Fans of Shop Class as Soulcraft: Studio H

[Jane in NC]

In light of our recent discussions of "Is there more to education than standardized testing?", I want to mention a documentary film (If You  Build It) about an amazing design/project based learning curriculum being pioneered by Emily Pilloton (her TED talk is here) and Matthew Miller.  It started in one of NC's poorest counties where of course Pilloton and Miller were offered minimal support from the status quo school board.  They are now at a charter school in Berkeley, CA.   You can read more about Project H here. 

 

There is much to love about the documentary. We see how a group of ten students--none of them thrilled about school in general--learn how applying math and science to their lives makes their education meaningful. These are rural kids so one of their projects is to build chicken coops which they design.  We see how the creative process works from initial drawings to mock ups to collaboration. (This included having chickens in the studio so students could watch them as they were designing.)  What is particularly exciting here is that Pilloton and Miller are not telling the students what to do.  They guide them--but they let the kids determine what works best.  If something fails, the students need to figure out why.

 

Very cool people.  Very cool film.  Lovely ray of hope.

 

 

[Erica in OR]

Interesting. Where were you able to get a copy of the documentary to watch?

 

Erica in OR

[Jane in NC]

Interesting. Where were you able to get a copy of the documentary to watch?

 

Erica in OR

 

It is making the rounds of film festivals.  I suspect that it will eventually be available elsewhere.

 

[Nan in Mass]

Very cool!

 

We used to have an 8th grade shop teacher who had all the kids make a model airplane, the balsa wood and paper kit kind. It served as applied math and reached students like my oldest who were mathy but not enjoying math. It also served as prep for the high school engineering design class. Both programs were scrapped to make room for more fine arts classes. the teachers were let go. This actually was part of why I chose to homeschool, not so much because these courses were no longer offered (we have Grampa lol) but because they were dropped right after my oldest took and loved them and significantly contributed to his feelings about formal education.

 

Nan

[MysteryJen]

Thanks so much, Jane! I will be looking for it when it comes west.

[readwithem]

Thank you so much Jane!  

 

"we're messin' with cow poop"

 

"Coopus Maximus"

 

"We're masochists, a little bit"  :laugh:

 

Her Ted Talk is one of my favorites.  I can't wait to see the movie!

[TechWife]

This sounds really good. I hadn't heard of this and yet it initially took place in my "back yard." I'll keep my eyes open for the film. 

[OneStepAtATime]

There are some great educational ideas on TED Ed.  Check out some from Sir Ken Robinson.  He's really funny, too.  

 

Project based learning was experimented with decades ago, by the way.  My brother got to be part of one study at a University when he was 5 and it instilled a life long love of learning in him.  He loved, loved, loved it and learned a ton, even though he was really young.  Unfortunately, when they tried implementing it in the public school system, the teachers were not given adequate training or support, and there were no clear guidelines for what would be considered a quality program.  The program was a failure and many thought it was the idea itself that was flawed, when in fact they really did a lousy job of finding a way to make it work in a brick and mortar setting with a large class of students and untrained teachers...sadly that gave this type of learning a bad reputation in the minds of many.