This school year, I had another chance to visit PS/MS 188, The Island School on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, to spend time in Dr. Lou Lahana’s makerspace. We came to observe how he uses technology as a tool for instruction. What we saw was different from the tech rooms many people are familiar with.
The first thing you notice is that the room does not look like a computer lab. It looks like a workshop.
Yes, there are laptops with Adobe software. But they share space with woodworking tools, sewing machines, Legos, craft supplies, audio equipment, robotics kits, markers, and piles of student projects. Students do not start with a device. They start with an idea, then choose the medium that makes sense for what they are trying to say.
A project might involve filming, coding, building, drawing, composing music, or designing a board game. Often, it is a mix.
This is not a new story at The Island School. Years ago, I wrote about visiting the school’s Internet Cafe and meeting Lou, the school’s techbrarian, and how students were already publishing for real audiences beyond the classroom in a place that functioned as a tech center by day and a Scholar’s Lab by night: You Can Get a Dalton Education at a NYC Public School.
If you want to go straight to Lou’s own thinking and examples, his work lives here: Techbrarian.
A “Techbrarian” Approach to Talent Development and Social Action
Over the past couple of decades, Dr. Lahana has built and used this makerspace to explore his work as a self-described techbrarian, an educator who uses instructional technology and media to support talent development and social action in young people.
That framing matters. The makerspace is not about learning tools for the sake of tools. It is about using tools to do something that matters.
If you have followed my writing for a while, you have seen this through line in his work. In 2018, I described walking into his Tech Cafe and realizing you were not entering a space where students were being prepared for the future. You were entering a space where students were doing the work of making the world better right now: The Key to Differentiated Learning: Develop Student Experts.
In Dr. Lahana’s room, students are pushed to explore social issues, research them, and then create something that communicates their learning and their stance. The something could be a video, a podcast, a product, a physical build, a piece of art, or an experience. The medium follows the message.
This aligns with what I have written about for years at The Island School, including how models like the Schoolwide Enrichment Model can exist in public schools and how passion-driven work changes what students believe they are capable of: Preparing Students for Success by Helping Them Discover and Develop Their Passions.
Student Work in Action: Animal Rights and Artivism
On the day of our visit, middle school students were deep into a project focused on animal rights. Students were buzzing around the room, working with their hands, collaborating naturally, and staying anchored in a meaningful problem they were trying to understand.
Some were preparing for an upcoming craft sale, making bracelets, buttons, jewelry, and stamped sweatshirts. Their goal was not just to sell items. They were raising money for animal welfare organizations and connecting their making to real world impact.
Other students were creating artivism pieces, including music, podcasts, and video recordings, exploring how art can shift how people think about animal cruelty and ethical consumption.
What stood out was not just the variety of products. It was the seriousness of the conversations happening alongside the making. Students moved between mediums while discussing animal rights with real depth and clarity.
This is also consistent with what I have seen when Island School students are treated as individuals with strengths, interests, and preferred ways to show what they know. Years ago, I shared how students used talent profiles and how one student’s passion for transit became an opportunity to learn deeply and create a video with Lou’s support: Profile of a Passion-Driven Student.
Why This Matters Right Now
Neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath’s recent book and article argue that when we gave students laptops, student performance declined, so the tech broke their brains. It is a clean story with a clear villain: technology.
It is also the wrong diagnosis.
I wrote about this directly in: Laptops Did Not Take Away Their Brains. The School Model Did.
That “tech broke kids” storyline skips the real culprits:
High-stakes standardized testing reshaped public schooling. It narrowed what counts as learning, accelerated pacing pressure, and pushed schools toward measurables over meaning.
Inequitable access to effective models of learning is the real divide. The gap is not who gets devices. The gap is who gets powerful learning experiences where technology is used to research, create, build, iterate, publish, and act, and who gets drill and test prep, whether on paper or on a screen.
Dr. Lahana’s makerspace is what the broken-brains argument misses. In his room, technology is available, but it is not the focus. It is one option among many. Students have learned to choose tools to match their intent. They make things for real audiences. They learn through a mix of research, design, collaboration, iteration, and action.
If we want better outcomes, we need to stop blaming devices and start redesigning learning models. We need more environments like this, spaces where students can build, compose, design, publish, advocate, and create.
And we need to be honest: students do not need less technology. They need better learning.
