"People have happily informed me that I am a maker because I use phrases like 'design learning experiences,' which is mistaking what I do (teaching) for what I’m actually trying to help elicit (learning). To characterize what I do as 'making' is to mistake the methods—courses, workshops, editorials—for the effects. Or, worse, if you say that I 'make' other people, you are diminishing their agency and role in sense-making, as if their learning is something I do to them."
It's missing the forest for the trees though. It's a superficial statement to say that the 'creation' in education is the course notes. What an educator creates is understanding. It's not a physical object, but it's still something that was not there before. The course notes may not differ from year to year, but the same can be said of the blueprints for common models in 3d printing - the blueprints are not the created item.
Taylor Mali has a great rebuttal on "what teachers make". In context, 'make' means 'salary', but the rebuttal works just as well against the idea that day-to-day education isn't a creative endeavour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxsOVK4syxU
> It's a superficial statement to say that the 'creation' in education is the course notes.
I'm not saying that the only end product for educators are course notes. My main argument is that more people, like educators, can and should be considered 'people who create stuff'. I'm only arguing that 'makers' are not some exclusive, elitist club of people who only make certain physical things that make money.
She doesn't actually rationalize why you can't say that she creates / produces courses, workshops, or editorials. She just says it's wrong. (I don't disagree with the last sentence you quoted about 'making' people though.) Am I wrong?
To paraphrase my other response, so if I don't consider myself a writer, yet I produce articles and stories; is it wrong for people to consider me a writer?
She is disingenuously trying to say hat what you do is irrelevant, the focus should be on the results you obtain. And she feels that "creating" is distinct from "cultivating" (which shares agency with the object of your work). Language lawyering is fun, and sometimes edifying to tease apart nuance, but she's trying too hard to be a smartass here.
"People have happily informed me that I am a maker because I use phrases like 'design learning experiences,' which is mistaking what I do (teaching) for what I’m actually trying to help elicit (learning). To characterize what I do as 'making' is to mistake the methods—courses, workshops, editorials—for the effects. Or, worse, if you say that I 'make' other people, you are diminishing their agency and role in sense-making, as if their learning is something I do to them."