My School Endorses Forgery

I considered a title like; This student was caught in the middle of forgery... what happened next will make your eyes leak.  Then I thought better of it.  Watch this instead, then let me explain:

About a month ago I was approached to open up a High School for credit course for students who were struggling in the 'traditional' classroom, and were coming up to a critical period in their schooling where credits were important, but gaining skills were more important.  What could I offer in the way of a "Maker" course that could give these students a different way of engaging school -- not because they needed credits, but because they needed a better, safer way of being themselves at school.

Storing a Forge in a Maker Space

A steel shank?

Two students were requesting to make a fully functioning metal foundry and forge for the school campus where they would be allowed to liquefy metals and create weaponry.

In Open-Learning one must always say yes.  Improv has taught me to qualify that with a "yes, and..."  In this case I was able to say yes, and that we would provide any necessary resources and supervision they may require.

Today we fired up the forge (and the foundry) and showed off what happens when you let students off leash for a while.

Preparing Kindling

Obviously there were safety considerations, we had to evaluate the practicality, and we had to seek out reasonable ways of asking for funding and space, and we had to learn how to do it well.  It wasn't without conditions, but we were as open as we could be.  Things ebbed and flowed as the students learned to navigate without a leash.  What has been crucial for me is to ensure that I stay as far back and wait patiently to be invited in.  Well today I was invited in, in a big way.

The conventional work that goes along with a project like this would be the places where we (as teachers) believe that everything comes down to documentation.  That if we can't curate it, then it didn't happen.  -- the ugly side; if we put external motivators in place like "we will fund your project so long as you can dot these 'i's' and cross these 't's'...  These students are the archetypes for students who don't respond well to that and yet... and YET... they were able to acquire their own building materials, arrange for their own supervision and coaching, and over the weekend they built (after a bit of hard labour and error) a working forge and foundry that they were beyond excited to bring to school today.

30 seconds in a Fire

Here I will insert a quick anecdote about how the school science-fair closed on Friday.  These students were not enrolled.

Try as I might I could not avoid being 'teacher-minded' this afternoon -- searching for a way to have these students document, share, WORK in the classic sense on the parts of the project that weren't making things burn, and melting metal... and kept wanting to kick myself in the shins and yell "WAIT"... just wait.

Shaping Steel Rods

And then I asked if maybe I could make something with their foundry... maybe they'd let me play too.  Maybe I could make a metal cast of my own.  Oops!  Not only were they interested but the heated-argument which ensued about the process I would have to use to make it happen... and all the things that would have to be thought about before I could make it happen... basically they fought like two teachers who thought there was a very different way of teaching their pupil the 'right' way of doing something.  And then we went outside together and played.

I learned something today.  I just had to talk to them, and ask honest questions, and really I didn't have to act like a teacher... I just had to be me.  Which has been the secret I've held onto since the very beginning;

"They will learn in spite of what you're trying to teach them... you are not an expert and no better than any other teacher on the planet.  But you can do one thing better than everybody else in existence -- you can be yourself."

People wondering about what we are up to...

I'm pumped.  People around here are pumped.  Two students who are not known for being pumped are pumped.  We learned something without grades, without boundaries, without structure... simply because it was there to be learned... and we're on course to learn even more.

I don't know where we go from here, and it's big... scary big.  But I'm thankful that these guys helped me find a way to make it meaningful and real.

An Augmented Reality Sandbox

Two years ago, while sitting with my then 3yo son, and an iPad I was exploring an app called Science360 which allows you to spin a sphere of videos and articles - science related - and choose what interests you.  My son is/was a nut for science-related media and one of the videos we discovered together was this video published by Oliver Kreylos of UCDavis:

Being a science-8 teacher in Alberta meant I immediately saw how this tool could be used to open learning for Water Systems.  I added it to the list of things I wish I had time to build. Of late, the job situation has changed and I found myself with - time to build -.  Project one was to create my own Augmented Reality Sandbox, with the help of students, in the middle of the school-library during lunchtime. I spent some time with the open-source instructions published here: http://idav.ucdavis.edu/~okreylos/ResDev/SARndbox/ a National Science Foundation sponsored research project that has been published online for all to enjoy. Having established a rapport with the school I went out and purchased $2K of hardware to run the software and started developing relationships with the students and parents of the school and quickly found myself a very helpful and talented Architectural specialist, Vera Parlac who sketched up a design for housing our sandbox.

The soon to be built "Sandbox"

A $1200 box and a borrowed screen

Using calgaryfreecycle.org as a daily point of "found-treasure" I was able to locate some free wood, and incorporated an old desk that was being turfed by the school, and a defunct bookshelf from the library storage.  All of this was put together to hold my version of Frankenstein's Monster using the expertise of mostly grade 5 and 6 students who would rather cut, measure, and fasten than play out in the mild Calgary fall weather.

Learning to remove old nails

Learning to wield a saw

It took a few months to get to a point where programming would take place, and that stage (for those of us who struggle following step-by-step instructions) was easily the most difficult.  Thankfully the read-me files supplied with the programs answered the majority of questions, and there is an online forum for those who wish to participate globally in making more and more of these projects.

A bookcase on an old desk

Hockey-tape and wire... nature's solution

When the time came to calibrate, and after some major troubleshooting, my son and I stuck our hands into the sandbox, at school, in a library, and welcomed parents and students to come and play with us.

The infinite Sandbox

Playing in the dirt

The learning is obvious, but the reactions are my favourite part.  Such positive, responsive, and authentic joy being demonstrated by all ages.  The only question that comes up now; what's next Mr. C?!

Space Invaders

This happened today, as a result of some amount of intentional planning of space, class structure and project guidance.

My Grade 9's arrived today, and before I had a chance to welcome them (I was finishing up the creation of a quiz on light design for Grade 7s) they had started work using and modifying the space as they required.

They are working to design a set for a classic play, from which they will perform a brief scene. There was one guiding handout given at the outset, and since then it has been very much student guided and paced.

Document here: Drama 9 Directing Project

What to notice about the picture:

a) where the couch is.
b) how the chairs are arranged
c) number of students/size of space
d) accessories in the room

Pro's:

No start-up time lost
Engaged now for over 30 minutes
Helped one student on a personal project using Google Sketch-Up (which he will be using to create his 3D stage model

Cons:

I don't feel needed.
I have to be available, but want to get other design work done.
I'm discovering how superficial my needs as a teacher are...

The hard part now is to know when to engage a group, and when to let them "go".

Three Sides to Every Coin

In the recent past our school opened a new wing for our Jr. High students to enjoy.  As we took our fledglings under our new wing we hoped to see development toward a new and innovative approach to the system called "school".

Created on the iPad2 by @dramaticscience with cinemagr.am

My own goals included:
a) the ability of students to modify their space to suit their learning needs
b) the ability for teachers to modify their space to suit their learning needs
c) the ability for all to use technology that was appropriate to them
d) the ability for all to disrupt the status quo to discover new ways of doing age-old things.

...backfire...

It worked well, but it's happening in the wrong places, or for the wrong reasons.

From wikipedia:
A back-fire or backfire is an explosion produced by a running internal combustion engine that occurs in the air intake or exhaust system rather than inside the combustion chamber. The same term is used when unburned fuel or hydrocarbons are ignited somewhere in the exhaust system. A visible flame may momentarily shoot out of the exhaust pipe. Either condition causes an objectionable popping noise, together with possible loss of power and forward motion.

But a coin has two sides doesn't it?  When I sit back to look at this scenario it is easy to see both.

powered by Fotopedia

Side 1 @dramaticscience: This wk stdnts have switched their own scheds around, prioritized work-time over reg class time, & assumed control of learning life.#yay?

Side 2 @dramaticscience:  I.O.W. they skipped drama class to work on science projects last minute. Am I kewl with that? #morethanyoumightexpect

Side 3
But there's a third side, isn't there? The side of the coin that connects the two sides.  The side that circles both, and the side that you can carefully and precariously balance the coin on.  That's the side that we tend to forget about.  That's the side that sometimes we need to look at.

When we don't go together in a unified direction, when we don't support each other as we take risks to innovate, to improve, and to progress then we end up on two sides of the same coin, and that means we will fight to decide which side is up.

The tendency is to want to be on one side or the other.  Why not bring the two sides together and stand together on the third?  Perhaps then we'll prevent the backfires.