Maker-Centered Learning

Introduction

In an old mayonnaise factory that has been repurposed as a tinkering school in San Francisco, California, a group of children measure, saw, and screw together wood planks and other building materials to make a functional ice rink that they fully expect to play hockey on within a matter of days. Meanwhile, across the country, unschooled and homeschooled students working in a storefront outside of Boston mash together an assortment of spare electronic parts to make tiny robots that scamper across the floor. While families in Detroit gather in a church basement after Sunday service to make snow globes out of household materials and learn the basics of bicycle maintenance, families in New Mexico visit rural libraries to learn how to ...