Revelations in Making

Over the holiday break, I read a tweet from Laura Fleming (one of my many Maker gurus) that really "challenged" my thinking about our maker space, the language we use and the importance of student voice.

Now, I am no stranger to Laura's planning process for makerspaces and really thought I had considered all aspects in our school's makerspace design. I really thought I had it figured out!

And.....,no. No, I didn't.

We had created a virtual space to support our physical one so that students could access resources, share and contribute ideas and continue to make in and outside school hours. While all of this sounds great, there was one thing missing,

And that was their voice.

Even though students were (and still are) free to choose the resource they'd like to explore, I had created "challenges" for them to complete. How was I honoring their creativity and imagination by directing them this way?

I wasn't.

Upon returning to school after the holiday break, we sat all our makers down, talked with them about the space and their aspirations for it. We cleaned up all the "challenging" language and activities in our virtual and physical spaces with a focus on open exploration using the language "What do you want to make?"

While I don't believe that our journey will ever be over, I do believe we've taken a step in the right direction. 

It is my hope that our makerspace will always be a "work in progress".