Teachers Make Time
There are days when I LOVE what I do.
As part of the UNC Charlotte Writing Project team, today I helped facilitate a Makerspace for teachers at Lincoln Heights Academy alongside fellow teacher consultants Steve and Jana. Tucked away in Charlotte’s west side is a small K-12 public school for students with mental health challenges.
I could not imagine a group more in need of Make therapy or a more solid team of dedicated teachers. The teachers worked alongside challenging students all day, and then had uninterrupted time to make, to fail, to reinvent, and escape from getting stuck in their heads.
We started the session with the We are Makers Ted Talk by Dale Dougherty. Dougherty’s message is this: We Are All Makers. To me that means I am a maker of messes, beds, birthday cakes, upstanding citizens (with three tweens in the house, it feels like I am mostly failing), scarves, and mittens. I make wearable things with yarn. Like I said, I have three tweens. Repetitive motions of weaving yarn between needles centers me among the chaos of hormones, homework, orthodontia, and wondering who forgot to wear deodorant.
Steve, Jana, and I set up multiple stations to give the teachers time and space to reveal their identities as Makers. One popular table was the meme station.
Here’s Jana’s:
and Natasha’s
Ken made a three-word poem:
Melissa, the school librarian made a bookshelf:
Allison, who shared with the group she had a tough day, and at first did not identify as a maker, made herself a happy-face badge to remind herself to smile and enjoy.
Holly embraced the idea of “Life-changing inventions” and made a fan to cool ramen noodles. No more mouth burns.
I was blown away by everyone’s creations. I thought I wanted to create 3-D poetry and jumped on YouTube to find tutorials. While scrolling I found tutorials for pop-up animals and then something I thought I could manage, a paper fidget spinner.
Fail.
But I did find a 3-word poem:
Which brings me to my takeaway from today’s session. Students seldom have the chance to fail gracefully in school or in life. The result is usually bad grades and ridicule. In today’s world of meeting standards and high-stakes testing, teachers have even fewer opportunities to fail. The result could be pushback from parents, pressure from administrators, or loss of respect in the community. As those who are supposed to be the models, teachers are expected to get things right the first time, every time. It’s an unrealistic expectation that can lead to burnout, loss of passion in the classroom, and damage to the creative process.
Real, mindful, engaged learning happens when teachers and students together get a chance to tinker, to fail, to circle back, and find beauty in the process.
This is why I love Make. It’s a chance to celebrate what did not go as planned. While a small part of my mind is jealous of the ramen-cooling fan, my non-spinner reminded me it’s okay when things don’t work.
