• Curriculum Overview
• After School
• Events and Celebrations
• Service Learning and Partnerships
• Special Assemblies
• Mini Courses

by Mike Nowell

Tinker NOUN: 1. A traveling mender of metal household utensils. 2. Chiefly British. A member of any of various traditionally itinerant groups of people living especially in Scotland and Ireland; a traveler. 3. One who enjoys experimenting with and repairing machine parts.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition

Having inherited an incredible Shop program thoughtfully established by the school's first principal, Grace Rotzel, and initially run by the redoubtable Mr. Rawson, I was more than prepared to spend my days as Shop teacher carrying forward the rich program that had evolved from Grace's original conception. As I worked alongside the children in those first years I realized how often I was recalling my own experiences in the program and the approaches to learning and activities I enjoyed between the ages of five and twelve. As I began to compile these reflections, I realized that I pursued one of my great passions only at home – tinkering. Remembering my joy in opening up clocks, radios and other household electronic items to discover their inner secrets, I also remembered my parents' dismay when I took these forays into appliances that were fully functional prior to my explorations. I knew what I had to do.

The introduction of the Tinker Box stocked with donated non-functional VCR's, phones, fans, computers and their kin and the Tinker Table outfitted with screwdrivers, pliers, soldering irons, multimeters and other test equipment to the Shop program quickly proved that this aspect of my youthful curiosity, this drive to better understand the electrical things around me, was shared by virtually all of the children.

Like woodworking, tinkering offers a hands-on activity of discovery.Woodworking leads towards an understanding of the nature of wood, of joinery techniques and tool skills through the processes of planning and building. Tinkering, as defined in the Shop program*, leads towards an understanding of simple electronic circuits, of the electrical and mechanical system components that comprise electronic devices and tool skills through the processes of disassembly, troubleshooting and repair. Having the two disciplines available for exploration in the same space makes incorporating "recycled" electronic components like LED's, motors and switches into woodworking projects a wonderfully common occurrence.

As a parent, you may not always appreciate the small bags of capacitors, resistors, transformers and other scavenged electronic "goodies" that your offspring springs on you, but consider it a small price to pay for that untouched clock radio on your bedside table and the field of discovery they are making their own.

* Bear in mind that this activity should in no way be called deconstruction. For the lineage of that term see Husserl, Heidegger and Derrida - "Il n'y a rien hors du VCR."

---