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?

On Innovation: An Idea from Piaget

The eminent developmental psychologist Jean Piaget has had a tremendous impact on teaching and learning over the past 50+ years and wrote prolifically about child development.

I recently came across this quote from his book Science of Education and the Psychology of the Child:

"Education means making creators...You have to make inventors, innovators--not conformists."

This got me thinking again about creativity and it's role in learning. And while I don't have a lot of answers, I have a lot of questions...

Jean Piaget
Public domain image via Cbl62

What would school look like if we tried to foster creativity?

What would school look like if we gave students room to invent?

What would school look like if we prized innovation over conformity?

What would school look like if we made deliberate physical and mental spaces for students to play with ideas and create contraptions and solve authentic problems?

Would students be more engaged? Would teachers be more engaged?

What structures would have to change? What policies might have to be modified?

How would we assess teaching and learning in this sort of environment?

How do content standards fit into this approach?

What would we be giving up by incorporating more innovation? What would we gain?

Are there places already creating innovative spaces like these? And if so, what are the results? What is working well? What should be modified? Can this approach be transplanted into other schools? Or is it organically situated and contextualized?

So much of contemporary school culture seems bent on conformity. If we made innovation and creativity the norm...would that be trying make everyone conform to innovation?

Minecraft: Boosting Creativity in Education?

My kids love Minecraft. Have you played it at all? I put the "pocket edition" on my iPad, and now they fight over who gets to play it. You can download the free version (there are iOS and Android versions) to at least give it a whirl.

The best description I can give for the game is virtual Legos, generated in blocky, pixelated graphics, with zombies. (Who wouldn't want to play that??) The game can be played in two modes: "survival," in which the goal is...survival (the zombies are coming!), and "creative," which is all about creating your own unique world. The name comes from the two main tasks you undertake in the game: "mining" for picking up resources, and "crafting" structures and objects from those resources. The game has been around for a few years now--there are PC/Mac and Xbox versions too--and the folks who create the game are always adding updates. On the pocket edition my kids play it's a one-player game, but the other versions allow for multi-player interaction, and you should see some of the amazing things teams of players build!

A few screenshots from my kids' games, so you get the idea of what it's like:

In creative mode, players can fly over their world to see it from many perspectives.

Out on the boardwalk...Notice the treehouse on the tiny island.

This is What School Should be Like!

I'm teaching a couple of courses for a summer camp this week. Every summer, the college where I teach hosts a camp for middle schoolers. Great experience for the campers: they get a sort-of feeling for college life (staying in the dorms, eating in the dining hall, etc.) and it's a great social opportunity as well. And, hopefully, they learn something too.

I teach a course called "Geek Squad." The kids sign up for the courses they are most interested in before coming to camp, so the dozen or so I had in this course are self-identifying as "geeks," which is interesting in and of itself. Yes, we played with computers. Yes, we did some science and engineering. Yes...we talked about comic books and sci-fi movies and argued whether Star Trek is actually superior to Star Wars. (C'mon...that's not even an argument! Wait...showing my geeky hand here...) In it's essence, though, the course is about exploring, and trying stuff, and collaborating, and celebrating successes. We built all sorts of contraptions: paper gliders, tiny straw rockets, marshmallow shooters, desktop catapults, junk robots with tiny motors to make the buzz across the floor, marble runs, and we captured video of the whole thing to edit and share online.

Makers Among Us

I've read Scott McLeod's post, My Son is 8. He's a Maker several times over the past couple weeks. It haunts me, to be honest, because I could have written it about my own son. And I worry sometimes about how school will be for him. (Please take a few minutes and read it. Please.)

Maybe I'm actually a little worried about where school culture seems to be centered at the moment with so much emphasis on high-stakes testing and convergent, universal curriculum. I worry about how this affects creativity and motivation and engagement and true learning. What are students going to come away with? Excellent test-taking skills?