Put Learning in Their Hands

I’m at a point in my life when I look back and reflect on my decisions, I think about all the steps (and missteps) I’ve made that brought me this far.  The one thing that stands out for me is how working with my hands has been a major theme throughout my childhood, teenage years, and all the decades of my adult life.

My parents always emphasized the importance of creating. My father created poetry and my mother created sketches, painting, and beautiful hand-sewn outfits.  Both of my parents also loved to cook.  My mother made the mainstay comfort dishes.  My father always dabbled with new ingredients and flavors.  He loved inventing his own recipes.  Their hands-on way of approaching their world rubbed off on me.  As early as I can remember, I loved to draw, paint, write poetry, embroider, and cook.  My hands needed to be busy.  I couldn’t think smoothly without moving my hands. I wholeheartedly embraced tinkering.  I loved figuring out how things worked or how to design something with the materials I had within reach.  

When I became a teacher many years ago, I was sure to provide my students with time and space in which to create. My preschool students were a messy bunch, and they loved to play with water, paint, clay, and sand.  This first experience in teaching helped to solidify my belief that children need to interact with their environment and each other in order to to learn and grow.  So when I began to teacher older elementary students, that principle was core to the way I set up my classroom.  Students painted in the style of artists we studied (Picasso, O’Keefe, Romare Bearden, etc.). They created models of civilization they were learning about, and made elaborate scientific displays.  I believed that if their hands were busy, their minds were engaged, and they would become more and more curious, searching for greater knowledge.

One of the cornerstones of my teaching was setting up spaces in which students could experiments with various materials.  When I taught 3rd grade at the Dalton School in New York City,  I created a small tinkering space in the corner of my classroom equipped with screwdrivers, hammers, pliers, nails, wires and screws.  Then I collected broken pieces of machines, which was quite easy in the middle of Manhattan.  I remember fondly one morning, when on of my student’s father’s came into my classroom lugging an old telephone switchboard for the children to explore.  They quite naturally became engaged in learning, in finding out answers to questions they had, in being curious about the world around them.

When I became a learning specialist, working primarily with neurodivergent students,  it was even more important to make hands-on learning experiences paramount. Often students who struggle to read, pay attention, or write, are the ones who are quite adept at using their hands to create. They find satisfaction in working through the process of making something of their own design.  Several years ago, I created the Wonder Studio at the Kent Place School in Summit, New Jersey.  It is not a fancy space but it is chock full of material with which children can create anything they desire.  Over the years, students have created cars that move, windmills, giant marble runs, catapults, pillows, stuffed animals, wall hangings, and wooden sculptures. The Wonder Studio principle is that learning is student-driven.  I do not tell the students what to do or what to use.  They come up with their own ideas, and I may help to supply materials or offer a technique, but I let them experience the joy of making, even if that includes failing.  Failing is its own gift.  Most children are tenacious and keep trying especially when the project is their idea.  They develop grit to see their dream come true. 

In a time, when more and more things are done for us, I think it is of utmost importance to have a space to make things on our own.  It can be useful or whimsical.  It doesn’t matter.  The key is that it was made with your own two hands. 

Read More about Hands-on Learning

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