Tinkering

My first computer was a HP Pavilion. I was working in a town about 2 hours from Seoul, South Korea. When I got my first paycheck I went to the bustling metropolis in search of a laptop. I arrived home late Sunday night but couldn’t resist playing with my new purchase. I turned it on and while it booted up I prepared myself a cup of tea. I returned to the pristine new computer, humming contentedly, and promptly spilled my tea all over the keyboard. I tipped the computer up and waited as a cup of tea poured out from between the keys. It was a blessing in disguise. I took apart the computer and the world inside opened up to me. Today I install my own hardware when I need to. That is why I believe that tinkering can be a positive experience for kids.

If you haven’t taken something apart to see how it works, I suggest you do so today. Richard Feynman was a tinkerer. As a child he took apart and fixed radios and as an adult he had a fascination with locks and locksmithing. He also excelled in theoretical physics. Perhaps he was just a curious kid. A group at Harvard University believes, however, that it is the process of tinkering that affects the individual in a positive way. 

The idea of tinkering dovetails with the Constructionism ideas of Papert and is closely related to the Maker Movement. It does not just have to be taking thing apart, either. Consider the multitude of apps that are out there for our smartphones. They have cameras, sensors, accelerometers, and other gadgets that inventors, young and old, utilize in novel ways. What would be the results if schools provided the materials and allowed children to tinker with them? There are a growing number of sources that provide materials and know-how to would be tinkerers, often free, in a growing community based around the ironically named DIY phenomenon. 

​Now we, as educators and citizens, are faced with a question. Is tinkering something that could be beneficial to students? Is it something that should be taught in schools? Can we build progressive curriculum based on hands-on, self-directed projects that encourage the tinkerer in all of us? The research is slowly but surely finding out, and this tinkerer will be closely watching the results.