Many of mankind’s greatest inventions and discoveries were chanced upon by accident, not by following a rigid set of rules. That’s part of the philosophy behind Tinkering Schools: residential summer camps where children are encouraged to learn through ‘fooling around’ or ‘tinkering’.
Set up by software engineer Gever Tulley, Tinkering Schools provide an environment where children between the ages of 8 and 17 can learn to make and build things, from toy cars to fully-functional, water-going boats.
Exciting though these projects may be, there’s more to it than just the end result: the activities are all designed to stimulate and nurture the imagination. Guidance is kept to a minimum, and children are simply provided with the materials and tools to work on exciting and ambitious projects. This video shows the school in action, and explains a bit about Tulley’s method of teaching valuable life lessons through tinkering,
One concept that’s important to the Tinkering philosophy is the idea of ‘Dangerism’. Tulley is unimpressed by the excessive molly-coddling of many children today and believes in allowing them to do things that may appear ‘dangerous’ from an overly strict health & safety perspective. He’s come up with a list of ‘Fifty dangerous things you should let your children do’- including playing with fire, super-glueing your hands together and learning to throw a spear.
Tulley believes that letting children face minor dangers can boost their confidence to experiment and explore without being hampered by the fears and neuroses we tend to struggle with as adults. The idea started as a throwaway remark in one of his talks, but it’s now become a book aimed at parents, now available to buy on Amazon.
Many parents clearly do share Tulley’s views on exploratory learning, as there’s a waiting list to attend the Tinkering School camps, with all of this year’s places now taken. But the concept is one that can be easily adopted into teaching or parenting styles, and there are Tinkering School sessions taking place at various events throughout the year including MAKE Magazine’s Maker Fair.
