home again...

I am back in Arkansas after watching my daughter Lucy graduate from Columbia University. It was a big deal. There were over 19,000 graduates in all including Columbia College, the engineering school,  Teachers College, Barnard, and degrees offered at the masters and doctoral levels in social work, nursing, journalism and nearly every other field of academic endeavor including medicine and law. While there, I received the cover image of my new book, number 7, Building Small Cabinets. The final manuscript for review and last minute corrections was waiting for me when I arrived home. The final cover design is shown above.

While these things are exciting to me, being with the graduates of this major university reminded me of the great work at hand.

One of the things that stands in the way of educational reform is that understanding of theory is used as a gate, rather than a gateway to action, which is contrary to the ways that most human being learn best. So we ask students to take theoretical classes long before they have practical experience in the subject matter. We ask students to study teaching as a theoretical model long before they have classroom experience. Long hours of boring lecture forms the gate, rather than the gateway to experiential learning. And so, many students arrive at their last day of school, knowing little more of what they are to become than they knew when they first arrived.

Some of my daughter's friends are planning to go wwoofing as the followup to their academic careers. This is brought on in part by the faulty economy and lack of jobs, but also by their frustration with the unreality of their college careers. They have a longing to do things and become engaged in things that are real to them. And what can be more real and at greater distance from the their stifled academic existence than the world of organic gardening, getting hands in dirt, and watching real things grow.

Can you see how and why it would be important to have greater emphasis on hands-on learning in the modern university experience? Can you see how universities might become more gateway than gate, by getting students more deeply engaged in their studies? We all know that we learn at greater depth and to greater lasting effect when we learn hands-on. A simple recognition of the importance of the hands in learning can make all the difference in how we shape our children's educations, and our own lives as well.  Or have I lost my marbles in New York?

Years ago, when Lucy began her first year at Columbia, I had conversations with Alan Brinkley, then Provost of Columbia about adding hands-on components to their core curriculum. I know how naive I actually am in such matters. But that will not prevent me from making the same attempt with their new Provost, Claude M. Steele. Education is nearly all about the hands. It is not enough to fill brains with ideas that are untested through hands-on exploration of physical, intellectual and emotional realities. And there are important reasons to get hands dirty, and deeply engaged in learning. As I've stated so many times before, the engagement of the hands develops character and intellect.... and does a whole lot more besides.

On the same subject, can play get your kids into college? Read this from CNN. My hypothesis is that not only will play get you into college, it will help you to know what to do when you get out.

Make, fix and create.