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Special Issue Newsletter:
Teachers are Talking about Repair!
The Bottom Line:
Repair is a relational, practical, philosophical, spiritual and environmental imperative.
Remembering Repair is urgent.
Repairing our things is a stake in the ground for a creative and responsible relationship with our physical world.
photo credit: Right to Repair Europe
We are inspired by the groundswell of people demanding information, materials and tools for repair, and repair-friendly product design. “Right to Repair” policies are sweeping the globe. Repair Cafés and other community repair events are popping up right and left. Repair is one of the tight circles of the “circular economy”, an approach to more responsibly managing resources increasingly adopted around the world.
Consider these facts:
Education. Repair is a powerful gateway to learning and fosters cognitive and personal development; critical thinking and technical skills; and examining our role and capacity within our community, the environment, and the world.
The Environment. We MUST turn from hyper-disposability to lengthening the productive lifespan of the energy and material investment we make in objects. Repair keeps our stuff in service longer → carbon impact goes down.
Empowering Communities. While repair is aggressively opposed by way too many manufacturers, it benefits small businesses and consumers; creates local jobs; and helps everyone, across the political spectrum — rural, urban, and suburban communities can take care of themselves and each other.
we're super-excited to make two announcements:
I. The Fixfest 2022 "Repair in K-12 Educational Settings" Video Has Been Posted!
The October 1, 2022 online session offered an opportunity for individuals working to bring repair into educational settings to gather to share information about what they’re doing and how, and to exchange resources and ideas.
In 90 minutes of presentations and discussion we broadened our understanding of what repair in educational contexts might look like, addressing scope, objectives, implementation, relationship with other school subjects, and related topics.
It was clear that the session heightened enthusiasm for bringing repair into educational settings. We hope that that enthusiasm, coupled with the resources offered, will enable educators to more easily transform an interest in repair into actual programs.
Panelists included:
Transition Berkeley - Repair Training Class
Agency by Design Oakland - Cultivating a Repair Mindset
Rudolf Steiner School - Student Repair Workshop
PolicyLab Africa - Gifted Hands Hardware Repair
Janina Klose - Scholar of Repair in Education
For information about panelists, their programs and the materials they offer, as well as a link to the session video: "Repair in K-12 Educational Settings"
II. Two Excellent Educational Resources Are Now Available In Hardcopy!
We're thrilled to support the development and distribution of two new important resources, created BY teachers FOR teachers who are working to integrate repair into their learning environments. We see the momentum picking up around the world, with educators leading the charge.
"Fixing Things for the Future"
The Rudolf Steiner School in Munich, Germany, established an exceptional Student Repair Shop as part of their regular class offerings for 5th - 11th graders, and created a handbook to help other schools establish their own repair programs.
The school announced at Fixfest that the guide has been newly translated into English!
The class naturally teaches diagnostic and hands-on skills. Importantly, it also emphasizes essential aspects of learning that support students’ development as capable, healthy and responsible citizens of the world. The handbook includes the program’s pedagogical grounding, conceptual design, structure, a step-by-step outline for establishing a repair class, practical resources and more.
"Fixing Things for the Future" is available to download for free, and in hardcopy at cost. For information: "Fixing Things for the Future"
"Cultivating a Repair Mindset Toolkit"
Agency by Design Oakland and Maker Ed created a rich resource for teaching through repairing objects, in Oakland, California, USA. Grounded in research and classroom testing, the Toolkit includes teaching strategies, tactics, classroom materials, and a pedagogical framework for bringing repair thinking into the classroom.
The thinking processes developed through repairing physical objects involve looking closely, understanding how things work, investigating the interests that shaped objects’ design, and identifying points of intervention.
Those thinking processes support students’ cognitive and personal development, and are transferable far beyond simply fixing things. Toolkit materials were designed to be integrated into existing classes across subject areas.
"Cultivating a Repair Mindset" offers educators material to help cultivate in students the insight, creativity, and motivation to contribute toward putting what we value into working order.
The Toolkit is available to download for free, and in hardcopy at cost. For information:"Cultivating a Repair Mindset"
While you’re on our website, check out Educator Resources for mostly no-cost materials we’ve gathered from around the world, ranging from curriculum to lesson plans to teaching aids.
Repair is not new.
Planned obsolescence and prohibitions on repair are new.
→ Let's turn this ship ←
Want to know more about Repair?
Venture beyond this newsletter for information about:
~ Local, National and International Repair Initiatives ~
~ Technical, Educator and Research Resources ~
~ Private, Public and Non-for-Profit Projects ~
And more...
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Follow The Culture of Repair Project on Twitter: @cultureofrepair
"We" ~ I'm me, but usually write as "we" because everything I do is in collaboration with a fantastic community of public-spirited repair enthusiasts and educators. The work wouldn't happen without everyone pulling together.
That’s it for now.
Vita