As we work to develop a sense of inquiry and love of learning in our students we often push them to create their own knowledge, their own thinking, and their own ideas.  While this may be a much more challenging way to teach, and at times a little more frustrating way to learn, because it’s much easier to be only asked yes/no questions.  Still we push our students to work that extra bit and put in that additional effort.  It’s why we have the Persistence All The Time (PATT) award.  So when I hear people say something like, “Let’s not reinvent the wheel here.”  On one level I understand what they’re saying, “Don’t do the work that someone has already done, try to use what they’ve done to help  you solve your problem.”  But on another level, I can’t help but think, what if we did try to reinvent the wheel?  What if the current wheel just wasn’t good enough and could be improved?

Several engineers at MIT did just that.  They decided to reinvent the wheel and what they came up with is amazing.  It’s called the Copenhagen Wheel and it will connect with a smart phone to turn any ordinary adult bicycle into a hybrid electric one.  I am currently planning on getting one of these to help me commute to school and back (and not be a mess of sweat in the morning).  I can’t wait to see it work in real life.  It’s a perfect testament to the fact that when you apply some out of the box thinking and work hard, just about anything is possible.  This is what we are building at Discovery Academy, students whose mindset will be to look at something that works perfectly fine and say, “I think I can make that work better,” and then have the tools to do it.

-Mr. Reed-Swale