The Case Against Professionalism

There are children playing in the street who could solve some of my top problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that I lost long ago. ~J. Robert OppenheimerWhen architect Simon Nicholson first proposed his theory of loose parts ("How Not to Cheat Children") in 1971 he asserted that the "gifted few" (professionals) got to have all the fun. They designed the buildings, created the music, wrote poems, did the science, and then the rest of us were left to just sort of live with, but never touch, change, or question their work. His big idea was to give amateurs, and especially children, the ability to do the fun part themselves by filling their spaces with "loose parts" that they were free to manipulate, connect, and transform.It was a radical idea, one that holds the potential to turn education upside down. It was an idea in keeping with the ideas that had been emerging over the preceding 70 years from education pioneering amateurs like John Dewey and Maria…