What are we trying to "make" in education?
Factories make something when machinists do something with raw materials.
Artists create by using raw materials to make something original.
In these cases, the raw materials don't change on their own.
These people makes something out of the raw materials in order to resell them for a profit.
Not so in education.
The students "make" themselves.
The raw material must change itself into a finished product (though, I doubt, we ever become finished products). Students use their own raw materials (talents, skills, strengths, questions, wonders, character, values) to become a more finished version of their former self, as Ken Robinson might say. The teacher's role changes drastically in this view - one who holds up a mirror, offering feedback to the student as he/she "makes" him/herself.
What we have here is a classic "goods" vs. "services" debate for education.
And this, I propose, is why we find education in its current political predicament.
If education is meant to make something, what do you focus on?
You focus on outcomes and how you measure those outcomes - like a factory.
In education, that would be standards and assessment.
The focus on standards and assessment in recent years is an attempt to "make" students into something - people who can be put to work. Look at the debate over Common Core and standardized assessments. This was not the original intent of curriculum design.
But if education is meant to make people a better version of themselves, what do you focus on?
You focus on the process and the feedback that is provided to students.
That's instruction.
Quality instruction is a service, not a good.
Referring to the quote at the top of this post, standards and assessment "overlook the value of the raw materials" that students bring to your classroom. Only quality instruction can take into account the skills, talents, and curiosities of students and use them in the service of learning.
Yes, we must have a clear - very clear - vision of what students need to accomplish. (See Grant Wiggins great article on how thorough planning helps, rather than hinders, creativity.)
And we need a way to provide ourselves and our students feedback on that journey through assessment that the student can use.
But at some point, we must admit that quality instruction needs to prevail over the other two, lest students become cogs in the machine. A colleague of mine rightly refers to the idea that when we pull on one side of the triangle too much, the others get out of whack. Society has pulled at the curriculum and assessment sides too much in the past few years without regard to the side that has the greatest effect on student achievement - instruction.
So in that sense, your classroom is not a makerspace.
Experimentation with reflection for improved achievement? Yes.
Clear goals accomplished through creative means? Yes.
But a place where you "make" a student into something? No.
Your classroom is a "Becomer Space" - a place where students become better versions of themselves. A place where talents and wonders take root and blossom.
But now my question is this:
Who is arguing about quality instruction?
Even in places enacting new accountability and educator effectiveness measures, are they debated amongst the public? Not likely, and then only if it is tied to assessment and compensation.
What about in your school or district?
How many committees are dedicated to quality instruction vs. curriculum and assessment?
The longer we ignore instruction at a system-wide level, the longer we ignore the "raw materials" present in all of our classrooms.
Despite government's best efforts at "accountability", the people moving the needle on instruction are teachers themselves. That's why EdCamps, Twitter chats, ADE/GCT certifications, Teachers Pay Teachers, and teacher Pinterest sites are so popular. Teachers love to talk pedagogy. Teachers are creating "Becomer spaces" for their own improvement and for that of their students.
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