Chapter 4Developing a Sensitivity to Design

In Melissa Butler's kindergarten class at Pittsburgh Allegheny K–5 school in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, students spend a whole class period focused on one screw. With their small hands, each child holds it, examines it, sketches it, turns it around, and sketches it some more. The children rotate the screw to get different perspectives and see new angles. Each student feels the screw's intricacies, discusses its complexities, and notices that their neighbors' screws look slightly different than their own. For 25 minutes the students are focused and curious. At no point do they say that they are done with their screw or wonder what to look at next; as Melissa noted in a conversation following the class, ...

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