Last year, with the intention of introducing maker culture to our school one piece at a time, I set up what I called the Maker Corner--a space in the reception area with a simple activity that could be done independently by anyone who happened to pass by. I've had to invest my time in other ways this semester, but I loved seeing the curiosity of students when something new arrived for them to get their hands on and build with. I've shared a few of last year's Maker Corner activities, one involving sticky notes and the other, a simple architectural puzzle. Here, I'll share one that I finished the semester with a year ago--a community tapestry.
It's a flat board with nails or pegs sticking out, and at the end of each one, there is a statement, ranging from things like, "I love making things," or "I enjoy learning English," to "I have been bullied," or "I worry a lot about my future." The idea is, people choose a color of string and start wrapping it around the pegs connected to statements that they identify with. The string is wrapped around several pegs, zig-zagging around the board until it's cut and tied off. It's important to provide different colors of string--a minimum of three, but more is better to reflect diversity. After multiple people have participated, the board becomes a colorful web showing a variety of connections and intersections among the community. Folks who anonymously wrapped a string around a peg can come back later and see the others that identified with that statement as well.
Like many things I do, I got the idea online, and then connected it to our community as a bi-national center and an English language school. I kept the language simple, hoping that students of various levels would feel comfortable to participate. Thanks to technology, the meanings of any unknown words can easily be searched for, and because this is an independent activity, it is also guided by students' interest, and not dictated by a set curriculum.
I thought a lot about things that our students, in particular the teenagers, are likely thinking about, even if not talking about. I wanted to give them an opportunity to express themselves while also seeing that they are not alone in some of their struggles. It's empowering to see unvoiced thoughts put into words--even and especially words in a foreign language--and then to get to see that there are others in the community with the same situation. And even if a particular peg has only one person's string wrapped around it, that person's connection to the community at large becomes apparent in this colorful collaboration.
This kind of tapestry can be used for so many kinds of events in various types of communities. It can be an icebreaker to get a new group comfortable with each other. It can connect to a general topic or campaign. Autism Acceptance Month (April), Mental Health Awareness Month (May), and Pride Month (June) are a few recent ones that come to mind. Of course a variety of statements is best--I tried to put widely different ones--just so that we can see how we are connected, and so that minorities will be a vital part of that tapestry as well.
If you were to set up such a board in your community, what kind of statements would you put on it? If you are a minority, or someone who feels disconnected, what are your thoughts about this activity? And--here's my artist brain thinking out loud in type here--how might this work as a 3-D installation rather than a flat board base, where people enter a space and interact with it, and the threads crisscross in multiple layers of intersections, possibly with lights and objects entangled for visual effect, and also to show the complexity of our community? What would happen if we all took a moment to consider our connections and intersections? Who wants to find out with me?
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