MakerSpace Skeptic Finally Gets It Part 2

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In the hustle and bustle of finishing school, I never wrote an update on my previous post. I really liked this project: Why?

1. For the agency it gave kids. They had choice.
2. It gave them time to think deeply.
3. It let them work in pairs or trios in meaningful ways. (Soft Skills!)
4. Every step of the way required thinking about the historical content.
5. It allowed for deep creativity.

In class, we studied the American, French and Haitian Revolutions. I launched the unit with the Starpower Game. I wanted students to experience their own revolution before studying these events from history.
I offered students four choices for a final project on this months long revolutions unit. By the way, my fellow teachers in the history department have created a terrific source book of primary sources. So student read and analyzed the Declaration of Independence, Common Sense, The Declaration of the Rights of Man and other such documents. Colleagues also developed a terrific French Revolution Role Play which is ostensibly a mock trail of Louis XVI but ends with Robespierre's Reign of Terror. (Students saw clear parallels to StarPower).

We also looked at Animal Farm, The Hunger Games and the Iranian Revolution via Persepolis. Beyond this, students looked at revolutions in Cambodia, Cuba and Russia I had 15 students in my class. 13 of them collaborated in pairs and trios to make 5 groups. These 5 groups of students each built a metaphor project. One student made a visual essay using a RSA animation tool and one student read Brinton's entire book and wrote a 7 page paper which I found to be extraordinary.  I link to the first two pages and conclusion here.  

Here is the assignment itself:

I want to take second stab at why I think this project was so successful and I fear I won't do it justice because I have a beginner's vocabulary when it comes to Maker Ed. The scholarship I saw in the making equalled the scholarship I saw in that outstanding paper. The building of the projects evidenced just as much thinking. I don't think I'ma being bold when I state that making and building are seen as less serious intellectual pursuits than writing- the most serious scholarly pursuit- by most people in the humanities. Perhaps the problem is inherent to making and building. They are forms of knowledge-  "tactile" and "representational" are the best I can do-  that we can't fully capture with words.  Is the Maker Movement a victim of echoes of an earlier era in which shop class and mechanics were seen as less serious intellectual pursuits? I'm digressing. But I'm also having trouble explaining why I was so impressed by the representational thinking I saw throughout the project- deep knowing manifested itself as students built their metaphor devices and board games.

I'm sure that out in academia, deep thinkers have developed a discourse about Making (and for that matter the digital humanities). But as of yet the disciplinary shift and the theories behind it have yet to trickle down to high schools. Maker Ed and Digital Humanities are "nice" extras. The "important" ways of learning and demonstrating that learning still revolve around the written word.

I'll let this student have the final word as he talks about the Revolutions Unit.