Right now, at the MIT Media Lab, RISD the d.school: Institute of Design at Stanford, and NYU’s ITP program, graduate students are tinkering, designing and making at the edges of technology with tools that we can only imagine, as well as tools that we have had at our sides for ages. Here in New York City, children at places like Beam Center and the Makery are working to understand component parts of technology –circuitry, sodoring, programming, robotics– in combination with a multitude of design techniques to “make” their way to innovative implemenation of powerful ideas. Taken together, there is widespread agreement that makers represent an important future direction for education — a perfect combination of tools for scientific and design innovation and 21st century skills like collaboration, flexibility and creativity.

Since our inception, Blue School‘s DNA has been infused with the spirit of making. Three of our founders (Chris Wink, Matt Goldman, and Phil Stanton, the founding Blue Men) used a variety of materials and big ideas to build Blue Man Group, and a show that comments critically and creatively on our society. Then, as now, we understand that children need to own and make their ideas real using the academic, social and technical skills we teach in school.  In many ways, Blue School assigns a 21st century exclamation point to the education research that informs our work, as well as shoots off a question mark about what is next and how we can keep getting better.

A lot is going on with our makers at Blue School right now, and we are building the scaffolding for more to come.

Next week, our second graders will be learning to fly (almost). Working with a visiting faculty member from Beam Center (who is a tinkerer, woodworker, artist, and robot-maker in his own right), our seven and eight year olds will build a glider together. Their idea to build a glider emerged from studying birds and looking at DaVinci’s observations, designs, and artistry. In kindergarten, children are building houses, vehicles and hotels to redesign our neighborhood which is still struggling to recover after Sandy (yes, more than six months later). They are using tubing, soil, wood, and other materials at various scales. In first grade, children have built a classroom-sized wooden Rube Goldberg machine, and are working diligently to add, take away, and explore to see how things move, fall down, and stand up.

They are scientists and tinkerers, asking questions, failing and trying again. They discuss how machines can have an impact on the world.

And, what’s next? We are bringing the practice of making to a new level at Blue School by working to codify a sequence of specific skills and experiences children need to be innovators and makers in the era of digital technology. If we aim to graduate 21st century inventors, engineers, and creatives, then school must be a laboratory where children can test out and experience those roles now. Thanks to conversations with people like our esteemed Advisory Board member John Maeda, president of RISD, Jon Santiago at HTINK,  Mike Fischthal at Pixel Academy, Brian Cohen at Beam Center, and Deb Windsor at Construction Kids, and influences from books like Design.Make.Play and MakeSpace, we hope to make the conversation around integrating and teaching 21st century skills broader, louder and more visible by developing maker spaces and experiences at Blue School that give our children access to the same types of thinking that is happening at the graduate level.

I’m thrilled to announce guest bloggers Molly DeGesero and Richard Jenkins, the teaching team of Kindergarten B. At Blue School, we think a great deal about how children develop not only the skills but also the agency to become active and purposeful readers and writers. In the post below, Molly and Rich show how literacy (as well as so much else) begins with children’s natural inclination to tell stories.

From Molly and Rich: 

“The children themselves continually reminded us that play [is] still their most usable context.” Vivian Gussin Paley 2004

 Every day in Kindergarten, children walk into the classroom filled with ideas, excitement and energy. It is our job as educators to watch the children at their work: play. When children play, they tell a story. They tell stories based on their lives, their experiences, their hopes and their dreams. A play theme of family might tell the story of a little girl lost in the woods found by her faithful puppy and returned to the safety of her home. Another story might begin with Ninjas conquering the bad guys of the world and transform into a peaceful meal around a common table. As we observe, we think about ways for children to document and record the stories they create through play.

This year, Kindergarten B had the opportunity to visit Construction Kids, a child centered woodworking lab in Brooklyn, where we created wooden vehicles. When we returned to Blue School holding our vehicles proudly,  we naturally went back to the work of children: we needed to play with them! After painting them with Glow Paint and playing with them in various environments from the Glow Hall to our own classroom, we elevated elements of story embedded in their play with these vehicles. We asked the children to create story maps: Who drives your vehicle (character)? Where does your vehicle drive (setting) and what does your vehicle do (action)?

With our story maps and vehicles in hand, small groups of children ventured out into our Construction Lab to “play the story of our vehicles.” Children first sat in a circle and looked through their story maps, but like any good author plans change once you begin writing! A story map including an adventure in the forest changed when the vehicle met another vehicle that took them into an elaborate city dwelling. Children’s social interactions  influenced the kind of stories they were telling! At this moment, we supported the children in documenting and saving their stories. Once they had finished playing, they sat around the computer and dictated their “vehicle story” to a teacher. Children listened to one another’s stories with care and intention. They were excited at the twists and turns taken and even remarked that what they played wasn’t necessarily the story that ended up being told. Below are two sample stories from this experience.

Story A: Told in the Construction Lab with Glow Vehicle

3/14/13

Once upon a time, there was a car that had lots of friends. She was thinking, “Why can’t I go somewhere else?” Finally, she wanted to go somewhere and that included the places she was close to. Then she remembered that the closest places were where there was nature. Then she thought, “Why can’t I build a road there so I can go whenever I want to?” “I’m going to build a road so I can get there.” She made friends with animals. Then the animals needed to get to places. She brought them there.

The End

 Story B: Told in the Construction Lab with Glow Vehicle

I am a car, which lives in a house. I am a normal car but I fly and swim in rivers. I have three friends, one is named Orion, one is named Dino and one is named India. I can do most anything. But I can get stuck in rain. I have the power to travel anyway but I cannot die. I stick with what I know. I believe in what I see. I made my life about recycling and keeping planet earth clean. I live in a recycling plant made for cars with an area with really nice beds and jumps and everything. I love to go visit my friends India and Orion. Dino comes to visit me. Not the other way around. I have one more question. Think up some more please.

The End

Blue School prospective parents sometimes ask me what qualifications I look for in a teacher, or where our teachers come from. I usually stop and have to think, because the qualifications for me of a masterful teacher are truly a set of personal and intellectual qualities demonstrated over time more than a list of itemized skills. And while checklists, rubrics, and multiple lists of attributes that define great teaching and skilled teachers certainly exist, I think we have lost the forest for the trees in a profession that lies so stubbornly on that sparkling line between art and science.

For me, and at Blue School, a masterful teacher is a person of intellect, who is engaged and excited by the prospect of understanding a child’s mind, personhood, and individual nature a little bit better every day. She has chosen this vocation not to be loved by her students, but to appreciate and understand who they are and the mystery and wonder that they bring each day. A masterful teacher has fun with children and holds them in the highest regard (and thus to the highest standards), looks them in the eyes, laughs at their jokes, smiles when they succeed, and helps them get up when they fail.

A masterful teacher has a vision for the classroom that is both responsive to the children he teaches but also unwavering in his attention to what they need to learn at all developmental stages. She knows that freedom of thought comes within structure and parameters. He cherry-picks the best from great educational programs and current ideas, and makes them his own. She is inviting to families and values their partnership, and works to ensure that each child is seen and known from all sides. He is a reader of books and a person with ideas about the world.

A masterful teacher is a team player, and knows that her practice is as much about building the school as it is about her classroom. She is courageous enough to take and incorporate feedback from colleagues, and creative enough to take the suggestions farther than the giver ever intended. He is a collaborator through thick and thin, knowing the work of nurturing good citizens and people requires hearing one another out, healthy disagreement, and patience, as well as the thrill that comes with an idea better played out by two rather than one. She is exceedingly humble and curious about our work, knowing that the more she learns, the more questions she will have.

This is a tall order, and it is no wonder that as the national conversation about education narrows, so many of these brilliant and expansive thinkers are leaving the classroom. I see it as my responsibility to create a culture where people like this can learn, grow, take risks and thrive, just as we want them to do for our children.

This weekend, I was surrounded by close to 10,000 people — teachers, school leaders, and other educators — who chose to attend the ASCD annual conference (#ASCD13) in Chicago. There were many important ideas to share — and I will do so in future posts — but I wanted most immediately to share with you my thoughts listening to Maya Angelou.

In a room of 10,000, Ms. Angelou made the space feel intimate by singing an old song with lyrics: “God puts rainbows in the clouds.” She explained her belief that the rainbows in the clouds are there “so that each of us- in the dreariest and most dreaded moments- can see a possibility of hope.” Angelou told her own life story and spoke about her own rainbows that allowed her to grow from a child who was selectively mute for several years into the woman, defying any label, that she is today. Then, she said to all of us, “YOU. You are the rainbows in the clouds.”

We educators are lucky in that no matter what our school’s circumstance, our every day work begins with hope. We come to school with the hope and optimism that today, we might change a life, light a fire, catch a moment of creativity that can one day change the world. We also hope that the minds we touch will not only be changed but that they will change others.  Every day at Blue School, I cherish the responsibility to lead a school where it is possible, through our efforts, for children to do  and practice the kind of thinking that can “make a ding in the universe.” We do not take this responsibility lightly.

Angelou ended with the poem, Brave and Startling Truth that she wrote for the 50th anniversary of the United Nations. These two final stanzas remind us that we represent the possible:

“When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear

When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.”

I am grateful to have the chance to come to it each day.

A few weeks ago, I went to MoMath, an incredible new museum in Manhattan where the beauty, complexity, and joyful nature of math is visible and available for thirsty and voracious learners to explore. I gravitated towards their Zometools, building tools that allow children to build all types of geometric constructions. I rushed to purchase many boxes of these tools (among other fantastic games) for Blue School. I delivered them to classrooms on Monday. On Thursday, a child came to me with the sculpture he made from the tools, and a card on which he labeled the sculpture, “Flaming Flowers.” He told me I could “borrow” the sculpture for a few days – his way of saying thank you for purchasing the tools for his classroom. It sits on my table now, on loan until Monday. 

I am jealous of the children at Blue School.

Because they take off their shoes in the morning as though they have just come home.

Because they begin their day by entering into a safe, joyful circle of friends, and even sometimes dance and sing to start their days.

Because then, they get to read, to laugh, to delve into books about families, or “greedy apostrophes,” or the One and Only Ivan, about triumphs, the history of the world, or about the possibilities for Lego. They get to talk and think about these books.

Because they play through their stories and ideas, and then write them up, talking deeply with friends and teachers about their ideas and their work.

Because during their days, they discuss revolution, the difference between work and play, the best way to build a ramp for speed, how electricity really works, how to make a map or a graph, how to find out who counts, where our food comes from, or what it means when a fish market in lower Manhattan is torn down.

Because they can take a puppet parade into the streets and sing loud enough so that the whole Seaport can hear.

Because at two and three, they rub their hands in shaving cream all over the tables and themselves in glow lights, and people around them smile, instead of telling them to stop.

Because when they have an idea, someone is right there to listen and ask questions about it.

Because they are transforming a classroom into a forest.

Because they write well and articulate their grand thoughts; because they can argue a point.

Because their teachers write about them with admiration and appreciation between the lines, and collect their work with them to archive it so that they will forever have a story of learning to share.

Because they can make imaginary castles and skyscrapers, as well as forts and art installations with their blue blocks. And then they can knock them down with the confidence that they can build something new.

Because their parents are discerning and know that deep exploration and finding out, as well as

being seen,

known,

and heard,

are at the center of a great education.

Because they are deep into Howard Zinn.

Because we have stealth artists who change the Andy Goldsworthy-inspired installation on the 5th floor every day without being noticed.

Because they challenge one another’s thinking about numbers, and problems, and give each other feedback, and actually – even at 3 years old – reflect on their work.

Because their families sit together and stay together and live their lives together and form a community around the belief that they are giving their children a voice, the tools and the experiences in the world to

find their passion

make it big

and make a ding in the universe.

Marianne Williamson says “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.”

I often think about what it is that gets in the way of a national commitment to change the way we educate our children, given that everything we know about the brain says that children must discover, and play, and solve complex problems. I wonder if it is the powerful results (Williamson’s “light”) that we see when it happens, and the potential for real, potent voices of all kinds, and shapes and sizes to emerge and to challenge our what-has-always-beens. Do we have what it takes to allow for a generation of children to grow up with the sharp and clear determination as well as the capacity to challenge us all to be better?

For us at Blue School, it is an honor and a privilege to spend our lives pursuing the connection between what we know about children’s learning and our educational practices, and to reconnect that which we all say that we want – a more sustainable and harmonious world – with our daily lives in school.

Dear friend on the other side of the world,

Today I am sending you

a model of my city.

Place it on your dresser

so you can smell the

salty air by the East River,

hear skateboards rolling

over the concrete street,

see cars driving on back roads,

hear the wind zooming

through the wavy trees and

the still, still buildings,

see the lights on the Brooklyn

Bridge making shadows in the water.

So you can hear music

that calls you like

Pavlov’s dog and makes you

want to run to the

truck and eat ice cream,

smell the omelets

and the french toast

and the salad

coming from Hope and

Anchor in Brooklyn

Taste the black and white cookies and

smoked salmon coming from

the restaurant on Barclay Street,

and the salty french fries,

see the taxis driving fast like a cheetah.

So you can see the seagulls

wings flapping

like a bumblebee,

see the bikers’ adrenaline

pumping on the bike trail,

the silent buildings all in a

row like a graveyard on Bleecker Street,

hear the ferry crashing through

the big waves in the water,

see the ice skaters at Rockefeller Center.

So you can climb a skyscraper.

Climb to the top

and wave to me

Then please, please

come visit me.

*Inspired by “Dear Friend in the Desert” by Kristine O’Connell George