СТАТЬЯ How ‘Makers’ Make the Classroom
статья по английскому языку

СТАТЬЯ

Учителя английского языка

ГБОУ школы №355 Московского района

Борисовой К.И.

How ‘Makers’ Make the Classroom

The article which is under discussion is called How ‘Makers’ Make the Classroom More Inclusive. It was published in NY magazine on November 1, 2018 by Melina Delkic.

The headline of the article is explicit, it fully reflects the content of the article, introducing readers to the main theme. Also, the headline begins with the Question word “how” which encourages the reader to think about possible variants to make the classroom more inclusive and, consequently, to find out the answer.

The main theme of the article is ‘making’ as the way to make classrooms all-in. Therefore, this article covers two lexical fields: education and creation.

So the educational terms are: be perfect, don’t fail, after-school programs, camps, teachers, classrooms, projects, work for education nonprofits, to keep up with, traditional textbook-and-work sheet, math and science, etc. The terms in sphere of creation are: 3-D printers, to make a mess, virtual reality technology, craft supply, activities, creative process, active spaces, etc.

The purpose of the article is to inform readers about the new approach to educational process and growing trend in education.

I would divide this article into 5 parts.

• Introduction

The introduction of this article is short. The author explains that the maker movement is not just about introducing new equipment to the education, but now it’s more about meeting student and community needs.

• Jean Kaneco – the “mover”.

The author begins with telling the way how  Jean Kaneco came up with the idea of being the mover. It happened when she started volunteering at her son’s kindergarten class in Santa Monica, California. She noticed how hesitant the children were to play with toys they didn’t recognize, to make a mess and their desire to ‘be perfect, not to fail’ at the age of 4 and 5 surprised her. So, she decided to bring in blocks, strange clay creations, crafts, and to hand them to the students with no instructions. They warmed to it, so teachers even asked her to go into classrooms and even host after-school programs and camps. So now Ms. Kaneko describes herself as a maker, and she brings maker spaces to schools all over her area.

• “Maker” is a vague term — and that’s intentional.

In this part the author urges the reader, that the term “Maker” is a vague term — and that’s intentional. She confirms this idea with the words Dale Dougherty, who is considered by some to be the founder of the maker movement, that making should be practical and relevant to some problem a student sees, also it’s this sort of creative process of taking an idea, developing it, using tools and techniques to make it real. To reaffirm this idea, the author describes the changes made in the event called which was held in 2006 in San Mateo, and the change is that now this even is directed to the future of work, but not just to the way how to engage kids and making and the idea of maker spaces.

• The reaction to the Maker Faire movement.

The author continues describing that event but from the point of analyzing its visitors. Some who attend are educators who want to learn about it; some are students showing off their maker projects in a supersize show-and-tell; some work for education nonprofits and want to keep up with trends. Some are not so sure about it. Then the author gives the example of that people. The first one is James Bacchi, a biology teacher at Brooklyn Technical High School who grew up working in his dad’s garage, fixing fuel pumps, modifying his bicycle and it was unclear for him what being a maker is about. But his student who haven’t responded to traditional textbook-and-work sheet learning about, James DeLaura, really into it. This idea is confirmed by the words of Mr. DeLaura that he was not a terrible high school student anymore, now he is a self-made maker, teaching 3-D printing in middle school classes.

• Applying making to classrooms

The author shows the applying of the making to classrooms by describing experience of Carolyn Barnhart, a science teacher at Fredericton High School in New Brunswick, Canada. She had been accustomed to airtight lesson plans and scripted lectures. For her this innovation is an adjustment, which means that you’re not the expert anymore, so sometimes you should google to find the answer, or even say “I don’t know”. She emphasizes that at first, she was terrified, but she clarifies, that her students never pushed back on her new methods, instead they even grew more and more excited and engaged in her classroom. Even more, Carolyn Barnhart specifies making as a kind of a science, a dirty science which needs to be messy, and suggests that students should be taught to solve real-world issues in the classrooms and have to be confident enough to get messy.

The author of this article acts as the neutral observer, so she doesn’t really express her opinion, she just informs the reader about the modern innovation in education.

As for me, the target audience of this article are ordinary people, as soon as we all should be educated and educate our children, so we all should know about current innovations, as for children – I think that they would like to know about it because they are the biggest part of this innovation.

As for me, I think “makers|” really do a great job for educational process, because sometimes it can be difficult to engage children into educational process, and “making” would really help.