About Us
Strategic Plan
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Designing Meaningful Work
Nicholas Cole-Farrell, Director of Technology and Making
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Thwap, thud, whack, ding, grind.
In our Brandeis 2023 Strategic Plan, we’ve outlined our belief in how “the school gives students agency in their learning by allowing them to design their own meaningful projects and curious pathways through learning.” Tucked away in the hallways adjacent to the Beit Midrash, what sounds to the passerby like banging, clattering, and simple white noise, is actually the sound of student voice and agency singing loud and clear here at Brandeis.
In research conducted by the Project Zero collective at the Harvard Graduate School of Education for their book Maker-Centered Learning, it was uncovered that the primary outcome of maker-centered learning was “developing agency and building character,” not necessarily “cultivating discipline specific knowledge and skills” for students—challenging previous assumptions about the principal value of maker education.
This research supports the pedagogy and approach we have taken here at the Brandeis School of San Francisco, since introducing our Maker Education program with the design and construction of our CREATE and BUILD spaces, beginning in the summer of 2014. Building on the constructivist foundation of the importance of student voice in learning, our team has used hands-on learning as a catalyst for creativity, self-expression, empowerment, exploring Jewish thought and tradition, understanding real-world problems, and the development of social-emotional skills and growth mindsets in our young people.
In this semester’s Furniture Design and Making elective, students were tasked with designing and fabricating an object of purpose and meaning for their home. Using the design constraint of materials (in this case, having only a single board as their available lumber), students launched into an engrossing project that has lasted 8 weeks, culminating tomorrow. From loft ladders, to shoe racks, to end tables, to custom-built items for the family dog, students have designed, directed, and executed their visions in this work, but—more significantly—have developed a sense of agency and voice in both the creative process, as well as in their learning as a whole.
- Educational designer and featured Ethical Creativity Institute partner David Clifford has recently made the case for the idea that the experience of making in school could, in itself, lead to students’ feeling empowered to question and challenge hegemonic cultural systems and social inequities such as systemic racism. In looking through the lens of Judaic thought and ethics, Clifford’s principle resonates greatly with us.
Looking forward in our work, we see our students using voice and sense of agency over their own learning to better the world—whether through social change, design, creativity, or social justice. By using powerful tools developed here at Brandeis, our students walk as empowered learners and leaders, working towards a more just and righteous world.
