Embracing Play

by | Aug 20, 2016 | Play

It only makes sense that a teacher who plays in the classroom is reaching a part of his or her authentic self that you can only reach by playing.  Silliness. The part of you that takes risks, experiences setbacks, tumbles over, drops the block, knocks the tower down accidentally and starts over. Draws. Sculpts. Builds. Designs. Laughs. Creates Puns. Writes jokes. A playful soul.

It’s inside each and every one of us, and if we ignore it, we’ll never really be alive in our classrooms.  We’ll go through the motions, follow the script, and deliver the knowledge. Serving it up in equal heaps hoping something sticks.

Or, we can embrace it. Cling to it. Use it to keep us engaged. Play when we need to remember why we became teachers in the first place.  Play so school will be better for them than it was for us.  Play because creativity belongs in our schools.

Sure, we CAN teach without play.  But, the question is, what will our kids be learning from us?

Every Little Maker

by | Aug 8, 2016 | Uncategorized

Every little maker has big dreams.  Tiny makers with ginormous ideas in our schools and in their homes.  Kids who want to think outside the box or build with the box.  I’m reading Creative Confidence one more time… This time through the lens of a little maker. Giving them the foundation of playfulness, risk-taking, and spirit of creativity.  A foundation so strong that it can never be stripped away.  Not at ten, fifteen, or fifty.

A school year ahead of me and ideas percolating like morning coffee.  The loss of Seymour Papert last week, and the legacy from him that remains.  A summer of connecting to other makers and learning about Design Thinking, creativity, and what matters.  This blog is a place to reflect, sort out ideas, and connect my own dots along the way.  It’s also for the makers.  The little maker I wanted to be in school as a kid, and the maker we can encourage our students to be throughout their time in our classrooms. It’s a blog for every little maker.

Making Is Telling Stories

by | Aug 6, 2016 | Uncategorized

You might be reading this thinking, I don’t know how to program an Arduino.  Maybe you are thinking, I don’t even know WHAT an Arduino is.  But, do you know kids?  Do you know your students, like on a level of building a strong relationship with them?  Listening to them. Understanding their passions. Connecting with them through tiny conversations day in and day out.  You do.  That’s what we do as teachers. We KNOW our kids.

Our kids have stories inside them.  Making will help them release it.

You don’t need a degree in engineering, an expensive set of 3d printers, or even a certificate declaring you a maker.  You ARE one.  Connect with your kids and share your stories.  Because in those stories, created with tools, and shared with the world?  That is the very thing that connects us all to who we are and brings learning alive.

Pick one lesson to get started. Exchange a worksheet for a pile of cardboard to create with.  Instead of asking kids to “do a worksheet” about a reading story, ask kids to design an invention to change the character’s life.  Encourage them to work in teams, think deeply about the story, and invent. Let them share their inventions with the class via a presentation, or even better, let them blog about it and share with the world.  Start with this one small thing.  Because that’s how stories begin… they just get started.