Throwing spears? Playing with fire? Using power tools? This isn't your ordinary
summer camp.
It's Tinkering School, a program located outside of San Francisco and founded a few years ago by software engineer ever Tulley and his wife, Julie Spiegler. Tulley got the idea for the school while visiting a friend one day. When the friend's son appeared with a stick in his hand, the friend reminded the boy, who was then around six years old, that sticks were unsafe to play with. It occurred to Tulley at that moment that perhaps play had become too safe and too structured for kids.
Tulley decided to start a program in which kids could "learn by fooling around."
They could not only play with sticks but also with hammers, nails, drills, fire, and other
"dangerous" things. For example, through exploring fire in an open pit, says Tulley, kids learn the elements of fire as well as principles of fire safety.
Tinkering School is for kids ages 7 to 17 and is a place where, as the school's Web site states, "Grand schemes, wild ideas, crazy notions, and intuitive leaps of imagination are, of course, encouraged and fertilized." Each weeklong summer camp. It's Tinkering School, a program located outside of San Francisco and founded a few years ago by software engineer ever Tulley and his wife, Julie Spiegler. Tulley got the idea for the school while visiting a friend one day. When the friend's son appeared with a stick in his hand, the friend reminded the boy, who was then around six years old, that sticks were unsafe to play with. It occurred to Tulley at that moment that perhaps play had become too safe and too structured for kids.
Tulley decided to start a program in which kids could "learn by fooling around."
They could not only play with sticks but also with hammers, nails, drills, fire, and other
"dangerous" things. For example, through exploring fire in an open pit, says Tulley, kids learn the elements of fire as well as principles of fire safety.
Tinkering School is for kids ages 7 to 17 and is a place where, as the school's Web site states, "Grand schemes, wild ideas, crazy notions, and intuitive leaps of imagination are, of course, encouraged and fertilized." Each weeklong summer session is limited to eight students, who bunk in Tulley and Spiegler's home for the session. Working together, the kids gain a sense of mastery through projects of their own choosing. Most projects begin with sketches and doodles and have resulted in creations such as a gravity-powered wooden rollercoaster, a motorcycle, and a suspension bridge.
Tulley encourages kids to build things that are real, as opposed to a "pretend something else." For instance, if kids want to build a boat, Tulley asks them to create a craft that successfully carries people on water. "Success is in the doing, and failures are celebrated and analyzed," says Tulley.
His greatest hope is that the kids leave the school with more knowledge about how to make things and the realization that they can figure things out by fooling around.
What is the main idea of the passage?
A. Gever Tulley and his wife have created a school where kids gain knowledge through hands-on learning.
B. Gever Tulley and his friend have created a school that encourages kids to leam the principles of fire safety.
C. Gever Tulley has created a school where children create pretend models of real-life machines.
D. Gever Tulley and his wife have created a private school for talented and gifted teenagers.