Unconference: Schools and Education
We had a pretty free-form exchange of views and experience. With one exception, there were no formal educators in the group.
Participants:
- @Fernando_GA from Hong Kong Technical University
- @Monique not an educator but has worked with after school “Code Club”
- Me (@Janet) leading Restart’s work with education
- Claudia Munz, sociologist based in Munich and part of repair education programme there
- Torsten, studied computer science, electronic engineering and now works with embedded systems
- Michael Beha, PhD student in product design
- Alex, technical background
Key points from the discussion:
- Across the world, the space for hands-on, self-guided, exploratory education that might allow for fixing in schools seems limited. Free schools and private schools seem to be the only “easy” places to link with
- Procurement in public schools can make it difficult to look at involving kids in the repair of school IT equipment
- Parents seem very supportive of repair and tinkering - perhaps we need to concentrate on them?
- Starting at an earlier age might afford more opportunities
- Summer schools - extracurricular but intensive events might be a good place to look
- Shorter “taster” activities can be useful in getting into state schools with more constraints
- We discussed how much change needs to be top-down (through “Manifestos”, lobby of policymakers, etc) and how much needs come up from the grassroots. Conclusion: we need a push and a pull. We can’t do one without the other. We need activities to be “based on the heart” as Claudia said
- How do we support keen educators? Do we have kits and equipment ready to loan or give? (These are often the main constraint in getting started.) @Sergio talked about sending equipment to Salesian schools in Bolivia. Claudia talked about creating 10 kits for repair education that she can loan out to interested schools.
- Michael indicated that there is still not enough disassembly and tinkering in product design education. Are we linking with engineering and product design subjects effectively, not just at universities but in upper secondary education? Could secondary school students contribute to iFixit’s technical writing programme?
Links:
- Radical repair education project in Munich
- Restart’s enrichment programme and link to NYC school/s
- iFixit’s technical writing programme
- Remake.Repair @Fernando_GA’s group at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
- Refer: Materials Matter, on critical raw materials in electronics
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