A Maker’s Life – A Generational Perspective

In this episode of Make Cast, I talk with Marilyn Nash and Amber Hudson, authors of ‘A Maker’s Life’. They discuss the impact their book has had on readers, igniting meaningful conversations about the maker mindset among people of all ages. Amber shares the story of how she and Marilyn met and collaborated on the book, which serves as both a personal narrative of Marilyn’s life as a maker and a reflective guide for developing makerspaces. They delve into Marilyn’s background, influenced by her mother who was a diarist and a creator, and how art and making provided her solace during tough times. They emphasize the importance of self-expression, creativity, and the generational influence of making. The conversation also touches on the educational system’s challenges in integrating a maker mindset and its potential to transform learning environments. The authors hope to inspire not just students but also older generations and educators to embrace their identity as makers.

Links

A Maker’s Life email: amakerslifebook@gmail.com

A Maker’s Life website: amakerslife.org

To purchase the book visit Amazon.

Transcript: A Maker’s Life

Marilyn: What I’m finding is that people are talking, once they’ve read the book, “A Maker’s Life”, they’re talking and talking about how they’re makers and their history of making, and I’ve had so many incredible conversations just in this week with people of all ages. And I have a wide variety of friends of all different ages and they’re all talking about it. It’s, some of them are, have heard them say, I didn’t think of myself as a maker, but I’ve been a maker for a long time. 

Dale: Welcome to Make Cast. I’m Dale Dougherty with Make Magazine, and I am meeting with the authors of “A Maker’s Life, authentic makerspaces, knowing your why for making, a reflective workbook guide for developing a makerspace.”

I want to welcome Marilyn Nash and Amber Hudson. How are both you today?

Amber: Thank you.

Marilyn: Good. Good.

Amber: So good.

Dale: So Amber, why don’t you give us some context to start and maybe how this book came to be written.

Amber: I think it’s a fun story. I’m happy to share. So I met Dr. Nash through the business that I work in, which is 1st Maker Space. I am the vice president of educational services for their team, and we build out and design makerspaces mainly in educational settings. And one of our clients happened to be the school that Dr. Nash was working for at the time, and we created this beautiful space for her to be in. And so my first introduction to her was on the day that we installed the makerspace and all that I knew about her going into it was that she loved Lego. And it was a fun experience because we very much personalize our spaces, and we try our very best to get to know our clients on a very personal level.

And so we went up to do the installation. My coworker Kara had made her some homemade Lego cookies, and Adam, who works for 1st Maker Space, had designed and built this beautiful Lego desk, and that’s what I remember most about her on that first day was just introducing her to the space and the things that were being installed, and she was thrilled and excited about it.

And over the course of time, then I revisited that space a few times for professional development, which is what I do as a part of the 1st Maker Space team. And so we had opportunities to sit down together and work through some new pieces of equipment and learning how these things would work with the students that she was teaching on a daily basis.

And so we just formed this little partnership of agreeing that we would help each other out when she needed it. And that just developed into a friendship, honestly. What was our initially just a maker manager relationship that we had developed out into this friendship.

And she approached me one day and said, “Hey, I’m working on this project and would like to put this book out into the world, would you be willing to help?” And so that kind of took us on a whole new path where we dove into this book. She had started with this narrative that was so beautiful and just wanted to tell the story of the importance of making in her own life.

And I’ll let her talk about that more. But I came alongside with this. Also as a fellow educator, just being able to provide some insight into what this looks like, what I had seen work well and not work well as a person who’s living in this makerspace world and provided a bit of insight into the research part of why making is important and the history of where it’s come from.

That then led us to create this beautiful book that is physically beautiful. We love it so much but as a true resource that we hope will help others who are starting their makerspace journey or if they’ve been in it for a while and they need ideas. We wanted to be able to provide some of that as well.

Dale: Yeah. Well, It’s great. I don’t know where to start with you, so I’m just gonna turn it over to you.

Marilyn: Okay. Thank you very much. As we have continued to work through pieces related to the book, and Amber and I have met several times about all these little pieces that are related to the book that we’re working on, we talked about that focus because. The book is so much, and it’s so personal to me that I could make a list of probably 15 reasons why I wrote this book and started to work on it.

And then thankfully, as Amber mentioned, partnered up with her and her expertise and creativity really just exploded and helped us come to life. I’ve been thinking about this — why this book and what does it mean to me?

I think it comes down to this point of I wanted to, in my experience of being a teacher in the classroom where making was non-negotiable and then becoming a maker manager, I wanted to really understand my place as a maker and understand my why for doing it.

And as I kept thinking, reflecting about that, it became such a grounding point that epicenter of drive for being the best maker and providing the best makerspace learning for others possible. And so that’s really where this whole piece lands for me. And what I found is that the more I understand myself and started realizing I’ve been doing this all my life as I’ve mentioned a couple times that. I didn’t call myself a maker. I obviously am not 20 or something, and so I’ve been a maker, a tinkerer, an artist. And the list of things I can do and have tried and experimented with is long. And some of that comes I think as a child and even a young adult, it came out of necessity or even that’s that mindset of that’s what you do, kind of thing.

When I was growing up, you didn’t buy cards at the store. You made them, for holidays or birthdays and events. You sat down and you made your card. That was just something you did. And I was raised with a mother who started writing in a diary probably in the late fifties, early sixties, and we have a whole set of those in my family of diaries that she kept until she passed away about 10 or 12 years ago.

And so it’s a huge collection of these diaries and we use it all the time in our family. It’s can you look up the such ‘n such a date and see if that’s when someone, we just use that as a reference.

Dale: Interesting.

Marilyn: And I wouldn’t say Mom kept a journal per se, it was pretty much a diary of events and things.

But I know there were times when she’d find a flower she loved and she’d press it into her diary or, she’d tape a certain little invitation in place. And so we were raised with, of course, you would write and reflect and think about your life and what you’re doing and keep those things that are important to you, each of us, so that we had these benchmarks and landing places for our lives. And those things became very important in my life and my family’s life because I can share several things where for me personally, it became a lifesaver for me. It was a very healing experience.

Dale:That’s an expression you’ve used in the book. It saved your life. 

Amber: Yeah.

Dale: A profound statement.

Marilyn: Oh, very much. I know I wouldn’t, I literally wouldn’t be sitting here if I didn’t have my art that I was able to hide away with when I was a child in some very dark places. And even as a young adult, I had my oil painting and my watercolors that I could just. Focus on and share my feelings with myself.

And it helped me go through those times and really saved my life as healing for me. Even then the after afterwards, of sorting out who I am and who I was after, those kind of experiences. and I can say that’s true for several people in my family that have had the same experiences.

Dale: One of the things you say in your book on the cover here is just, this resource can inspire you to experiment, collaborate, and express yourself in ways you never thought possible. And I just think, think a lot of what you were talking about too is it has to do with of making as self-expression it’s very powerful and it isn’t necessarily just yourself. Right? 

Marilyn: Correct.

Dale: You are communicating that to and around other people that are doing that. Self-expression doesn’t mean you’re by yourself necessarily.

Marilyn: No. 

Dale: I just think I was at the scene yesterday some kids that kind of they were, it was a making wellness exhibition.

It was for kids that struggled in school, been in juvenile hall, various places, and they were getting just to make things. And they’d came up with the idea that clothing was something that can can be very expressive. You can wear it. It’s accessible and all these things (you can make) from canvas bags to hats to t-shirts and all that.

Amber: Yeah.

Dale: It’s a kind of obvious, but it’s also true that a lot of kids don’t have many opportunities to really express themselves in any authentic way.

Amber: Yeah.

Marilyn: And that’s something I found then with my work was. I just retired from 48 years in education and youth work. And during those decades of working with students, I always made sure we had an art center because I found that as I was speaking, they may start individually working on something, but then as they see themselves coming to life in an art piece, then it becomes part of a community of makers. And I think that connective piece with makers around you is also key. But students need that place to be safe, to be able to share and express themselves.

Dale: Exactly.

Marilyn: And it’s just very important.

Dale: No, it really is. And, but sometimes even kids themselves misunderstand art,

I’m not gonna be an artist. You want me to be an artist, that’s why you asked me to do this. Now we want you to—

Amber: Yes, be creative.

Dale: In some way, right? Find something in you that you’re, that you know, means something to you.

Amber: I can speak to that too. I think that I found in my own classroom as well. I also was a classroom teacher for over 20 years and students are so scripted to do exactly what they’re supposed to do in school every single day. There’s very little time for them to have freedom to sit and think about what they might want to create or what they might want to do.

In my classroom, we’re gonna have this hour on Friday that’s going to be our makerspace time. It was the short amount of time that I could squeeze into my education schedule, which we all wish was much different. But what I found great joy in was allowing them to have some freedom to choose, here’s this wall of materials and you can go pick what you want and do what you want.

I actually sat down right next to them and made my own projects, which again was something that was very rare that happened in the classroom, but I so enjoyed it as the educator. It just was a time for us to sit and the conversations were fun and it truly was the same collaborative effort.

This idea of sitting next to somebody who was making with me, and it didn’t matter that they might be 10, but we were having these great conversations surrounded by the idea of just a freedom to create.

Dale: Yeah. And Marilyn, you’re such a great example. This is something that, that you could do your whole life and it is your life.

Amber: Yeah.

Marilyn: Exactly.

Dale: People kind of question like, what’s the value of it sometimes.

Marilyn: That’s one of the things I have found with, I was thinking just this week, it’s like I don’t want people to think I’m having little book clubs or something from the book or anything. But what I’m finding is that, people are talking, once they’ve read the book, A Maker’s Life, they’re talking and talking about how they’re makers and their history of making, and I’ve had so many incredible conversations just in this week with people of all ages. And I have a wide variety of friends of all different ages and they’re all talking about it. It’s, some of them are, have heard them say, I didn’t think of myself as a maker, but I’ve been a maker for a long time. 

Dale: I’d love to have an article in the magazine on that. It’d be really cool. In some ways I thought after I started this. People that they made stuff, right? I just wanted to share it with other people, so when you’re talking about that, it’s like, gosh, wouldn’t it be cool to see all those people and you could meet them individually, but to see them together with the projects they make and talk to them.

They’re a different person when those things are close to that. To be able to share and talk about that. They don’t want to give you their history, what they made is really important.

Amber: It’s personal.

Marilyn: Mm-hmm. 

Dale: They just of light up when they talk about it.

Marilyn: I’ve seen that both, and I’m sure Amber has too. I’ve seen that in the classroom and I feel like I’m really seeing it now with my friends and family who getting very excited about being makers. In one of our other conversations, Dale you mentioned a phrase that has just been seared into my like personhood. And that’s the phrase generational makers. And that just that was one of those moments that I remember. I’ll give an illustration of when I was in a classroom. I had bought a whole lot of magnetic marbles for the kids their science lab that week. I’d given little trays and these magnetic marbles, and I said, let’s make designs.

And I was sitting with them, as Amber I’d sit with the kids and do their projects. And one little boy was getting particularly frustrated because magnetic marbles tend to have a mind of their own. But he was working really hard to get this design made. And in the process of him working, one of the other students came by and accidentally, very gently actually, bumped into the desk where he was sitting. And I’ll never forget that moment when those marbles in that tray, thankfully they were in a tray, but they just all of a sudden started bumping, and I’ve never forgotten the clicking sound because once they stopped clicking, that little boy’s face lit up because he said that’s my design. I couldn’t have made it if he hadn’t come by and bumped into my desk. And that moment of when you have all these pieces and then something happens and they come together that’s what I was working on.

And that’s go back to that phrase, generational makers. That’s been such a rich piece for me. And I see it, like I said, both in the school at, whether I’m in at, during, PDs or working with children or when I’m talking with family and friends.The excitement around making has been electrifying. It’s just amazing.

Dale: I hear that. I have to think, like in my confession, I’m not a great maker myself, but I really key on the excitement I call enthusiasm of makers. That I just wanna be around people like that. I want to learn from them; I want to see what they do. And, it’s genuine.

So my questions often are like, why don’t we have more of it? Why isn’t school filled with it? is it one hour on a Friday when you know this is something, if it was so transformative, you would have it every day. You would have it often. You would have it outside of school, in school, you’d have it at home. 

I think, people from a previous generation had more of it, sometimes out of necessity. About making, greeting cards and things. It was just what you did. And it seemed ordinary.

Amber: Yeah. it was just, or as you say, you’re handy, you know how to do things. It was of an ordinary thing.

Dale: Now extraordinary.

What you think generational makers is about— it should be ordinary in your life. It doesn’t mean it’s not fun or exciting.

Amber: One of the things that Dr. Nash talks about in the book is the influence that her parents had on her, but specifically her mom, and she shares these, these stories that, that she and her mom had about making things and my mom and I had the exact same experience.

And I laugh because when I was growing up in the eighties, my mom had this — it was a Time Life series of books and each one was on home repair. There was a book on plumbing, there was a book on, book on wallpapering. I remember I loved the books. I loved the colors of the books. I loved the pictures that were in the books, but my mom was the one that read those cover to cover and she was the one in our house that fixed things and made things.

And she took me out, multiple times to go start a new project. It was going out to the fields and picking flowers and we’d press ’em or whatever, whatever it was. There were lots of different, but that was so impactful in my childhood, and Dr. Nash had the same experiences that we’ve now passed those on to our kids in whatever form of making they do.

But if you didn’t have that generational maker in your life, it doesn’t mean that you’re, you can’t start now. So you know, what is it that, that you are interested in or find that passion and find the opportunities to go make.

Dale: And your workbook is a workbook guide for developing a makerspace. This is of the point is because it’s not in a lot of kids or families to have happening every day. A makerspace becomes a place where that can happen.

And the reason it belongs in school is because kids are there every day or in the community ’cause they go somewhere else. But, you know, I understand when a makerspace is probably too much, but I try to, for those that we might bring into this conversation that don’t understand what it is, ’cause people say, oh, well they have arts and crafts in schools. Or they have the summer camp, we have arts and crafts going on there. What’s really different here that you’re doing with a makerspace and why do we, why do we need to develop one and have in our school or in our community?

Marilyn: I think for me, what I would hope is a makerspace is around many, in many ways the engineering design process where they understand I have a question, or I have a problem, or I need something fixed. Then think about how can you fix it? What are ways, how can we solve this problem? Try those ideas of how to fix it, see if they work.

Dale: I’m surprised by that answer. It is for the educational side. I get that.

Marilyn: Mindset of creating something it may be a problem of. I would like to create something that may be the problem may be what you’re working on, maybe the place where you start. It could be, you wanna design something that moves and has motors or something, but you start with something. It’s, it could be, like I said, I want to create something or here are the, here’s the medium that I need to try and practice and see if I like it. It could be, all kinds of things.

But to think through that. I bring that up in the sense of, I found students who work through that process gain confidence in, I can do this.

Dale: Absolutely.

Marilyn: That, that’s why I brought that up. I saw so many examples of students who I’ve shared in the book about who had behavior or learning challenges or both, and they would come into the makerspace and I, they, I would give them a challenge.

You have these magnetic tiles that you can use. I want you to build something. They had the freedom to decide what they were building and they would start building and just get so excited about watching this come to life, and if it fell apart or it wasn’t quite right or they need to change it, their confidence and focus melted all of those other challenges away so that they had that freedom and safety and joy and enthusiasm to build something. And I think for me, the makerspace at the school or is that it had thousands and thousands of tools and variety of materials. Thanks to 1st Maker Space for building such a cool space.

But I could literally make piles of things and say, today I want you to build a house using these materials and to see kids think those through and then just explode with creativity. We used the Glow Forge laser and cut out all the pieces for little cardboard houses. They worked on building the house. Then they had this huge cart full of hundreds of things that they could add to the house. Just that joy of making and exploring expression for me was electrifying and reminded me all of those whys in my life of — I love making things.

Dale: I said it surprised me a little bit because I think the basic thing about making is to have an idea and be able to realize know, learn how to know, take your own ideas seriously. And that’s why self-expression is a great place to start. Makers don’t have to be limited to self-expression but the goal of projects that use engineering, design, other things, or really getting ideas from other people about what they might need and say, I know how to do that and turn it in.

It is a remarkable thing when a person can imagine something in their head and then realize it; they can share with another person and say, that’s, that was my idea. 

Marilyn: The ownership for that expression —

Dale: It came from me. 

Amber: That’s mine.

Marilyn: And for those kids who aren’t able or comfortable or whatever, however you want to say it, to express themselves, when they have that create moment and they have that piece that, that they’ve now made and they have that excitement, but then they’re able to share in ways not seen before, or even some of their educational people around them would expect them to do.

Dale: Exactly.

Marilyn: It frees kids to do all kinds of things.

Dale : My idea of how I would change or organize school is to encourage kids to do projects based on their own ideas and interests. I sometimes hear teachers say what if they don’t have any ideas? If they don’t have any interests? And I say, really? You don’t think they don’t have any, have you ever engaged with kids at any fundamental level? And you know it, that may be the problem, is the way that you ask.

Amber: Yeah.

Dale: Like nobody likes to be asked out of the blue is sit down and draw something. You have to create an environment, and I think this is of the key in the book is maybe there’s a bunch of things besides equipment and materials and tools that are important to create the environment where these conditions like creativity flourish, right?

And people feel safe. Not gonna be like, there’s not a right answer. I don’t have to do these things, which is really different than school.

When I really started thinking about makerspace, I wanted it to be the kind of space that kids enter with a sense of wonder, what goes on here not even rows of chairs here to sit down. I don’t know where, and there’s stuff on the walls that aren’t just posters. There’s stuff people make. What is that? What is that? How’d you make that? And there’s tools. And so it generates a lot of questions. What do I get to do here? As opposed to, where do I sit?

Amber: You stole my answer. That’s what I was gonna say. That’s what I was gonna say to your makerspace question, because I live in this world of designing out these spaces and what is the most valuable thing you can put in there? And it’s not really the stuff. It’s the atmosphere. Something different happens in this space, and it’s probably my favorite part of watching kids walk into a space for the first time and the oohs and ahs because it does not and should not feel like a traditional classroom because you want them to understand that things are different in the space and the things you create in this space.

There’s something very valuable about the feeling of the freedom to, you know, oh, if I sit at this desk with this pencil, it might feel like I’m taking a test and I’m doing this worksheet. And that is, what they do on a day-to-day basis and school. And sadly it is limited in most educational settings but boy, they can feel extra special when they go into a room that does have wooden tables and there are tools and the materials are there for creativity.

Dale: Jumping it up a level — this is important to their future.

Amber: Yes.

Dale: They are asserting things. Not only their voice, but their ability to change. I was talking to Lee Martin of UC Davis who had written a paper on Maker Education, but it was about adaptability. A part of the maker mindset. 

We don’t know the future is, but we know we all need to be adaptable. 

Amber: Yes.

Dale: Figure out how to learn new things for that future. It’s a little thing that adds up to, I think, a big thing, which is self-directed learning. That I would wish on every child to discover that. That’s when you really begin to grow and develop because you get to decide, what you want to do, how you want to learn and nobody can do that for you.

Marilyn: That’s right. And I think both of you just hit on something that I keep thinking about as you’re both talking, is that I wanna see that enthusiasm for the teachers and the educators because my experience has so often been that the making and makerspaces and make, being a maker, it’s put on top of this incredible workload and responsibilities teachers and educators have.

Amber: Yes.

Marilyn: They’re exhausted and are trying their best to, ’cause you have, you have formulas — X amount of time for language arts, math. Those are the emphasis of the day. There’s a schedule and bells are going off. It’s pretty ding ding, ding through the days.

And I think that’s probably why I’ve been so I know it’s why I’ve been so enjoying the conversations with family and friends about the book because they’re getting excited as adults. And I want that enthusiasm that I saw just explode with children in the makerspace and what we were talking about. And then they go back into these classrooms where they’re back in those rows in the desk, like you were talking about Dale and Amber was saying, no tables, or if there are, you’re still in assigned seat. And I understand that. I get that world. We have things that those students need and so on. It’s like a choke hold almost on breath.

Dale: I’m a pretty agreeable person, but know, when you start talk know, the school system, I have this other side of I want to subvert it. I don’t believe a lot of these rules and regulations have any purpose but to keep a bureaucracy busy and, and I just think what we’re doing here and talking about is what are the experiences kids have when they’re young that, really them to grow and develop and blossom.

Amber: Yeah.

Dale: Compliance as an educational agenda is terrible. Creativity and discovery —

Amber: It’s challenging for educators find that balance of, I do have to walk this line of I know that this is what is required of me, but I also know what is best for kids and how do we walk that, how do we find that balance and speak to, yeah.

Dale: It is that line they have to walk. But it it needs to be questioned. 

Amber: The line out there.

Marilyn: Right. 

Dale: To say, justified on what the kids experience is. How do they learn best?

Amber: How can we show that value? Yeah.

Dale: That’s why I think it’s so powerful often to look at the kids that are not learning well in school, that aren’t succeeding know, and you say, what about them? We’ve all seen this, but if you’re doing maker programs, it’s not the smartest kid in the class that’s flourishing. Often, they can and they should, but often it’s the kids who haven’t had a chance to flourish.

Amber: Yeah.

Dale: And that’s, it’s just an alternate and, but important way, for them to find themselves, 

Amber: Find their voice.

Dale: That they can do things. I think so much of it is about gaining a degree of confidence and sense of capability that you have this ability to do things, and you can can develop it and get better at it, rather than feeling defeated, feeling I’m not as good as others. I’m not good at math or —

Amber: Yes.

Dale: You have to build your life on what you can do, not what you can’t. 

Dale: Sometimes I think there ought to be a church of making, because these values are what we’re trying to convey here. It’s not just do this thing or that thing. It’s share these values as a community and lift people up.

Amber: That is Dr. Nash and I agree. Like I really think that’s part of the reason for putting this out this book out to the public is that we want people to understand that, education is highly valuable, but let’s find that happy medium and let’s share our experiences as educators and how we can bring more making to the classroom and more experiences that expose them to those careers that they, 

Dale: Because.

You know, again, you’re talking about an educator walking the line. Just again, you have to sometimes just use your imagination and say, what if they didn’t have to walk that line?

Amber: Yeah.

Dale: And you had a really creative school full of kids that were flourishing.

Amber: Yes.

Dale: That’s really the goal here.

Amber: Yep.

Marilyn: Yeah 

Dale: We do see it, but we see it for moments.

Amber: Yeah. Yeah.

Dale: We imagine how do you sustain that and how do you get a lot of people in there know, One of the things that you said you tried to bring to the book was what’s the research behind this? Or what’s the science of learning? We could bring people like Marilyn and others and say, it’s meant so much to me. It, it’s fundamental to my experience of life. But what’s the science behind it? So tell what you found here.

Amber: What’s the research? It’s been really interesting kind of diving into this because, and this won’t be any surprise, but there isn’t a lot of research that supports makerspace and hands-on learning. Since COVID, I want to find who’s the new person out there speaking to this and supporting it? And so we have this gap right now, but I think that every piece of research that I find comes back to this one particular piece that I love the most is that learners remember 75% of what they do versus 5% of what they hear. And does it get any more impactful than that? And so it’s driving what this idea of, what Piaget and what Montessori and some of those, we call them the founding fathers of the Maker movement.

Yeah. Like they really were preaching to this and there’s something to that.

Dale: Montessori’s always been an inspiration just because of how we always think of her kindergarten, she actually a medical doctor and was, original thing was seeing kids locked up in mental institutions, young kids.

Amber: Yeah.

Dale: They didn’t think they could learn. She tells this story of how the caretakers threw their food at them, saying, look how they’re playing their food and they’re making of fun of them. She began to work with them and prove that they can learn. We all learn. It’s natural. 

Amber: Yep.

Dale: I think we need to remember that because sometimes school looks like there’s only one way to learn.

Amber: Correct. Yes.

Dale: The kids have that, and it’s sad ’cause you see it in the younger kids and start losing those sparks as they get older in the conventional, traditional environment.

Dewey and others had these realizations. This is a hundred year old body of work.

Marilyn: Right.

Dale: Erased it, forgotten it. Don’t give it credit.

And we, in fact, I’d say your point is we don’t even research it anymore. But there really is a lot of ways about how our brain works and how kids when they’re active, mean, just take it active virtually.

This is one of my favorite things. Don’t you think kids are doing better when they’re active than they’re, when they’re passive? 

Amber: Yep. 

Dale: And there’s never been a conference like the Passive Learning Conference, which promotes passive learning.

Marilyn: That’s right.

Amber: So true.

Dale: That’s our dominant mode.

Amber: Yeah. Yes.

Yeah.

Dale: It’s like everybody went to that conference, they didn’t go to all the other better ones.

Marilyn: Exactly. There’s a quote in the book, in fact, that says, kids won’t climb the walls if you take the walls away.

Amber: Yeah.

Marilyn: Exactly. And when you’re talking about the Montessori, I have a little boy, I’m tutoring right now several times a week. And his report from school that I received when I started tutoring him, this little boy’s at 0, 0, 0. I know he is in a classroom and nothing against the school or the teacher or anything like that, but it’s sit, write, sit, write. And I quickly discovered, because I had Montessori tools, I have the sand tray, I have the little, sand block, letters and things like that. This little boy and just, I think I’ve been working with him about seven weeks. He’s gone from getting zeros on list of words he’s supposed to know. To now, he knows 75% of them because he’s been able to touch the letters. He’s been able to, work and it’s it’s that tactile piece that gets us back to making.

Dale: I wrote it and I just made it up, but to be honest, but I said, kids often have a tactile deficit syndrome today. 

Amber: Yeah.

Dale: And Montessori talks about education of the senses. It’s like we take it for granted that you acquire these things. We were doing wet felting at a Maker Faire, and the amazing thing isn’t what kids make. It’s like how happy they are to put their hands in water.

Marilyn: That’s right.

Dale: Like when you think of some of the fundamentals that get missed because kids are on a device,

Amber: Yes.

Dale: Their flat world experience is that. and I think nature also has that quality too.

Amber: Absolutely.

Dale: Getting out in the world. To me, maker isn’t some special category of thing. It’s actually just having a life full of rich experiences, right? That motivate us and enrich us. 

Marilyn: Right.

Dale: And so the problem I had really with school is the quality of experience is so poor we end up saying we have a mental health or social emotional learning problem. The school has a problem that’s creating that in kids. Just a symptom of it rather than it’s something the kids are carrying.

Amber: Yeah.

Marilyn: Like you said earlier, there’s such a separation. If like schools will have their plays or schools will have their musical performances, where they’ll have their Maker nights, but it was always done after school or as separate. It’s not seen together. And it kinda goes back to the comments about educators and teachers making or being makers or makerspaces feels like it’s put on top of everything or over here along side of things; it’s not integrated into… Of course, I remember numerous times we would get through the day and because I always liked to have fun and so my goal is to make the learning the fun and having a blast. And I remember numerous times kids would be getting ready at the end of the day and Dr. Nash, Dr. Nash, we didn’t have math today. And it’s yes, we did remember when we were doing such and such. Oh, that was math. Just to look at things so differently like that,

Amber: Yeah.

Marilyn: First of all, to have fun and then that there are ways to have tactile, sensory experiences when you’re learning traditional information. I get lost. I get bored to death and if I get bored, I’ve lost kids at least a month ago. And so that was always my goal. And, but I think what we see in schools, and you’ve both kind of been talking about it, is that this whole world of expression and making and makerspaces, it’s either on top of what you’re doing and it becomes a resentful piece. And it goes away when you know you’re not held accountable, which kind of already puts an edge to it, or it’s done after school or done in the evening, or it’s like a thing the music teacher takes care of, whereas it’s something the art teacher does.

It goes back to something we were mentioning earlier, Dale, is that I’d say all the time, and I had a poster in my room, Everyone is a Maker. And it was always interesting, the conversations, and I even say that today to people. Everyone’s a maker and they’re like, oh, not me. I, yeah. And they’re like, yes. And again, in the book I have the line, we’re creators from a creator. Of course, we’re makers. 

Dale: I said that once, you know, and gave a talk with that name on it, and, and the way I describe it, it’s a belief, right? And I believe this.

Amber: Yeah.

Dale: People are better if I believe that, or I’m a better person if I believe that than if I believe they’re not, or there’s few of them in the world. And I think, our beliefs motivate us and drive us to do things. I would love to see know, like you your book go into like senior centers. 

Amber: Hmm. 

Dale: And have this conversation with them.

Amber: Yeah.

Dale: I’ve seen some of the most effective PD or Professional Development for teachers is simply to get them together making things and listen to them, not tell them anything, but just listen how they talk to each other. Inevitably they say, my kids would like this. 

Amber: Oh yes.

Dale: Or, I used to do this as a kid and I could do this more. You know, it’s like those are the major points you would wanna get across.

Amber: Yeah. And they’ve forgotten. Yeah, they’ve forgotten that they can.

Marilyn: That’s right. 

Dale: And it hasn’t been encouraged. And that’s why I think, you know, your book and the whole kind of maker movement is just to encourage people. This is really important. Our culture doesn’t appreciate it. Our school systems don’t appreciate it. It doesn’t mean it’s not valuable though.

Amber: Yeah.

Dale: And so I really respect what you’re doing. It’s such a wonderful thing also for older folks, I have to tell you this. One of the ideas I had starting Make Magazine 20 years ago was that, I just, I was a lot younger, but thinking, know, all of us need to play not just the kids, right?

Amber: Yes.

Marilyn: Absolutely.

Amber: Yeah.

Dale: The older you get, maybe you get control of your life, a little bit more. You get time. You start saying well, how can I spend my time effectively?

Amber: Yeah.

Dale: Playing, creating, making is the state of mind. It puts you in right. The kind of energy it gives you and the kind of optimism is all things that come from this.

Amber: Joy.

Dale: Watching TV or being on the internet doom scroll.

Amber: Yeah.

Dale: People say is, when you’re doing something, making some you lose track of time.

Amber: Yeah.

Dale: And you and it’s just oh, where’d the last hour go? 

Amber: Yeah.

Marilyn: Right. 

Dale: That’s your hour. That was yours. And look what you did with it.

Marilyn: That’s,

Dale: Very special. Very special.

Marilyn: That’s right. And one of the things when you were talking about sharing with older more mature people I, on Wednesdays, now that I’m retired, I have the opportunity on Wednesdays.

I’m in a game club, specifically Mahjong with Chinese tiles. And we play Mahjong rounds for four hours and just talk and talk. I’ve been doing as much as I could before I retired, and now I’ve been able to do it every week now. And I’ve really grown to love these. There’s four of us and two of the women, we don’t ask their age, but we do know that they’re probably around 84 to 85 years old. And I gave them this is probably about three weeks ago, I gave them both a complimentary copy of A Maker’s Life. I said, this is for you. I signed it for them. They were just so appreciative. The next week when we met for game club, one of the women came in and she goes, I am angry with you, Marilyn.

I’m like, which I thought, oh gosh, this is can’t be good. And I said oh, okay. And of course, my sister who’s there, she was like, I need to go to the bathroom. And I’m like, oh. We talked. I got after her later was like, you can’t walk out when someone comes in like that. But we started laughing because I said, okay, what did I do now?

And she said I’ve been reading your book, Marilyn. They’re both of them were retired teachers. And she says, I’ve been retired for probably 40 years. And she goes which means she might be older. But anyway she goes, I was reading your book. I always started writing down notes. I started making little comments in the margins because I didn’t wanna forget anything that you had said.

And she says, I had to make myself stop and remind myself, I’m not going to school tomorrow. She goes, but it was so exciting to read your book and to think about myself as a maker.

Amber: Yeah.

Marilyn: I’ve got some new projects going. And that I can get in trouble for.

Dale: Yeah, I don’t know how angry you need to be to do that, but it’s great.

Marilyn: I’ve been talking to them because of these conversations with them is I’ve asked them, I said, would you please write down and describe yourself as a maker. What is it like as a maker? And it brings back to me in that personal lifeline for me that making has been.

Amber: Yeah.

Dale: One of the things I notice when you start making something, you talk about it. You find other people that you connect to on that. So it becomes, it’s the conversation sometimes when you’re making, sometimes with outside of that. But it gives you something to talk about. 

Amber: Yeah.

Dale: It’s interesting to know that people care. 

Marilyn: Absolutely.

Amber: And connect with a human soul.

Marilyn: Definitely.

Dale: Thank you both for joining me. And thanks for writing the book, and good luck with it. I really hope it gets into the hands of people that may not expect to think of themselves as makers.

Marilyn: That’s right. I’m working on it. That is our hope. Yes.

Amber: Thanks Dale.