The Joy of Building

of sun, or kind of seed), and they made the planter themselves. They felt control over the parameters of the experiment because they learned to control a build.

Social studies lessons take on a new dimension when students build a city themselves—not in a “here are some sugar cubes and paint; build Mecca” kind of way. (I remember doing this specific example as a child and snacking on sugar cubes as I did.) Rather than use an example from my own class for this, I will reference the teacher across the hall from me, who is the kind of teacher who makes you better because he is so good. He uses an architectural building simulator on the computer and has students create operable cities. He puts in constraints forcing students to work like historical figures might have. And once they have their own city, they can do whatever they want within it. They own this place; they’re invested. Then, the teacher talks about revolution, civil rights, and taxes. Students then have a proportionate understanding of those concepts’ scale of impact because they have their own city to think about when they consider the concepts.

The Joy of Building

Building like a designer is methodical. It’s planned. It’s thoughtful. It’s also a lot of fun. There is noise in the classroom. There are students everywhere. There’s a mess to clean up. I would never suggest all learning should always look like this, just as I would never suggest no learning is happening when students sit quietly in rows looking at journals. But there is a unique joy to the build phase of design. More than any other step, building helps bring students back to the room and get them excited to learn. No matter their reading level, mathematics level, language level, or public speaking confidence, there’s something fun about getting on your knees with three other students and making something you drew on paper become a reality. It only gets deeper in the next phase, test and revise, where designers learn to evaluate their builds and consider what it means to be successful.