Wanderings in the Labyrinth

This is a book review. It’s part of a new series on this blog that began last week.  I hope you find it useful.

Your Starter Guide to Makerspaces
by Nicholas Provenzano (@TheNerdyTeacher)
Blend, published 2016
ISBN-13: 978-0692786123 (Paperback) N.B. I read the Kindle edition.

✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✧ ✧

I’m deeply interested in MakerSpaces, of course, and I make quite a lot of things myself.  This is a fairly short book, as well, and more of a workbook than a true book.  As the author titles it, it’s a Starter Guide, not an exhaustive examination of the topic.

Yet given how many times I say, “I teach about and in makerspaces,” that the response is “What’s a MakerSpace?” both Nick and I have a good deal more work to do (fair warning, Nicolas Provenzano and I follow one another on Twitter) in bringing this idea to the masses.  It’s not part of the common lingua franca yet, and it could be and should be.  But that means that we have to do the job of educating the public, and stakeholders in schools and libraries and other institutions that could have MakerSpaces successfully.

The book contains eight short chapters:

1. What is Making?
2. I know what Making is; why should I care?
3. Where does a MakerSpace go in a school?
4. Making allies
5. What goes in a MakerSpace?
6. MakerSpaces and Project-Based Learning
7. Failure and MakerSpaces
8. Final Thoughts

He also concludes with information about his own identity as a Maker and teacher, and how to reach out to him and use his skills as a teacher-educator in your own institution. Which is awesome.

One of the things that I didn’t benefit from, that readers of the paperback edition may enjoy, is that this is a workbook.  As any good Maker will tell you, the interaction process between the thing that you make, and the audience you make it for, matters.  That’s certainly true here. Even in the Kindle edition, the illustrations and workbook pages give you the opportunity to engage with the book by writing your own (offline) lists and make your own mind-maps of the things that the book inspires in you.

The book’s primary audience is a teacher, particularly one who is already invested in the idea of project-based learning (PBL), or who has support within her institution for a change to a more hands-on program that involves building and creating within STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) fields.  I’ve argued elsewhere that it should be STEAMED (adding Arts, Entertainment, Design) but very sensible commentators have responded to that.

Provenzano admits that this is not a book for an advanced practitioner, but a starter guide.  It’s not systematic, but rather it’s a combination of encouragement, first-hand accounts from a MakerSpace-as-classroom that he himself ran, and top-level considerations of equipment, toolkit, and mental attitude that help MakerSpaces get launched and succeed.  This kind of teaching and learning is valuable and important, though I wish he’d included more discussion about budgeting and financial planning for MakerSpaces, because money (where it comes from and how to get supplies, tools and equipment with it?) and time (how does the MakerSpace avoid burning out the teacher[s] who run them?) are rarely addressed in MakerSpace books and articles to nearly the extent they need to be.

That said, Provenzano does address a number of important points, like the scale or size of a MakerSpace, what equipment and tools it needs to have, and how much access a school should/could provide to its student body to use the space.  He addresses the process of finding allies for a MakerSpace program, in the student body and administration, in the parent and alumni community,  and in the local business climate.  The book concentrates to a high degree on what is wrong with schools, and shows some cheeky rebelliousness — but this is often the only posture a would-be change agent can take in the modern American school climate: if schools weren’t doing anything wrong, there wouldn’t be a need for MakerSpaces, would there?

All the same, Provenzano’s points echo my own sense of Maker work in schools. Hands-on practice with tools, with materials, with construction and design process, all help make students and teachers into more well-rounded, more competent and capable people. They’re more skilled at solving problems outside their own usual wheelhouse,  because they’ve solved problems involving physical materials and invisible forces (like the flow of electricity through a circuit, or the arrangement of parts so a thing stands on its own).  I think this is a great book for teachers or librarians starting out, who have curiosity about how to get a program started; and I’d happily recommend Provenzano to come to your school or library to help your MakerSpace get started.