Greetings from Mr. Rob
Okay I must state the obvious, the summer seemed to fly by quickly.
I know this statement is a bit cliche and on the mind's of everyone in education. For some reason those in education like to think that during summer time will slow down, we will accomplish much, and we can recharge. I hope that each of you might have managed one of these things. This doesn’t mean that work doesn’t stop, there is curriculum planning, professional development, classroom reorganization, internal meetings and other school related tasks. It is good to change the narrative that teaching is 24/7/365 and not just a 9 month gig. I know this from teaching at Harrisburg Area Community College and the Nerds in the Burg initiative.
During the 2017-2018 Harrisburg School District academic year, I’ll be the Foundry Fellow at the District’s High Schools; John Harris HS and SciTech Campus HS. This is my second year at the Foundry Makerspace and I was placed at Camp Curtin Academy MS and SciTech HS during 2016-2017. Last year the Foundry was in 4 of the 10 HSD schools and this year we are now at 8: Downey ES, Camp Curtin Academy MS, Marshall MS, Melrose ES, Ben Franklin ES, Scott ES, and John Harris HS. This is an exciting year because of the new schools, new fellows, and our working in a new space, the Foundry @ StartupHbg (922 N. 3rd Street). Please feel free to stop by and see us in the co-working space. This year we'll be providing preliminary 3D printing services as well as educational opportunities for the community.
My family and I have been living in Harrisburg for over 12 years. My background is in architecture and urban design and I love connecting people in the community. While my current path in life might seem a large departure from my education, I see it as part of a life journey that is chaortic (chaos + order). Part of it was planned and some it was unplanned. Two threads of my interests became intertwined since I moved on from teaching at HACC in 2012.
The first was my interest in makerspaces from my work at HACC. In the architecture program I began incorporating CNC and 3D printing content back in 2010 and wrote a SIG grant to reimagine the Woodshop at Midtown #2 to be a Makerspace similar to NextFab in Philadelphia, while incorporating ideas of co-working at Philadelphia's Indy Hall. For my Pro Practice class I would travel to these locations to help students know what was going on in the bigger context of cities. Harrisburg would experience the co-working model when StarthupHbg opened in 2013 at 151 N. Third Street. The makerspace pulled together my interests in design thinking, repair, 3D printing, CNC fabrication, and the DIY attitude of making. I had the desire to create a community makerspace, but the numbers (cost of membership and interest) did not add up.
The second thread was when I moved on from HACC to take a Part Time position as the TECH Coordinator at the Neighborhood Center at 3rd and Kelker in 2013. In this program of mentoring (TECH stood for Teen Enrichment Center Harrisburg), I had real experience of students in a school system that was not inspiring or in a social system that was not supporting their needs in the really difficult times of becoming adults. I developed my own projects in the areas of STEAM, while working on maker projects with students. Much of this revolved around the Circle of Security concept of Being With. Sometimes we would fix bikes, fix computers, fix phones/tablets, build art projects (we had a local Before I Die (Candy Chang chalk wall, or work with LifeThruMusic, or understand the impact of technology in my lessons of LifeThruTech.
These two threads were tied together in 2015, when my path crossed with the Foundry Makerspace (a social enterprise of Partnership Planners). I had reached out to a volunteer call for Community Coaches. I had been working on a Midtown Minecraft Project with my two daughters and was doing research on how Minecraft was being used as a by the United Nations project Block by Block. In 2016 I departed from the Neighborhood Center and joined the Foundry Makerspace and enjoy harnessing all of my KSAs (knowledge, skills, and abilities) to help students build their own unique "tool box of making" for the 21st Century.
Rob's 4 Life Quotes
LIVING:
“The two most important days in your life are…
the day you are born and the day you find out why.”
LEARNING:
“Education, on the other hand, means emancipation. It means light and liberty. It means the uplifting of the soul of man into the glorious light of truth, the light only by which men can be free.”
DOING:
"Do your work as if you had a thousand years to live and as if you were to die tomorrow."
MAKING:
"Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context — a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan."
REFERENCE EPILOGUE:
As a Foundry Fellow, I’ll be working to assist in the High Schools. Our goal within the Foundry is Capacity Building.
One might ask,
“what is capacity building?”
A good definition developed through the National Council of Nonprofits, although one that has a focus in the nonprofit world is…
“Capacity building is whatever is needed to bring a nonprofit [project / classroom / school / district] to the next level of operational, programmatic, financial, or organizational maturity, so it may more effectively and efficiently advance its mission into the future. Capacity building is not a one-time effort to improve short-term effectiveness, but a continuous improvement strategy toward the creation of a sustainable and effective organization.”
I added the emphasis because this definition captures the process in in education, at many different scales. It is scale independent. Capacity building might happen within a single project, within a marking period, or in the mindsets within a classroom, school or district. In our orientation classes it is reiterated that in each project we should walk along side anyone in our assigned schools to help grow projects.
Within the growth process, we acknowledge the importance of the human component of student achievement. You will hear everyone at the Foundry speak of the 4Cs of 21st Century Skills. These are Critical Thinking, Communication, Collaboration, and Creativity. All of this happens around Project Based Learning in the categories of STEAM. Why are the 4Cs important? Because they embody a foundation for an Adaptable Student. One who can assess a challenge, collaborate with others, and make creative solutions.
