#4 Designers at the Lab

Seven stories to know about the k-12 lab
(because Edison would say that you won't remember more)

At the K-12 Lab, our message is that everyone is a designer. Developing a child's creative confidence can have a profound impact on their lives. Below are a few stories that feature students as designers. These vignettes show how design thinking can have a transformational impact on students inside and outside the classroom.

Andy's Story

A young seventh-grade student slung his backpack over his shoulder and headed for the narrow doorway of his corrugated metal portable classroom. The school day was over, and he had just finished an exuberant design thinking class where students brainstormed, sketched, and giggled as they designed eyeglass prototypes for each other. As he left he said, “I really liked using my imagination. I haven’t used it for a long time.”

We learned that inviting imagination into the classroom had transformative results. Perhaps the most powerful story that emerged belonged to Andy, an 8th grade student at East Palo Alto Academy. Melissa Pelochino, Andy’s teacher, came to a Teacher Training Workshop at the d.school in early February. Energized by her experience, a series of emails, phone calls and visits ensued and led to a lively and fruitful collaboration with the d.school research team. Melissa began implementing design challenges in her classroom.

Her students were reading the novel Monster, by Walter Dean Myers, and their design challenge was to "create a way for inmates to feel more comfortable in their cells." They used details from the book and pictures from the Internet to immerse themselves in imagining what living in a small cell would be like. Melissa gave her students cameras and Andy asked if he could take the camera to the jail where his father was currently serving time and bring back pictures to add to the class observation chart. Andy had not visited his father for quite some time.

At the facility, he was not allowed to take pictures. Instead, he took detailed notes. He also brought the book with him and read to his dad for over an hour. In recounting this story, Melissa said that she believed that Andy just needed a reason to visit his father and felt that he could contribute in some way to him though this project.

Soon after, she noticed that the book began traveling with Andy everywhere. It was always in his hand as he walked through the hallways, replacing his ever-present football. She believed that it became symbolic to Andy, representing a bonding moment between him and his dad, and a connection that he had been he yearning for. The following week, Melissa brought the class to the Elmwood Detention Center to prototype their designs. While there, Andy met Sergeant Liddle ,who tested their prototypes. After his positive experience at the prison, Andy has set a goal to become a police officer. Since that challenge, Andy has not yet been back to see his father and his football has returned to his hand. However, the design challenge became the hub of a wheel for Andy that brought together family, literacy and community.

What we learned was that design is a powerful tool that gives students agency to create positive change in themselves and their world.

Don't Judge!

In the spring of 2008, an epidemic broke out among 7th graders at an area school. Students everywhere were saying "don't judge!" whenever they heard unconstructive feedback. The class started doing this spontaneously after learning about the importance of deferring judgement during a K-12 Lab activity. Their teacher, Sunny was amazed by the transformation. Before taking part in the design thinking activity, group work in the classroom often stalled because of the judgmental attitudes that the students typically adopted toward their peers.

Building Confidence

In the first year the Nueva ilab was open, the second grade tackled three design projects in the school year. One student in the class began the year unable to stand next to any adult that was not his teacher without crying. His teacher found that design thinking was hard for him initially because it forced him seek feedback from adults. But as the student began to explore his love of making things in the ilab, his confidence grew, and he began to overcome his fears.

By the end of the year, he had developed enough confidence to test his project on a visitor from India and half of the school's administrative staff.