While NOVA Lab’s existence spans a mere five years, the number of projects we have had with lasting impact is sizable. Even during our first year, interrupted as it was by a global pandemic, students completed projects ranging from a spray paint art installation for the class itself, to voter registration drives for high-school seniors to raising over $1000 for the Appalachian trail fund through the creation of a life style brand–“Living Now.”
In the years since, projects to impact both the school (therapy dogs, remodeling the counseling center, creating a “zen den” for de-stressing and downtime) and the community at large (Spike Valley tournament, Dog adoption drives, low-cost crafting events) have helped spread the word about the benefits of doing “good things.”
This year, one project has had an community-wide impact beyond my expectations. “Jo and Zo Trail Signage, led by seniors Zoey Ganter and J.P. Zangara, has created a lasting and educational impact on the Perkiomen Trail between Collegeville and Schwenksville. For years to come, their informational signs about local flora and fauna and native inhabitants will stand as evidence that, given time and guidance, students are capable of achieving more than merely good grades.
One of the basic tenets of NOVA Lab, beyond the sloganeering of “do good things” is that entrepreneurial mindsets, when put to use for social good, can bring amazing benefits for citizenry. In the world of education, we refer to this as “Purpose Driven Learning.” Prof. William Damon of Stanford University notes that this work is defined by it being “personally meaningful for the student and consequential for a larger community.” JP and Zoe’s project is a perfect example of the power of purpose driven learning. For the better part of 5 months of work, JP and Zoey tracked down sign makers, connected with local governmental officials (thanks to Joe Seltzer!), partnered with fellow students to learn Adobe Illustrator, and sought out funding from former NOVA Lab students and partners to pay for the signs. (Great thanks to Ms. Erica Quigley and also to former NOVA Lab pioneer M.T. for agreeing to fund the signage and to the county for digging the post holes and erecting the signs)
In the end, as you’ll see from these photos, Zoey and JP have made a lasting impact and done a good thing. (This trail sign is located at the Perkiomen Trail Head. Others are located at the Rahns Trailhead, Skippack Trailhead, Central Perkiomen Park, and the Schwenksville Trailhead)
NOVA Lab & Education Beyond the Classroom
Quaker scholar and educator Parker Palmer has written that “when individual selves in a classroom become unified—not homogenized—around a shared experience of awe, exploration, and reverence” it becomes easy to “envision curriculum as something greater than both the student and teacher, and therefore worthy of a kind of relationship characterized by reverence, awe, and mysticism.” Palmer calls this a “great thing” and “invites educators to ask, what is this ‘great thing'” we as a class are moving towards? The answer is not found in textbooks or tests or, even between the walls of a classroom. This great thing is found when the choices of what to study are influenced by “transcendence (moreness) rather than curricular goals and achievements, which are largely individual and transactional.
Taking Palmer to heart, breaking the walls of the classroom, and doing work that is purposeful, meaningful, and beneficial for a larger community…I believe this is how we want our children to experience education. It is, as Palmer notes, how we move our classrooms from staid, concrete boxes to transcendent, “sacred spaces,” places where “curriculum is no longer static knowledge to be mastered…but a doorway to newness,” and renewal.
JP and Zoey are two of hundreds of students who have stepped into the NOVA Lab, discovered the power of purpose-driven learning, and helped move the classroom from a place of transaction to one of transcendence. And that, is a very good thing.
(quotations from Parker Palmer found in “The Classroom as Sacred Space” by Dr. Paul Michalec)
Innovation Lab 