About 9-months-ago we changed our tagline from Dream. Design. Make. to Make | Learn | Do. Make | Learn | Do (MLD) speaks more clearly to the learning process and what we expect from our youth who fully engage in our programs.
Make (ing) is the messy part of learning. The process. The spilled paint. The crossed wires. The misused words. All the little, and big, mistakes which in the end, with persistence, patience, and a supportive community, add up to the project or the product or the experience.
Learn (ing), or learning, is the process of reflection. “We do not learn from experience, said the famous educational philosopher John Dewey, “We learn from reflecting on experience.” To this end students who fully engage in our program will develop portfolios to facilitate learning and reflection.
Do refers to taking action in the community. Bringing newfound skills to life with confidence purpose. This is our expectation for all our youth.
Wyatt, pictured here contemplating the temporary failure in his self-designed ocular robot, is reflecting on what went wrong. “It’s the potentiometer,” he said, after debugging all the other components. Wyatt’s project blends 3D design, 3D printing and coding. All skills he honed in two years with us. Wyatt is off to Hampshire College in September.
Does Make | Learn | Do make sense to you?