Jim Correll, director Fab Lab ICC at Independence Community College, Independence Kansas 

Everyone learns in different ways—some scientists say people learn in as many as ten different ways. Traditional education models for K – 12 and higher education have not been very good at discovering those differences on a personal level in each student, much less figure out how to support each student’s best way of learning. This has been especially true since the turn of the twentieth century when we began sorting kids by age putting them in classrooms where everyone experienced the same lessons presented in the same ways to all students. Those that happened to learn by that one method did very well while the academic performance of the others ranged from average to poor. The ones that do not learn well by this one-method-fits-all model are branded as slow learners and many times trouble-makers. 

I guess I was one of the fortunate ones. I functioned well in the academic, book-learning environment. I was valedictorian in my high school class of a whopping twenty-eight students. When I really learn best is when I do a little bit of reading and then a little bit of related doing. Back to read some more then do some more. Maybe this is because my mother was very academic and my dad could make almost anything with his hands and some tools. Learning in my formative years was from academic school work, the lessons of the farm and tinkering in our home work-shop. Today, I hesitate to use the term “work-shop” due to the lack of organization. Nevertheless, we had tools and I learned to use them to make all kinds of stuff. Some worked, some didn’t but at the same time I was learning things from books, I was learning things at home tinkering; a powerful combination. 

For me, the learning continues. I’ve been reading a book, “Inventing To Learn-Making, Tinkering and Engineering in the Classroom” while at the same time observing, and helping with, the goings-on of our Fab Lab ICC boot camps. This year, we’ve partnered with the Greenbush Education cooperative to allow us to host up to twenty-four young students in each of the six week-long day-camp sessions. (Monday through Thursday from 9:00 to 11:30.) 

From the book I am learning that since the 1970’s and 1980’s there have been people at places like MIT and Stanford that have discovered the power of learning that takes place when making, tinkering and engineering all occur in the classroom. Essentially everyone can learn by making. When I walked through the Fab Lab yesterday, observing twenty-four youth, grades four and five, planning, designing and beginning to make a project created in their minds, the atmosphere was electric. Kid after kid was absolutely beaming as they learned to draw dimensioned shapes in a program or to use a jig-saw or table saw for the first time. 

These are NOT projects from a book with the exact instructional steps laid out. They are not so-called experiments in a book for which the outcome is known. They are projects created in the minds of each boot camper. The learning magic happens when kids are engaged in making something that is their creation of deep interest to them. A young camper wants to build steps so her little dog can climb into bed with her. The self-confidence she gains in using a table saw for the first time will last her the rest of her life. Imagine how many adult women lack the self-confidence to use a tool like that and she’s built it at age ten. The magic taking place in these camps goes far, far beyond the current fun the kids are having while they work on their projects. The magic will be there for the rest of their lives. 

Some really smart people, forty years ago, discovered the learning power of making, tinkering and engineering in the classroom. It’s time we incorporate maker spaces and fab labs in all schools everywhere. That’s how our young students will again attain global prominence in science, technology, engineering and math. Some of these kids will become the greatest innovators and inventors of their generation.