The Maker Revolution*

 

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“You seem like someone people in New York would call a maker,” I remarked. “Do you mean a doer, sir?” our student replied. “No,” I said, adding something like, “Doers are great too, but I am thinking about a maker. Someone who is passionate about making things, by which I mean imagining things, designing things and then bringing things to life…well, by making them.” “Thanks, sir,” responded our student. “I would love to make this”, he continued, gesturing towards the marvelously intricate twin-engine airplane he was drawing.

And I would venture to say, dear members of the Lycée Français community, similar conversations would be possible with any number of our students on a given day: many are those who seem to be engaged in one dimension or another of what we could call the making process. Inspired by their wonderful art teachers, and driven by deep personal interest, our students can often be seen designing clothing, buildings, space craft, cars and all manner of interesting objects, recreating the world around them and envisioning the world of their dreams.

Ever more frequently, they can also be found playing a digital game called “Minecraft”. To quote the Minecraft website, “Minecraft is a game about breaking and placing blocks” to build structures of any conceivable kind: towers, machines, skyscrapers, space stations, you name it. There are two versions, one that is entirely creative, for players interested in planning and constructing, and one that is called ‘survival mode” where participants are also obliged to defend themselves against roving monsters!

My own family is most familiar with the first version, but can attest to the outstanding quality of the architectural and construction-related learning it allows. Picture Hogwarts from the Harry Potter series and then imagine embarking on the process of designing and building that mythical school, identical in almost every feature to the movie representation of it, block by block. Or better still: picture a student conceiving and then constructing his or her own invented school.

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Hogwarts designed in Minecraft

Another example of the “making” phenomenon that appears to be gaining such momentum around the Lycée Français is our terrific after-school robotics activity (see the short video we published about it on the LFNY Life Blog last January 4th). Brilliantly led by our secondary school technology integrator Adena Dershowitz, this new weekly club brings together 17 sixth, seventh and eighth grade students to study the critical importance of engineering in human society, but above all to roll up their sleeves and delve into the process of designing, building and rendering functional their very own robots.

Visiting with our robot-making students yesterday afternoon, I was bowled over by their enthusiasm. In explaining their motivations for joining this new club, they expressed time and time again just how thoroughly exciting it was to be figuring out how to solve problems through robotics. Yet it is clearly the joy not just of imagining solutions, but of actually using their hands to build robots which inspires them. As one student eloquently explained, she loves “putting the pieces together and creating life”. And when I asked everyone about the robots they dreamed most of constructing, their answers ranged from a self-filtering water bottle to a supersonic aircraft to a teleportation machine…and the list goes on, each proposal as ardently described and as seriously envisioned as the next. Our students want to make the world better, literally!

One of the questions on my mind and that of everyone with whom I have discussed the maker revolution, this movement which appears to be so characteristic of our times, is the following: what more can we do to nurture the present and future makers in our midst? If you too have thoughts on this important matter, please do not hesitate to contact me by email. Or we can talk about it happily and fittingly in person at our upcoming Gala, “Advancing Minds into a Digital Future.” Your input is highly welcome!

*A title inspired by Chris Anderson’s superb book, “Makers: the New Industrial Revolution” (New York: Crown Business, 2012)

 


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