Fixing Things for the Future

¡Ahora Disponible en Espanol!

The Rudolf Steiner School in Munich, Germany, has not only established an exceptional Student Repair Shop as part of their regular class offerings for 5th – 11th graders, they’ve also created a rich handbook to help other schools establish their own repair programs.

Designed as a regular class, the well-established program of course teaches diagnostic and hands-on skills. But, importantly, it also incorporates many aspects of repair relevant to students’ development as healthy and responsible citizens of the world. For example: understanding the environmental impact of consumerism, developing a holistic view of society, discussing values that contribute to well-being, cultivating collaborative team work, and developing practical organizational skills. And celebrated throughout is the sheer delight of learning, sharing, and serving through figuring out the fix with others. Turns out repair’s FUN!

The handbook draws on the extensive experience of the program’s educators. It includes the program’s pedagogical grounding, conceptual design, structure, a step-by-step outline for establishing a repair class, practical resources and more. In the generous spirit of repair communities world-wide, they offer it freely to all takers. Educators interested in repair will find much of value in the handbook, regardless of their project’s scale.

Wolfgang M. Heckl, President and Director of the Deutsches Museum in Munich, writes this in his forward to the handbook:

“Anytime we repair something, we are showing our respect for both nature and culture. When we repair things, we are honoring the fact that a broken but still thoroughly serviceable gadget contains natural resources which we must not simply throw away. At the same time, that gadget represents the cultural achievements of the people who developed and built it which we should not simply throw away either.

“And, of course, repairing things is a lot of fun and tremendously fulfilling. Any time we've gotten something working again, we've also understood how it works from the ground up. This should be taught in schools, and is why this Student Repair Shop and the initiative taken by the Rudolf Steiner School deserve the utmost respect.

“I sincerely hope that this handbook launches a movement and that workshops of this kind are set up in many more schools. I hope so for all of us.”

The Student Repair Workshop’s website offers a wealth of information and resources, including a presentation of the program’s concepts and methodology, an introduction to the team, a schedule of the Workshop’s upcoming activities, a recounting of past activities, awards and media coverage, and much more. Summary pages in English here and here. More extensive pages in German. (Most browsers do a nice job of translation)

Read about the program in the Waldorf schools journal Erziehungskunst. English edition.

Listen to the Restart Radio podcast, an interview with students Carl Mau and Beat Schneiderhan, and their teachers, Felix Lossin and Walter Kraus.

Check out the Fixing for Future YouTube channel.

Join our mailing list here