This teacher wasn’t the first to think that taking things apart and putting them back together might be the perfect way to keep students engage and to help them learn. John Dewey started his first school with the idea that “learning by doing” is really the only way that students take learning with them and the way that learning gets stuck deep into hearts and minds.
I love the reaction when he tells his students what they are going to do:
“I love seeing the expression on their face when we tell them, ‘OK, now take the whole thing apart.’ And they’re like, ‘What?! This is gonna take forever!’ ” he says.
It is going to take forever, but then again so does learning!