Maker-Centered Learning

Foreword

I live in a rural town where most of the roads are dirt, where there are no traffic lights or stores, where the firefighters are volunteer citizens. Other than homes, the town has few buildings: a town hall, a post office, a church, a bar, and a school. For 25 years I was one of the few teachers in our small public school; almost everyone in my town under the age of 50 is a former student of mine. Students from this school have done remarkably well, by almost any measure: test scores, college, careers, and adult lives.

Here is an important thing: students in the school spent much of their time making things. Students worked hard at literacy and math skills, knowledge of the world, just like at any school. But they did not focus that ...