This week, we read Educating the Reflective Practitioner by Donald Schon (a presentation) and an interview by Hertz with Csikszentmihalyi on maker movements.
The former talked a lot about the educational system, the history of schools, educational reform and just a lot of issues the education system has been facing. I don't think that it was related to making very specifically, but it did talk about the methods of teaching and that could really be incorporated into teaching in a way that encouraged active and creative learning.
It was interesting to see how the teachers automatically assumed (from the perspective that they were given, to be fair) that the student following the directions of the other student was a "slow learner" and had trouble with directions. I think that this is unfortunately really representative of the education system as a whole.
I have taken a couple of classes in which we have talked about the education system and it has always been a really discouraging conversation, in my opinion. There are a lot of students that are overlooked or dismissed instead being given the help or support that they need to succeed. For example, families that come to the United States and don't speak much English, but have children that need to enroll in the public school system (or any school). They are required to take classes that they may not understand, not because of the material, but because of the the language it is taught in and the inability to overcome that barrier quick enough. These students are quickly left behind despite their intelligence and potential.
There are also fundamental issues in the structure of the schools. The fact that they were started as a way to keep children off the streets make them seem to be designed like prisons. There are gates and there are hours upon which you are not allowed to be out on the streets. You must be in school, in your place, and the teacher is set up to act like the keeper of that prison. Punish the inquisitive, curious, unruly, "problematic" child who causes the rest of the class to get restless.
It was also interesting in the paper how he mentioned that schools were built around the idea of keeping professions out and that the University of Chicago was discouraged from creating their business school. I think that this has actually put our students at a significant disadvantage. I think that professions are so far out of sight during your education that once you get to the end of your education (or towards it) you are never really sure what to do. There are only a certain couple of professions that are really advertised and well known (e.g. doctor, lawyer, teacher, etc.) but there are so many more careers out there that students really don't see. I think this makes it hard to see what to study and what is relevant in your studies towards your future career.
Anyways, there are endless amounts of things that can be said about the education system and the flaws. It's unclear of what exactly we need to do to change it because, as the author said, some of the issues are embedded in society. However, the one thing that is very clear is that we do need change.
For the second reading, an interview with Hertz, was Csikszentmihalyi basically just pointing out all of the negative aspects of the maker movement and all of the ways that it is failing. On one hand, it's good to get perspective from a different side, but on the other it's pretty discouraging to see that there are so many flaws with the movement.
I think that it is still fundamentally a good idea, but it is definitely true that the maker movement has become a privileged, pricey, DIY task in Americans and Europeans. I think that this doesn't necessarily take away from it, but I think that if the majority of projects continue to be copying other peoples' projects and ideas, then no new ideas are being created and people aren't really being innovative or contributing. I think that it is a difficult distinction and it is really cool when people are creating things from only their surroundings and what they have but I don't think that it's a necessity in making. Regardless, there was a lot of validity to his accusations and I wonder what impacts it will have on the continued growth of the movement as a whole.
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