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Can Closed Public Schools Become Makerspaces? (Video)
In August Phil Shapiro wrote an article that asked the question, Can 50 Closed Chicago Schools Become 50 Makerspaces? Now, in September, we have a ruminative interview with him about schools, makerspaces, and how making places where kids (and adults) can make things and generally tinker with tools and get used to the idea of working with their hands to create new things and to repair old ones. For many of us in previous generations, our "makerspace" was our garage or basement, and our mentor was Dad. Today, this doesn't seem to be the case in a lot of homes. Besides, working with others is safer than working alone, and even if we bowl alone there is no good social or biological reason for us to create alone -- especially if we have a congenial makerspace nearby.
But they do make good crack houses and meth labs.
1. Can they? Of course.
2. Should they or will they? Maybe.
More to the point, has anyone actually demonstrated that "makerspaces" are an improvement over a standard school shop class or (for particularly motivated students) a public vocational school?
I am officially gone from
they didn't close the schools so that socialist anti-consumer degenerates could use them, they closed them so they could sell the land off cheap to developer mates.
Step 1: plaster over bullet holes in the walls...
...as long as you don't roll on Shabbos.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Not just Betteridge's law of headlines, but the idea of a place where any person can come and do whatever they want is anathema to the perception Americans have to a "public good". There's a quite unspoken undertone to a lot debate in the U.S. that reflects the perspective that things are either done in private or by employees for money. Public gathering places are few and far between, and not just because of fiscal concerns.
Now, with a spirited group of concerned citizens you can achieve a lot, as many charities demonstrate, but that represents support for maybe a couple such building renovations, not 50 school's worth.
I've always felt that public libraries could provide the same service. With the rise of eBooks and things like Wikipedia, we clearly don't need such large public libraries anymore - so why not repurpose some of the space to hold physical tools. 3D printers, laser cutters, CNC milling machines and just regular stuff like drills and saws would provide a valuable educational resource for people needing work and perhaps becoming the entrepreneurs that will revive failing cities.
In light of Chicago's more pressing problems, a proposal like this sounds a bit too optimistic.
Seems to me there's something wrong if you have 50 empty school buildings but the same number of available teachers and students (or more) than before you closed them. They do make great workspaces but, hey, even better schools in many cases... unless the school is so run down that it's more suited to being a practice space for local bands.
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
I think the liability aspect of it being a public facility would prohibit it's use as a makerspace.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
'Makerspace' sounds like something that's been hijacked by corporate interests or sociology majors - not people who actually like building stuff.
One of the reason they closed the schools and consolidated was lack of funding. What makes anyone think that the city will want to pay to keep the building open?
Can Detroit become Makerspace?
It used to be.
There is an awesome, long running "Makerspace" in Portland, Oregon, that was formerly a public vocational school. http://watershedpdx.com/ - but it takes individual and collective will and effort for such a thing to happen. They shouldn't just be handed out by the state.
>> Can 50 Closed Chicago Schools Become 50 Makerspaces?
Here's a list of the schools closed and their capacities:
http://graphics.chicagotribune.com/school_utilization/
These aren't small buildings. Most are elementary schools. Many are in neighborhoods where you'd want tools and other equipment with "street value" locked up behind more than the average school door.
A better idea would be find "maker" space in light industrial parks. I'll bet there's plenty of that kind of unused space in those neighborhoods too.
That's entirely too good an idea to have any possibility of success.
Two issues I can think of: (1) Funding (if they can't fund schools, how are they going to fund this?) and (2) liability, (who's at fault when little Tommy saws his fingers off) which in a way I guess also comes down to funding.
I think part of the funding might come from (dons steel helmet) um, corporations. For instance, a makerspace in Michigan might be funded and supplied by Ford. In Chicago, who would participate? I suspect there is a lot of room for jokes here...
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
There's no way they'll allow these unlawful felons to set up firearms factories in schools.
Why did that need background music?
after a large enough donation to the Mayor's campaign fund.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Old schools are generally closed for a reason. Declining attendance comes hand in hand with reduced tax roll, which means less money for maintenance. Even a relatively new school building needs a lot of maintenance. But usually, they're closing OLD schools that require roofs and countless other maintenance items. Asbestos, giant boilers that don't pass safety inspections, etc... I've done work in a school that still has a significant amount of coal sitting in the basement.
Remember these buildings aren't just a big version of your house. You might wire up a new outlet in your house, but you probably don't have the tools or know-how to core 2 foot thick concrete walls or work with 440 volt feeder lines, pneumatically actuated steam radiators or commercial fire alarm systems.
"there is no good social or biological reason for us to create alone"
I could not help but get a little hung up on this statement. I have found undeniable benefit in my social life as well as my physicality in the past by delving deep into the creative process un solo. I find this work to be the most fulfilling for me as a musician and builder of tings. I don't believe this statement to carry weight.
The floor space cost is just a pittance of what it takes to get a "makerspace" up and running.
Show me the project spreadsheet. You can easily go beyond $1 million in equipment without even trying.
I hate to trash this utopian vision of an urban hipster future where open spaces become public access man-caves, but aren't there better uses for our publicly funded heritage?
Just a few alternative uses off the top of my head:
Homeless shelters
Drug rehabilitation centers
Orphanages
Demolished and replaced with parks or green spaces
Neighborhood libraries
Community centers
Is a maker space really that important? Are there any cases in which the public good brought about by a maker space made a positive difference to a neighborhood?
Cleaning, adminstration, maintenance, safety. The older schools, which were probably the ones closed, were not deigned for modular(partial) use.
It would be insane of Chicago to let these buildings be used for Makerspaces. People might actually learn something there, even school age children, That must never happen in Chicago schools. Far better to serve the community as crack dens.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Seems to me there's something wrong if you have 50 empty school buildings but the same number of available teachers and students (or more) than before you closed them. They do make great workspaces but, hey, even better schools in many cases... unless the school is so run down that it's more suited to being a practice space for local bands.
Don't worry. The murder rate in Chicago and all the teachers they fired balanced things out quite well.
Wait, so Dad will be at these schools... I never had one of those
5 maybe 10, not 50.
You need to think about the market possibilities, you don't start something with 50 outlets. You take 1-3 and expand as needed.
The population of Chicago has been declining for decades, meaning fewer students to fill the schools. That, combined with "No Child Left Behind"'s (unfunded) mandate to fix or close failing schools, combined with falling property values (meaning less property taxes to fund the school district) has led to the massive closures. Those buildings really aren't needed as schools, they have plenty of space for the smaller student population in the remaining schools.
Nowhere near the same number of students in the system. Same as in Detroit, Baltimore, etc. It's absurd to have the same number of physical buildings and mid to upper level managers for 50,000 students as for 100,000 students.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
you probably don't have the tools or know-how to core 2 foot thick concrete walls or work with 440 volt feeder lines, pneumatically actuated steam radiators or commercial fire alarm systems.
Hacker/maker culture is in love with things like this. Electricians, plumbers, engineers, retired very knowledgeable persons, and those that are willing to spend the money, time, and effort to do these sorts of things are the people that we are talking about. For them, learning how to do things and passing on what they already know is fun defined.
Tell one of them that they probably can't do something, know something, or have to tools to do something, and they take it as an exciting challenge.
Seems to me there's something wrong if you have 50 empty school buildings but the same number of available teachers and students (or more) than before you closed them. They do make great workspaces but, hey, even better schools in many cases... unless the school is so run down that it's more suited to being a practice space for local bands.
They have the same number of teachers, but not all of them are good teachers. The union walked off the job last year in protest of standardized testing, and rating teachers on their ability to actually teach children so that they can pass the tests; these are things that hurt bad teachers, and not so much good teachers,
Now obviously, part of the problem is mainstreaming children who are ineducable, either through no fault of their own, or because they could care less about learning; such children should go into remedial programs until they can be mainstreamed with certainty, and the teachers involved in teaching them shouldn't be penalized for the performance of kids we already know to be poor students: equality of opportunity is not the same thing as equality of ability, or equality of outcome.
Additionally, the Chicago Teacher's Union is claiming classroom overcrowding, which you could maybe buy if Utah weren't running 35 student class sizes, and have been since I was in elementary school in the 1970's, or their students weren't doing well on the standardized tests in a way that was attributable to class size. So it looks like what the district is doing is cutting dead wood.
Yeah, it's sad that those teachers couldn't teach very well, so they don't have jobs any more, but it's about as sad as trying to convert the under-enrolled schools, which no parent wants to send their children to because they won't get taught, being turned in blue collar training camps for blue collar jobs that aren't going to be there for the kids once they leave the makerspace. You're not going to get your machinists union journeyman card hanging out in a makerspace without a multi-year apprenticeship. Guess how many participants are currently in Seattle Machinists Apprentice program (you know, Seattle, where Boeing is located)? 34. Guess how many hours you have to put in to become a journeyman? 7,424. That's almost 4 years.
Blue collar jobs are not coming back any time soon. Unless you see the U.S. implementing trade tariffs in the near future so that it costs the same to buy something manufactured in a country that doesn't enforce environmental laws, making it a lot cheaper to buy labor there than in the U.S.? I didn't think so.
This has got to be the most presumptuous and juvenile summary on /. yet. Good gravy people, is there a QC filter around here????