Broken printer turns into a learning tool

It is free time at Glacier Gateway Elementary School. Addy Connelly shows one of her kindergarten students how to cut wires with needle nose pliers.

Dillon Adams proceeds to cut one of the wires that connects an ink cartridge to a broken printer.

The printer used to sit in a computer lab at the school. Dillon gives the pliers to his classmate Marie Hermes to cut the second wire off the cartridge.

“Dillon, it looks like Marie might need some support on where you cut with those,” Connelly says.

“I did it! We got it off,” Hermes says. They put the cartridge in a cardboard box and continue working on the printer.

Connelly has taught kindergarten for seven years and second grade for two.

She started the activity in her classroom when her own boys were born and they took an interest in seeing how things work.

This is Connelly’s fourth year giving her kindergarten students the opportunity to take apart broken electronics. When she taught second grade, they tore apart stuff, too.

It’s fun to take something apart, but the children are also practicing many different skills, Connelly noted last week.

They’re learning fine motor skills.

Twisting a screwdriver or cutting a wire helps them strengthen and coordinate their hand muscles to be able to write better. She also sees that they’re problem-solving and collaborating with each other.

The side panels don’t have any screws, but on the first day three of them figured out how to pry off one of the panels. It encourages self-worth, Connelly said.

“There’s things that I can’t do in a lesson plan,” Connelly said. “It’s spontaneous. It allows them to do their own learning and exploration. They talk about it and are taking an interest. And they go home and they talk about these things.”

Taking something apart to see how it works is nothing new, but it’s relatively new to schools. Some educators call it an “un-makerspace.” It evolved from the education trend of a “makerspace,” where students use raw materials and their imagination to create things. Teachers in higher grades often combine an un-makerspace with a writing assignment.

One of the children shows Connelly a caution label on the printer that says it may be a hot surface. She asks the students if they think it would be hot right now. They say no. She says because it’s not plugged in.

Before starting the activity, she talks with her students about safety and how to use the tools appropriately. She hasn’t had any accidents.

It’s mostly self-directed. She guides the students by telling them if a piece could be dissected more, or if they need help cutting a thick wire. And sometimes the screws are too tight for the children to get by themselves.

“It tends to get those kids engaged that just kind of are lost,” she says. All abilities can do it from her high achievers to those who struggle to read.

“I got this off!” Airebella Lewis-Hylton says as she holds up the gray side of the printer. “That was epic.”

One of the screwdrivers is bent from prying. There are several screws and other tools discarded next to the printer. Connelly says the broken machine will hold their interest during the daily free time until school’s out in June.

Adams starts rummaging in the cardboard box of items that have already come off the printer. He pulls out a plastic piece that feeds paper into the printer. Connelly kneels on the ground with him and shows him the small plastic gear on the back that controls the sliders on the top. They use the pliers to pull off the gear.

“They move independently, why?” Connelly asks. “Do you see how this has teeth?”

“That’s how clocks work,” she says.