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

We see many young people in the Lab. Most are in the age range or 11 years old and up. Some are through visiting school groups, some through our Boot Camps, most recently in collaboration with the Greenbush education cooperative, some through the work-study program at ICC and some are through the youth employment program of Southeast Kansas Works. 

There are several characteristics shared by many of these young people. First, most are not very good at working with hand tools and in general, working with their hands. With hands-on shop classes all but gone from many of our nation’s school districts, learning to work with our hands has taken a back seat to standardized testing. Some early adopter school districts are starting to incorporate hands-on, (also known as experiential) learning. Perhaps we are moving in the right direction. 

We also see a fixed mindset in many of these young people. The emphasis has been on final results rather than the learning that takes place during the process. Many have not learned about the great knowledge available by learning from failure. Some students are hesitant to try anything new or try to make anything for fear it might not turn out well. Finally, we see students that when they get stuck on knowing what to do next, they raise their hands and stop working until a teacher or advisor can get to them and give them the answer they need to continue. 

All of this combined can be thought of as education without agency. In this case, “agency” means self-confidence, self-reliance, self-efficacy and initiative all rolled into one. Without agency, many young people enter the work force (afraid to start a business on their own) looking for a job in the one area of study for which they went to school. Many go about their work days waiting for the next instruction from their bosses or the company instruction manuals. They have a hard time looking around to see what needs to be done, and doing it, rather than waiting for the next instruction. 

We see this all the time in the work-study students and other young people we use at Fab Lab ICC to help us keep the place in shape; cleaned up and ready for our members’ use. We give them a tour and try to point out the things we don’t want to see; excess dust, clutter, dirty floors, etc. We’ve used cleaning check lists and yet it takes a while for most to learn to take initiative and take care of the items needing attention without waiting for use to tell them. Some are never able to make the transition to a “self-starter” with initiative to do what needs to be done. 

We believe experiential learning—learning by doing while learning from our mistakes-- at all levels of school would greatly help give these young people agency to go along with their education. In the Boot Camp example, we’ve found that the young campers can finally learn that there are tools like Google and YouTube to answer their questions when there is not a teacher available. This discovery is very empowering and helps them begin to see that they can figure many things out on their own. We strive to give all young people experiencing Fab Lab ICC a taste of this “agency” to help enrich all aspects of their future lives; academic, personal and professional. 

Jim Correll is the director of Fab Lab ICC at the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship on the campus of Independence Community College. He can be reached at (620) 252-5349 or by email at jcorrell@indycc.edu.