To get more computer science teachers, ALL teachers need to become makers themselves
This is great. I taught high school computer science for 4 years in Silicon Valley and I’m generally frustrated by the “everyone should learn to code” movement. Most of the conversations focus on just getting kids in front of code even if the teachers are engineers who can’t teach or teachers who can’t code. We’ve built so much curriculum and software to minimize the role of the teacher in computer science, but it all misses the point, which you’ve hit dead on in your article.
Learning to code isn’t about making tons of money or moving to California to work at Googlebookbox. And it certainly isn’t about being able to code the Fibonacci sequence or bank accounts (i.e. classic CS practice problems).
Instead, it has everything to do with self expression and creativity. It’s about building something to meet a need, solve a problem, or improve the quality of someone’s life. Learning to make is such an incredibly empowering and intrinsically motivating experience that every student should have.
But the issue of finding teachers to engage students in such an experience is a big one. The maker culture you describe isn’t one that you generally find anywhere in schools or really anywhere in most people’s lives. The idea that you can create the thing you need instead of waiting for someone to make it or give it to you is incredibly novel on so many fronts.
In order to get teachers who will facilitate computer science maker spaces in schools, they need to first experience this type of learning themselves and begin to integrate such an approach into their existing classes. There are opportunities to make and create in every class but they are often minimized in favor of worksheets, presentations, and tests to keep pace with the ever increasing list of standards.
— English classes could have students designing plays and creating the costumes to bring the stories they’re reading to life. Students could be publishing original stories and poems on mediums like Medium and getting meaningful feedback from real people across the Internet.
— Science classes that usually have students conducting experiments designed by someone else could instead teach students how to be curious about the world, identify questions they have and conduct and analyze their own experiments.
— And to get really clever, teachers could start connecting learning across classes so students see that History and Math don’t live on separate islands. There are in fact novel, compelling problems where we need both disciplines in order to solve them creatively and effectively.
In order to practice the kind of innovative coaching that teachers will need to do in a computer science space, teachers can start by maximizing the opportunities within their existing classes to allow students to create and build.
And then to truly motivate students to be makers, teachers need to learn how to create and build in their own lives and in their own professional development. They need to internalize making for themselves. What are the questions that teachers have about teaching and learning? What would they read, do, or build to improve their classrooms? Would it require coding, writing, woodworking, or even getting over that fear of math? For me, taking an online class on creative learning got me to think in new ways. For others, it might be starting a blog on Medium or Wordpress, or even joining a startup part-time or just going to startup events to feel that energy and begin to drink that Kool-aid.
If Mayor de Blasio wants to knock this initiative out of the park, NYC will need to provide new ways and more freedom for teachers to internalize the maker culture through space to make in and out of the classroom.
