Paulo Blikstein & Marcelo Worsley

Read Here: http://beyondbitsandatoms.org/readings/blikstein2015children.pdf

• The Maker Movement was largely brought into existence by a few key players:
  • Silicon Valley’s hacker culture
  • middle-class families who pushed for after school programs
  • American society’s growing interest in a “pipeline to STEM occupations” and marketable job-market skills.

Although it is with the best of intentions that this “job market” culture wants to get more students into engineering, I wonder if the value of learning for the sake of learning is being sacrificed. I’m sure this puts increasing pressure on students to choose pathways for practicality’s sake and the looming pressure of finding a job.

Not many people want to solve the problems that aren't "sexy," for the demographic that feels left out of this new tech craze, because that's not where the money is.

• Does this trickle down to and influence how STEM education (and this pre-professional pipeline) is taught, designed and marketed?
• Allowing teachers to “pair up” and design curriculum together seems as if it would have clashed with the specific curriculum that the state mandates you teach.
• Prioritizing process over final products goes against the metrics of standardized testing that you are used to measure success throughout ordinary K-12 education.
  • How could we bridge these two worlds?

Exclusivity found in the Maker Movement:

• The hundreds of schools implementing makerspaces are affluent, suburban schools with the freedom and flexibility to revise curriculum and experiment with new teaching materials.
• Especially given the recent Chicago Public School protests for increased funding, how can we make sure all students have equal access to teaching materials and project-based curriculum that has the potential to help everyone?

Corporations have different agendas than educators and schools, who are closest to the students

• leads to schools and teachers being "obliged to 'agree' with a political and ideological agenda they do not espouse."
• examples of corporate involvement in schools gone awry?
• What ends up being sacrificed?