It's Time for an Educational Jailbreak

Coding, Maker Space, Video, Photography, Graphic Design, Sound Engineering, and countless other great educational innovations have suffered far too long in the educational prisons of the world. It is time we break them out and truly integrate them into the core curriculum.

Coding is math. Video editing is story telling. Making is practical application of all kinds of "core" skills. They have to move though beyond being viewed as clubs, fun Friday activities, or just stuff hippies do to avoid integrating fully into society.

The education establishment has this terrible tendency to bottle up and lock away approaches to teaching and learning that don't look like something it experienced in the classroom twenty years ago or worse isn't obviously a part of subject areas measured by state assessments.

My former district took away specials like gym and art and made them test prep time. Recess was all but eliminated for more reading instruction. So much for educating the whole child.

This has to stop.

We can lament this all we want and nothing will change or we can begin to focus on the pedagogy and develop sound ways that coding builds success in the algebra classroom and that iMovie Book Trailers build excitement for reading and a demonstration of literacy. That is how we break down the prison walls that are keeping great innovation on the fringes of education and not at its core.

Let your kids build the ultimate flying machine at Instructables

There are all kinds of things waiting to be built at Instructables.com.

Check out all of the different paper airplane plans and make the ultimate flying machine today.

Instructables: Paper Airplanes

Our second graders are digging in and next week we'll let them soar in the gym. That is one way to make it through the Michigan winter.

Elementary Market Day: A great 'maker' experience

Two  of the really cool events that happen at the elementary school where I teach and the elementary school where my daughter attends are the student-led market days.  The two schools put their own spin on market day, but the premise is the same.

It is a mini maker faire, DIY entrepreneurial experience where students develop, market, and then sell handmade wares to classmates. My daughter used unwanted upholstery samples to create microfiber computer/smart phone screen cleaners and cloth book marks. Other projects kids made included root beer floats, pvc pipe marshmallow shooters, and laser cut metal letters painted in popular university colors glued on a magnet. I have even seen a massage booth and a miniature golf hole complete with volcano.

What an amazing outpouring of creativity was on display in those gymnasiums!

Products have to be pre-approved by staff but created primarily by the students themselves. Each school has students advertise during the days leading up to the big sales day either via poster or promotional spots they deliver live during morning announcements.

At Douglas Elementary, Market Day works as a fundraiser where proceeds go toward the end of the year 5th grade celebration at a local fun spot. Raising money this way gives the kids a stake in the efforts and builds a sense of giving and working toward a shared cause. Items are sold to other kids and nobody ends up with ugly wrapping paper and overpriced cheese logs like the average fund raiser.

At Blue Star Elementary, teachers use Market Day to build meaning around economic concepts like operating costs and profit. Students have to use their own money or seek a loan from family members. All costs have to be detailed and recorded. These students get to keep all of the money from their sales but must re-pay any loans immediately.

Talk about authentic assessment when it comes to whether kids developed and marketed a successful product.

The thing I like most about the Market Day concept is that it lets each kid develop something they enjoy from their own interests and background. These are just a couple of ways to hold Market Day. I am sure with a little more creativity, there are lots of other ways too.