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- What is tinkering? It's big. It's very hands-on. It requires that you tussle with materials, with tools, in a very embodied way in order to not only figure out ideas and concepts that are laden in the projects, but to also figure out yourself and how you relate to these things, and how these things and these different projects, because there's so many that are, I would say, constitute in a tinkering sort of way, whether it's automata or embroidery, even cooking, is all based on, like, your choices and your personal motivations. And so I think the hands-on element, the personal motivations and connections, and I think the ability to exist and co-exist with other people are all the major, major parts of what makes tinkering a very special part of the larger field of education. So tinkering afterschool in a day-to-day sort of way involves a group of facilitators and I. Facilitators are themselves graduates, if you will, of the program, are previously participants, students, who have grown, literally grown up, through the program and are invited to work with me as facilitators to co-design and co-facilitate the projects to the young people. So in a day-to-day way, it involves the team and I going into Clubhouse spaces for the Boys and Girls Clubs and bringing in a host of materials, and we invite kids to make stuff, explore things, in a very multimedia way. Sometimes it's laptops that we're bringing. Sometimes it's already previously built objects that, you know, kids from past years have made, or artists or scientists here at the Exploratorium have made that act as the resources and access points, the entryways for our making experiences, and kids are then invited to make their own stuff, and riff and remix ideas and projects in ways that feel special to them and feel personal to them. And then the team and I collect all these things together, we reflect on them, and then we come up with new ways to engage with kids and make nimble decisions about the way that we facilitate the next time.
- The arrow goes up and down.
- There's also similar ones, like, they could just go up and down.
- A facilitator's role is to guide the learner through the project in a way that is more collaborative than like a step-by-step process. A lot of times we ask, like, guiding questions on, like, what ideas that they have for a project because there's a lot of different ways that they can go depending on their own interests.
- I guess, to make a project, like, if you make a project, let's say it's automata, like I'm looking at them right now. You know how there's usually like a mechanic in the bottom, and then the mechanic makes the motion at the top? You know how like YouTube would be, like, "Do it this way, do it this way to make it move." This program is kind of like, "Well, figure it out. "Like, maybe move the circle sideways, move the circle flat, "maybe add more circles, maybe add less circles, "like experiment, figure it out." Different stuff makes different motions. And it's like you have your own freedom to really, like, explore, like, different solutions, different, like, your creativity inside of your head, like, if you want to make something flow, well, how can you make a flow? Like, can you make it jump? Can you add string? Like, it's like so many possibilities.
- If you ever, like, took apart, like, a clock or something, and then just, like, made something out of it, there's a lot of that. Just, like, taking stuff, take it apart, put it together, or, like, taking concepts and stuff and putting it together with other stuff. It's like bridging science, technology and, like, art, lots of art.
- So normally with Tinkering Afterschool, we work with two or three core partners, Clubhouses, who have their own individual cultures and groups of kids that attend. But with sheltering in place, forcing us to sort of, like, rethink how we were going to make these adaptations to our work, we realized that because virtual was going to be the norm for, you know, an indefinite period of time, we went from serving two to three Clubhouses to serving and inviting the entire city's network of Clubhouses, which is about 14 sites. We set up, you know, Zoom broadcasts, and everybody from their individual homes and sites and things like that tuned in, and we went from serving about 50, 60 kids in a semester to that summer, that first summer, summer of 2020, serving, on average, 150 kids, so threefold the number of kids that we normally work with, and though we weren't able to exist in a physical space, in an in-person way to make these projects happen, it was a lot of fun and a lot of chaos, fun, you know, beautiful chaos.
- I think hands-on learning is so important. When you get your own hands on it, and really, like, feel out, like, how does this thing work? And, like, really, like, look at it and be like, "I'm physically moving it like this." So it does that, and it, like, clicks in your brain so much more.
- Well, it's not that, like, what I hope they're learning. It's, like, what they learn to, like, enrich I guess themselves 'cause not every kid is the same, not every kid is going to, like, want to learn how to cut wood. Not every kid is gonna want to, like, make something, I guess, like, a specific way you teach it. Everyone comes from, like, different backgrounds, and some kids want to, like, do more drawing. Some kids want to do more, like, sticking, more cutting. And it's like, what do they want to advance their skills with?
- So you've come. I hope that what they get from it isn't just, like, a souvenir, you know? I want to develop, like, a sort of, I guess, a curiosity about like, "Oh, how does this thing work?" It helps to see it in a better, like, the world in a different way that I think more people should be conscious of because the world is pretty cool, I think. There's a lot of stuff out there, and it'd be a shame to not explore it, you know?
- [Man] Okay, okay? Let's go, 100%.
- [Jake] And when tinkering is at its best, when education's at its best, it allows these components of identity to really flourish and to really find expression.
- Got inspired by someone else, like a teacher.
- It's that expression and it's those motivations and those personal stories and experiences that don't go away when you enter into a classroom or a workshop space; those things in the background, whether it's, like, the experiences you had growing up watching, you know, someone sew, or watching someone fix something, doing a very DIY thing, whether it was successful or not, those are experiences that informed the people that we are that we enter with and bring into these spaces, and so to be able to honor that in very direct ways, I think, is what makes tinkering a form of education that will remain on the cutting edge. Making sure to involve young people in these processes and to hear how our experiences of working here allow for the museum, the institution, to grow and to remain relevant are invaluable. As institutions around the world continue to reflect and reckon with anti-racism and equity and belonging and intersectionality and all of these things that I think more and more people are caring about that are still yet to make their way into the field of education in pronounced, intentional ways makes this work feel exciting. It makes it feel relevant. It makes it feel very geared for the future.
