Why Can't School Be Like This?

I am teaching a couple of courses at a summer camp for middle schoolers this week: "Engineering for Speed" (building solar cars, Lego contraptions, and designing and constructing our own electric cars) and "Geek Squad" (all things geeky, including junkbots, mini-catapults, marble roller coasters, and straw rockets.) I love this stuff--it's fun for me to connect with middle schoolers and help them learn more about things that they are already excited about.

But it happened again.

In the middle of our work, one of my engineers-in-training looked up from his soldering iron and wistfully said,

"Why can't school be like this?"

Yes, sixth graders can learn to safely use a soldering iron!

I'm asking the same question. Why can't learning in school be more like learning at summer camp?