One year ago I moved from D.C. to Oakland, CA to be a Maker Ed AmeriCorps VISTA at Lighthouse Creativity Lab. Today is my last day of service. It is hard to decide what to share, but important to me, probably more personally than professionally. But that is beside the point. It’s like that old adage that says it’s about the journey, not the destination.
A little about the journey, starting here, with two pre-service notes I found in my journal:
11.15.13 3:19pm California The skylines here remind me of Doctor Seuss. I am so happy.
11.19.13 I need a year to explore, grow, go out on my own and develop myself for just a little longer.
And that I did.
Before & After
Best moments.
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- My first assignment: build a chair.
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- Organizing the Creativity Lab.
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- My first button that I still wear – even if the pin back is upside down (causing it to constantly fall off)!
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- My first maker’s first project, complete.
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- My apron. But more so, Getting to be Ms. Jess.
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- Bow-tie face mask.
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- Learning to solder.
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- Lego hair.
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- My sea of habitats with 2nd.
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- Howard’s T for Maker Faire
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- Maker Faire 2014.
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- Building my first paper circuit mural.
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- Organizing project in progress in the high school makerspace.
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- Circuit blocks.
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- Produce stamps.
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- Finishing my making binder.
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- Maker Ed send-off for our VISTA Leader.
Funniest moment caught on tape.
After about four hours of 3D printing (a VERY slow yet often rewarding process)… During a Designing Making Experiences professional development session.
My greatest challenge of the year.
Soldering with 3rd graders. This was taken by Mr. V in the last half hour of a 6-hour back to back, small group power soldering session.
Martin discovers circuit blocks heat up.
I cannot express how much I LOVE seeing this one engaged so deeply. It’s the making, I am telling you. They love it.
Jocelyn’s documentary.
The moment when I realized I was making a difference.
The Binder Project Year of the Maker: Before & After
When (or how) I realized just how much we had accomplished in a year.
This is still a work in progress, hopefully able to be offered in e-book format for free to educators. Currently the printed hard copy lives in the Creativity Lab for our kids, teachers, and visitors to flip through for inspiration.
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- The original version got a little too small.
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- Year of the Maker:
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- Before
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- &
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- After
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- 11 sections, split by genre, almost 50 project guides, and hundres of projects spread across 284 handmade pages.
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- Mind mapping a table of contents works visually, but page numbers are still a thing to appreciate. Next edition.
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- Dedicated to the North, East, and South.
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- How it started…
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- The first edition in print. 284 pages = 1st print job in b&w!
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- One last thing before I go.
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- Maker.
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- The journals it took to make, aka the amount of Moleskines I filled.
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- The Binder Project Punch List.
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- The amount of data collected. The top binder was the final version, every page handmade and scanned in. The scanning and formatting took 83.5 hours.
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- Planning the past.
11.20.14 Sometimes we don’t go back in our journals because we don’t want to know. We don’t want to know how far we had to come, how hard it was going to be, or how long it may still be taking to get there.
Melanie’s Song.
Wait for it, the last five seconds is everything.
I came across this anonymous quote yesterday and it’s stuck with me all day, so I think I will end on it. “We are all teachers, the questions is not whether we will teach, but what.”
I choose Making.
Thank you for the memories- Lighthouse, Maker Ed, and everyone in between. We are changing education for the kids we make with. The road ahead is long and rough but we will Make it.
