Educating Remarkable Young Men

A remarkable thing happened the other afternoon here at the Forge campus. To provide a snapshot, let me paint a picture of the scene: 

 

Down at the tipis, two students were burning out wooden logs to create the initial shape of their serving bowls. After carefully tending the small fires on their logs, these young men grabbed the wood gouge set and set upon the logs, shaving and carving out the burnt char. While they were working on this, another young man was sitting beside them, weaving juniper bark into short strands of cordage. The music of Gwen Stefani played at some point, while I, the learning guide, split firewood in the background. 

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Meanwhile, a group of younger students were up in the build studio designing and building remote controlled boats. They were wiring switches and printing different sized propellers using the 3D printer. As I was wood splitting I would occasionally catch glimpses of these learners bounding down to the pond to test the flotation and feasibility of their designs. 

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At the same time, the rest of our learners were in the art studio, working on their latest multimedia projects. They used Adobe illustrator to modify well-known corporate logos, and created some truly hilarious adaptations. A few of them switched gears to help a learning guide uninstall and move a large vacuum so that there could be more space in the closet. 

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The remarkable thing that happened is that none of these activities were happening as part of a “class”. None of the learning guides had given the direction to craft serving bowls out of wood, and the drive to craft an R/C boat came from the learners themselves. The young man weaving the tree bark had learned the method a few days prior, and enjoyed practicing and honing his craft. The Adobe crew had worked right through lunch, they needed to be reminded to take a break from their work and eat. 

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This afternoon was a perfect encapsulation of what us learning guides have begun to call the “Forge ethos”. The Forge ethos is to find something you are interested in learning or practicing and do it. Keep yourself busy, and don’t wait for a guide to tell you what to do and keep you on task. Use the resources you have available to you to create something remarkable. 

 

As an educator, it was incredibly refreshing to watch this unfold. To look around and witness the sheer joy of learning in each of our learners, all of them practicing something on their own terms, demonstrated to me what learning at school could and should be for everyone. And it reminded me that sometimes, the adults just need to get out of the way and let the children learn.