Serendipity Is Allowed
Thursday, October 30, 2003
Serendipity is allowed . . . in addition to fifty-fifty encouraged.
It is a philosophy gear upward forth past times Ed Moriarty, an teacher at MIT's Edgerton Center. Opening the doors of the strobe lab for "that Sat thing," equally it is called past times the students, Ed provides mentorship in addition to asks challenging questions of children in addition to adults of all ages who drib past times to play in addition to experiment.
Here is learning at its close creative, combining physical manipulation of electrical components alongside thoughtful observation. There is no syllabus, merely the joy of learning.
We were giving merely about friends a tour of MIT in addition to nosotros had explained that the philosophy of play is an of import element of life at MIT. We walked past times the strobe lab at an opportune 2d in addition to were forthwith hijacked past times Ed. He said, "Hey, come upward inwards here. I desire to exhibit y'all merely about stuff."
He borrowed a circuit that eight-year-old Amelia had constructed in addition to asked us, "What form of shadow is created when y'all select 3 minor diodes shining red, blue, in addition to light-green in addition to position a finger inwards forepart of ane of them?"
"What if y'all concur upward several fingers in addition to the shadow falls on someone's face?"
Or equally above, "What happens when H2O comes out of a lx cycle-per-second heart in addition to is illuminated past times a lx flash-per-second strobe?" This piddling man child learned that the current of H2O is truly composed of droplets, non a continuous stream.
As noted on the Edgerton Center website:
Always willing to follow students’ Pb in addition to to allow them detect their ain voice, Moriarty offers the intellectual in addition to emotional back upward that enables students of all ages to larn to engineer past times doing.
What create nosotros create inwards classrooms? Well, for the close part, nosotros throw away spontaneity in addition to and shoehorn students into tightly constrained curricula. They larn the facts, but they oftentimes lose the inventiveness in addition to joy of learning that comes from impulse in addition to experimentation. They presently forget the surprises that serendipity tin bring.