OAKLAND -- Park Day School's progressive curriculum has always
followed the philosophy that children benefit from the
experiential learning of being involved in their education on a
very practical basis. Using a developmental approach to teaching
a wide range of skills and learning dispositions, the staff has
used hands-on materials across the curriculum from kindergarten
through eighth grade. In answer to its desire to incorporate the
principles of the maker movement and the strategies of design
thinking, Park Day School has entered into a partnership with
Harvard Graduate School of Education's Project Zero and the
Abundance Foundation, bringing DesignME (design, make, engage)
to all its students. Ilya Pratt, a learning specialist at Park
Day School, described the maker movement as a widespread
response to the loss of the hands-on making of goods, as well as
the corporate world's need for more engineers. "They realize
they don't have engineers that know how to work with materials
and come to new things throu