STEM Studies: Elementary Schools Need Engineering Labs

If your daughter's second grade did not have a reading curriculum or a math program, odds are you would be out the door tomorrow.  You would say, "Hey, reading and math are survival skills.  My daughter won't be very successful or happy unless she can read great books, write expressively and solve the kind of quantitative problems she'll encounter in daily life.  I would be crazy to send her on the journey to adulthood unskilled and unprepared."  You'd be right.

What if her school had all of the above, but didn’t teach coding, engineering and robotics in second grade. Would you still be satisfied? Let’s hope you answered “No” to that question, too. You should expect to see your second grader writing code, building machines and developing prototypes. If not, then it’s time to look for a new school.

Here are four reasons why.

1: IT is the new plumbing

The degree to which information technology has become embedded in our professional lives is at the level of saturation. When I ran a school, we would not hire receptionists unless they could update the web site and upload CSV files to Mail Chimp. In the world of trades, it’s impossible to gain better than unskilled labor unless you can work with data and diagnostics. Plumbers don’t show up at your door today without scanners and ROV’s sporting video cameras. If you want to be a part of the working world today, you need to know how to use complex machines. End of story.

2: STEM skills are empowering

Societies are funny things. They allocate status, power and privilege in fascinating ways. Once upon a time, poets and theologians made decisions that shaped the destiny of whole societies. Today that entrée is increasingly reserved for people who know how to analyze, build, design and create. Adults who lack these skills will increasingly be the un-empowered whose voices are not heard and who do not get to make their mark upon the world. While we have yet to see our first “startup President”, just wait. It’s coming.

3: Your child should be a developer, not a consumer

The economic world is about to break down between two different categories of actors. Consumers and developers. We are currently awash in a market full of devices that don’t require much expertise for consumers to use. That’s on purpose. The simpler it is to use an app, the easier it will be to sell, monetize, market and data-mine its users. But there is a clear power-differential to this equation. Simple consumers are giving up valuable information, content and hard cash. The developers are the ones who benefit. Which one do you want your child to be?

4: Teach your child to make things. Not buy them.

As part of my business, I teach nine year olds how to code. During our first class session, I point out the golden rule of things. It goes like this: “Whatever you own, if it came from a store, then someone designed it and manufactured it. If you don’t like the way it works, then get out there and reprogram it, hack it or just make your own.” The kids nod their heads and say, “sure, no problem.” That single lesson could be a life-changer if it succeeds in shifting basic attitudes about the economics of need and consumption. And that is the most important reason why your second grader should have an engineering lab in her school. What we learn at the age of eight or nine goes beyond skills. We learn attitudes, mindsets, habits of work and patterns of thinking. When we teach kids to make things themselves, not buy them, we empower them to assume responsibility for the shape of their world.

Now that is a kid whom I would like to see in the oval office one day. One who reads poetry AND has an engineering degree.

Allen Selis, Founding Director
Tech EdVentures - Robotics and Coding for Kids

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Cross posted from the Addison Treehouse blog.

Thanks, Paula, for inviting me to write this post!

The Treehouse is a new co-working space, geared towards startups and young companies.  Check them out...

What is Educational Entrepreneurship?

Kate Allison of First Focus
Demos the brain-wave copter!

How can small organizations create amazing learning environments?  That was the conversation Tech EdVentures had with Jim Connor of First Focus Learning Systems in Mountain View, CA.

First Focus is a very cool place.  They do things like teaching a whole year of reading skills in six months.  Or fast-tracking English language fluency for kids that are newly arrived to the US.  It's amazing stuff.  

Tech EdVentures and First Focus share some powerful core beliefs about how education should work.  For instance?

It's all about individual teaching.
Many schools are run for efficiency, teaching to the middle of the class or moving kids along at a pace which is manageable for 35 students at once.  We believe that the best learning experiences are custom-tailored to the needs of one student at at time.  Our vision puts kids at the center, and we individualize the learning experience for each and every student.

Exciting content motivates kids.
When kids engage in a hands-on activity, they are excited and motivated to work hard.  First Focus does this by incorporating some very neat high-tech toys which spark discussion, generate writing prompts and energize kids to achieve.  Similarly, Tech EdVentures builds every class session as a project-based learning experience, in which kids see, touch and interact with something that they built.  The result is excitement, motivation, curiosity and persistence in the face of challenges.  The results are incredible.

Kids need to move at their own pace.

Many kids who under-perform do so because their classes move too slowly!  By allowing kids to move on instead of waiting for the group, success builds upon success and kids maximize their learning.

One final idea is at the core of educational entrepreneurship:  

Small, nimble institutions will always teach better than large bureaucracies.  

I'll offer Tech EdVentures as an example.  Our most important focus is on the learning experience of individual students.  We update and modify our content and methods constantly.  And we are immediately responsive to the the feedback of our students.  

This kind of entrepreneurial approach to learning is the difference between good enough and best of class.  We applaud First Focus, and hope that others will join us in truly, boldly, teaching out of the box.

Allen

Are we illiterate?

It's official.  Coding is now a literacy skill.  At least that's what the folks at Ed Week are suggesting.  They have highlighted resources from MIT that allow families to learn computer coding skills together.  The amazing thing to note is that important leaders in the Ed community have begun to see technology as a fundamental literacy, not just a "special," not an add-on and not an elective.  


It's a success skill that we need to give our kids.  Way to go, Ed Week.  

While our schools have not yet caught up, there are still places to learn tech and coding skills.  

Code.org is a great resource.  


My project, Tech EdVentures, is of course the local favorite!


Allen

Hello, World

This month, I took the first few steps to combining my love of education, my passion for social change and my long standing interest in the way that technology shapes our lives.

The answer is a startup project called Tech EdVentures.

My working premise is that children as young as Kindergarten age can acquire the critical thinking skills that spiral towards a career in science, engineering, coding and design.  The starting place is not technology itself, rather, hands-on experiences that are well designed.  Yes, it's all about curiosity and curriculum...and code!

Some milestones- EdVentures, LLC was incorporated in TX in March of 2014.
We began creating program and advertising "Tech EdVentures" with clients that month.
There is a lot to build...including the web site.
If you're curious in the meantime,  leave a comment on this page.

Allen