Makerspaces in schools are a place where the normal rules of classroom learning are set aside in favor of just a couple: have fun and don’t be afraid to make mistakes.
As schools continue to grapple with a student mental health crisis, could makerspaces also present an opportunity to support overall student wellness? And even a creative way for counselors to get their young patients to open up?
Absolutely, say a pair of researchers at Pennsylvania’s Kutztown University. A collaboration between teachers Deborah Duenyas and Roseanne Perkins explores how educators and counselors can use makerspaces (in their own lanes) to help students deal with emotional distress. they published a research work on the use of “makerspace therapy” by counseling graduate students in 2021.
Duenyas, an associate professor of counselor education, was a certified teacher and counselor. Perkins, an associate professor of technology education, has a background in library science and art education.
What they found is that, as outlets for creativity and self-expression, makerspaces are already becoming informal places in schools where students can openly talk about negative emotions like sadness or grief. These are areas that encourage students to play and problem solve, sometimes with high-tech tools like 3D printers or low-tech materials like hot glue and construction paper. They can be stationary in a library or classroom, or they can be mobilized with carts that can be moved from one room to another.
In formal counseling settings, researchers found that integrating makerspace-style activities can get the conversation flowing with clients who need encouragement to open up.
“Especially during COVID, it seemed like there was a real movement of people of all ages expressing themselves through making, creating and innovating,” Duenyas says, particularly on social media platforms like YouTube, which focuses on The videos. “This seemed like something really important and timely that we might be looking at. Creativity in advice has existed, but makerspace has allowed pieces of art [incorporate] technology.”
A new element for counseling
As part of their study, Duenyas and Perkins introduced the concept of makerspaces to seven counseling graduate students, all participating in clinical internships, at their university and had each student develop a creative activity to use with a client. Some students specialized in clinical mental health counseling, while others focused on marriage, couples, and family counseling.
The first problem the researchers tackled was getting students to overcome the belief that they couldn’t come up with their own creation therapy ideas because they weren’t creative.
Perkins says it’s a common problem, one she sees her art therapy students outperform at the start of every semester.
“The great thing about a makerspace is that there are multiple entry points, high-tech or low-tech,” says Perkins. “I teach an undergraduate class on makerspaces in education, and on the first day, [students] They’re like, ‘I’m not going to touch anything.’”
Invariably, he says, students gravitate toward whatever material in class they already know how to use. The seamstresses are taken to the sewing machines, while the people who know how to draw use the button making machine.
“Then they teach each other, and almost everyone gets this experience. By the end of the semester, they’re doing it all,” says Perkins. “I think that’s one of the things that the makerspace has to offer, it’s not just low tech, it’s not just art, [it has] entry points to things you didn’t know you were looking for.”
Among the group of graduate students who were part of her research, Duenyas says they designed activities such as doodling, creating sock puppets, sewing a weighted blanket and making 3D-printed dice to use with their clients.
For the counseling student who used doodles with her patient, “she had a session that she had never had before,” Duenyas says. “The client was really able to explore what was happening to him in a very different way, to draw not with a purpose or to do something, just to see what he would come up with.”
Makerspace and Mental Health at School
When it comes to the ability of makerspaces to be part of a school’s overall mental health support system, there is an anecdote that is reminiscent of Perkins.
She heard about a school that used its makerspace as part of a grief project to help students work through their emotions after the death of a classmate. The students who participated found a place where they could openly talk about their feelings.
“It was a way to talk about the person and close a bit as a community, celebrate the life of the person and also say goodbye,” says Perkins. “It was spontaneous – they didn’t intentionally create a therapeutic creator environment, and it shows how much it lends itself to that. That it’s such a natural place for people to go and do things and have those kinds of human connections while doing them.”
That matches what Canadian researchers found in a exploratory study on using makerspaces to teach mindfulness to fourth graders. Students learned about mindfulness techniques with craft projects, then used those techniques, such as taking deep breaths, when they got frustrated with the project or angry at their classmates.
“The challenges inherent in making also deepened students’ experiential understanding of mindfulness by creating stressful situations that they learned to navigate using their newly acquired mindfulness tools,” according to the report.
Another reason Perkins and Duenyas think the solution could work in schools is that the barriers to creating a makerspace are lower than in the past, Duenyas says, with components like 3D printers more affordable than ever.
“Makerspaces are collaborative, and the school counselor, librarian, and teacher can advocate for resources for a dedicated makerspace in a school setting that is accessible to all,” says Perkins. “So everyone can take a different path based on their professional background in how they use it and collaborate on how it’s designed.”
