career ready”. Throw in some jargon about STEM (STEAM, if you’re really hip), Common Core, grit, “choice”, and you have a Cliff’s Notes version of education reform these days. That’s why Tsai’s framework offers an alternative vision of accountability:

Maker Education helps learners develop a “maker mindset” — a sense of oneself as a creative agent of change, one who is able, confident, and motivated to generate new ideas and design new solutions. Such mindset cannot be fostered through standardized curriculum or skills training but through experimental play as well as self-directed creation, iteration, and open sharing of real world projects.

I’ve often ruminated about how education could change, if instead of evaluating students according to a quantitative mastery of facts, we instead consider whether we are creating “global citizens” who are able to understand the importance of things like civic participation, community organizing, and perhaps even the value of compound interest. I’d prefer if Johnny can read, but I’d be just as delighted if Johnny went and voted in the next primary election.