Everywhere I look today I’m being drawn into a secretive, seductive world: DIY. Be a Maker.
Build a Treehouse, or a pair of snow goggles, or a solar theramin (I had to look that up). Learn how to identify animal tracks in the snow, or mushrooms in your neighbourhood. Get your bike or your garden ready for spring. Start your own band.
In the flush of this tsunami of DIY / MAKER encouragement and guidance my idea of heaven would be to be 11 years old right now. I could be earning badges and points but more importantly I could be learning how to do practical things from experts. Not next month, or I after I graduate, but right now, when I’m really interested in these things.
Move over scouts, cubs, brownies and beavers. Your legacy just left you in the dust.
(above = a couple of cool badges offered by DIY.org for learning gardening and dancing skills)
It’s a very cool movement and it’s going to be around a longggg time, I predict. And I don’t have a single idea of how conventional schooling can begin to compete with the DIY-Makers world, though Khan Academy and a few of its imitators brush up against it.
If you’d like to get in on the action … check out DIY.org or madebyjoel.com or this Pinterest site, here.
Learn Your Way!
For information on my book: Learn Your Way! SelfDesigning the Life You Really Want, Starting Now (2011) and to order a copy, go here.
Michael’s book, Learn Your Way! SelfDesigning the Life You Really Want, Starting Now is an ERAC-approved middle and high school textbook for career planning and health education courses (British Columbia), and it has received many endorsements. Contact Michael directly to obtain a pdf copy of the book.
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