There’s a movement sweeping the country. Making. People are going crazy for building, designing, tinkering, and upcycling in creative ways. People are using old things to solve new problems. People are learning the relationships between various materials to create new products that are innovative, creative, and awesome. Making? It’s turning into the new “sliced bread” in American education. Schools are racing to build maker spaces, talking about integrating making into their curriculum, and realizing how much kids are engaged when they are making. Hands on. Integrated projects. Creating. Doing. Kids are designing their own learning.
It’s a movement, but it’s not new. It was there all along. We just failed to realize that while public education was chasing textbook orders, checking off standards, and passing out worksheets, making was getting buried. Thinking was getting lost. Learning was no longer authentic.
Let’s keep going with this Maker Movement. But let’s take it one step further. Let’s redesign the learning environments so that making isn’t a special event, making is happening all throughout our schools. Because making? It’s learning.
