Over 20 years ago, I took a job teaching Chemistry at a private school. When I would go to parties, my answer to the inevitable “What do you do?” yielded fascinating reactions. Almost invariably, they were highly polarized: either “Ah, I loved high school Chemistry!” or “Sorry, I hated high school Chemistry.” When I inquired about what made the difference, the answer was clear: hands-on learning. Nearly everyone who loved Chemistry did lots of lab experiments and/or had a teacher who did lots of demonstrations.
It led me to wonder: what is the point of high school Chemistry? What is really the point of education? In the digital age, no one can reasonably argue that it is to impart information. Not one of those who loved high school Chemistry could tell me much about the content unless they had practiced it in the intervening years. In the time since I taught Chemistry, there has been a fundamental shift in educational priorities. Increasingly, creativity and critical thinking are prioritized over conformity and memorization, at least in theory. To what degree have these values translated to the students’ actual classroom experience?
My Chemistry students immediately felt the effects of my understanding of the power of hands-on experiences. I did daily demos and weekly labs. I once had students explode a penny by holding it over a bunsen burner too long, resulting in a lecture about dangerous lab practices but also one about the differences in melting points between the zinc that fills a penny and the copper that coats it. When I left that job, I taught middle school science at a private school in Los Angeles, attracted by their well-thought-out hands-on curriculum. My subsequent architecture education helped me understand the role of hands-on learning in design as well as the application of design principles in myriad aspects of everyday life.
By the time I joined a pilot Makerspace program at a public school a few years ago, my belief in the importance of hands-on learning for science, design, engineering, and mathematics was cemented. Makerspace programs are common in private schools, libraries, and after school experiences, but rare as an integrated part of a public school day. A quick perusal of copious educational standards, instructional minute requirements, and other “specials” makes the lack of Makerspaces fairly obvious: time. With only so many minutes in a day, it is hard to justify the presence of an auxiliary program that most consider to be just fun. However, when we consider current educational needs and best practices, the functions of a Makerspace are essential to the educational process.
Though we sometimes discuss these ideas as though they are new, progressive education is over 100 years old. In the early 1900’s, John Dewey argued that learning by doing is necessary for true learning. In his book Democracy and Education, he wrote, “...the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking, or the intentional noting of connections; learning naturally results.” Educational theorists like Jean Piaget, Maria Montessori, Lev Vygotsky, Seymour Papert, and Sir Ken Robinson have added to Dewey’s ideas of the social, experiential, and creative nature of learning.
Makerspaces, when designed thoughtfully, support the practice of experiential and collaborative education. When students tinker, they foster physical awareness of design, forces, connectivity, and material properties. When they reason out project ideas, they discover the usefulness of precise language and its connection to the physical world around them. When they share their ideas, they develop communication skills and they learn about how their creations fit into a wider context. Perhaps most importantly, designing and creating develops students’ sense of agency, as it allows and encourages them to explore and manipulate their world. Though Makerspaces are treated as auxiliary, their potential to be central to the educational process is clear.
Currently, relegation of Makerspaces to after school or private school takes them out of reach of the most marginalized communities. A child whose mother is working three jobs to make ends meet is often not able to research or afford after school enrichment activities. Even if she can, a student’s participation in these activities is limited to his interest in them. The educational benefits of Makerspaces should not be limited to students interested in engineering or technology. Neither should it be limited to those with the means to pay for a premium experience. All should be exposed and the best way to do so is school-day programs at public schools.
When asked to explain what a Makerspace is, I usually cite the parable of the blind men describing the elephant: some say an elephant is like a wall because they are touching its side, some say like a rope because they are touching its tail, etc. The concept of a Makerspace contains so many possible interpretations, with many thinking it necessarily contains robotics, others thinking it necessarily contains woodworking or circuitry. The fact of the matter is that maker-concepts can be successfully taught with very limited tools and recycled materials. When focusing on the fundamental concepts of creativity, agency, and exploratory learning, a Makerspace can be both accessible and effective. Its role and effectiveness is determined by thoughtful planning and integration into existing curricula. Such integration is also the key to working it into an already-full school day.
In the educational field, we regularly hear and spout rhetoric about the importance of creativity, growth mindset, connecting with or building up a student’s schema. Do we regularly practice ways to build these in the classroom? Makerspaces are an avenue to hands-on learning capable of supporting these goals while also supporting the traditional content functions of education. As an integrative practice, they deserve a space in the busy days of public school life.
