My reaction to "tinkering school"

Gever Tulley has a very interesting approach to learning. He has created "tinkering school," a brainchild of his that focuses on letting children teach themselves. He provides guidance and help when necessary, but tries to let his students learn from their own mistakes. There are no tests, no specific instructions, or even any assignments, however, the kids still seem to learn a lot.

I don't really have much distrust or dissatisfaction with the usual American standards of education, but I think that Tulley is really onto something here.  Kids, especially young ones, love to dream and create. Expressing yourself is hardly a challenge when you are a youngster, but sometimes it can be a challenge to find the correct venue for doing so. By letting children work with real tools and build real creations, Tulley is making their daydreams into reality.

Oddly enough, my favorite thing about Tulley's method of teaching is that he celebrates failure. One of the very few gripes that I have with the way that I grew up was that I was taught without the possibility of failing. Growing up with things such as No Child Left Behind and summer school has reinforced into my generation the philosophy that you cannot fail. By allowing his students to fail, Tulley is teaching them to fix the problems with their project and learn from their own mistakes. Failures can be celebrated when they inevitably lead to success, and makes those successes feel much more deserved.

all in all, I don't feel that Tulley is advocating this type of education for all venues, but it sure seems to work for him. Seeing all of the cool contraptions that his "elementary age" students were able to create continually made me think "oh wow, that's cool" and many times, even "there's no way that I could build that, and I'm an adult!"

Labor Day Weekend

Most Labor Day weekends are full of fun and excitement; however, my weekend was full of dread and disappointment. I spent the vast majority of my weekend doing homework as well as installing a sprinkler system, which was certainly not the most enjoyable weekend that I've ever had. Being over 2 weeks into the school year generally means that the flow of homework has begun. I've become accustomed to plenty of homework, but it is still a pretty big drag.

As it turns out, installing a sprinkler system is not the most exciting activity that I have been involved in. First, I had to tear up most of my lawn, which is actually a lot less fun than it sounds. Once the lawn has been torn up, I had to start digging. Luckily, the other members of my "sprinkler installation squad" took care of connecting the sprinklers, as well as cleaning up the majority of my mess.

All in all, it was far from the worst weekend that I've had, but certainly not the Labor Day weekend that I was looking forward to.