projects
The Present.
school vacation ‘camp’
Our major project, presently, is an ongoing series of ‘day camps’ – temporary spaces built for kids and adults to learn things and make things and do things together, outside of the traditional school environment. Scheduled during school vacation periods, these programs give kids and adults both a chance to get outside of the routine, and frequently rote and stressful, practices of their day to day lives and to devote themselves to making and learning and playing with the things that they find personally important, whatever they may be.
The only specific mandate of camp is “making things and making things happen.” The only rule is “if you’re not learning anything, and you’re not helping anyone, then find somewhere to be where you are.” To go along with this, , we have a few suggestions; don’t hurt anyone, if you make a mess, clean it up, and show respect for our tools, other people, and yourself.
Mike Nagle wrote up a document describing the process of starting a summer camp here, based off of the work that he did with us and with others organizing and running Camp Kaleidoscope. We are in the process of reworking this to fill in holes and gaps and provide more information and ideas and things we learned while organizing and running the Parts and Crafts programs.
ongoing workshops/classes
During the rest of the year we run various and occasional workshops and classes for kids and adults designed to help people learn technical skills and put them towards creative endeavors. For a schedule of our events, have a look here.
The Future.
555Brooklyn
Currently in planning stages. A permanent space from which we can run programs and an open community center and workspace. A consensus-run and non-hierarchical coworking space for people interested in creative and socially mindful uses of technology and a drop-in afterschool program for kids interested in making and doing.
The grand dream is to create meaningful relationships between kids and adult based on work, creativity, and interests – we think that it’s a real problem that school-age kids mostly interact with professional “teachers”. Not because most professional teachers aren’t interesting, creative, and genuinely helpful and caring people, but because the structures of the classroom almost always obscure these facts, and their shared humanity, from students.
diy Kits
We’re ruminating on the many things that we think are missing from or wrong with existing science/technology “kits” for kids. Soon, a manifesto. Soon after, a store. Until then, make your own lightsaber and tell us about it!
thewayswelearn.org
A collection of interviews and conversations about the process of learning. If you live in the Boston or New York areas and would like to contribute, send us an email at partsandcrafts@gmail.com and we can set up a time and a place. In return for an hour or so of conversation, you get the (reasonalby priced) meal or beverage of your choice.