“If no one gives it to you, figure out how to get it. Figure out how to be a mover and a shaker.” This mantra has carried Chicago Public Schools teacher, Cynthia Brawner, from her childhood to her experience as an educator.
A veteran teacher, she imparts this lesson upon her third grade students through invention education and intellectual property (IP) education to learn new applications for their learning and to feel empowered to own their ideas. Today, Brawner is a third grade teacher at Wadsworth STEM Elementary School, an institution with predominantly Black student population.
"My advice for students: There’s no wrong way to solve a problem; we learn from failure. Go out there and tackle it!" — Cynthia Brawner, teacher
One evening, while watching the news, Brawner was intrigued by a feature on student inventors. She was amazed that these young scholars – many the same age as her own students – had been able to apply lessons from their classrooms to create inventions to solve issues that they experienced in their own lives. While she was empowered by the feature, she was also disheartened to see that none of the students looked like her or the students in her classroom.
“In our culture, there are a lot of inventors, but we don’t talk about it. In our culture, there are a lot of designers, but we don’t talk about it,” Brawner says, referring to the lack of acknowledgement of Black representation in a variety of fields.
“I made it my personal mission to introduce my students to whatever will advance them in the future.” Within a week of watching the invention education feature, Brawner brought lessons of invention to her student and soon connected with Chicago Student Invention Convention , a program that brings applied STEM invention learning to K-8 students in the greater Chicago area.
Along with learning the skills for creating ideas, Brawner ensures that her students also equally value protecting ideas. “I tell all my students to put their name, the date and the location on everything,” Brawner says.
“If you don’t do anything with this idea now, but come back to it ten years later, and someone taps in and tries to say they had the idea first, you have proof of your idea… I’m big on having my students protect whatever they do.”
Once students see an example of IP ownership, they feel more empowered to protect their own ideas even on a smaller scale. While young students may not have access to formal intellectual property ownership, like patents, they learn that writing down all their ideas along with their name, date and location can be a first step in protecting ideas they may want to expand upon in the future.
Though creating and protecting ideas for solutions to life’s problems may seem daunting to students and to the educators who teach them, it is nevertheless worthwhile to press on and learn.
“My advice for teachers, educators or anyone working with children: Be that go-getter. Even if a student’s idea doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere, be their cheerleader if they’re passionate about it. I would encourage schools to consider invention education and intellectual property education – even if it’s just as an extracurricular activity,” says Brawner.
“My advice for students: There’s no wrong way to solve a problem; we learn from failure. Go out there and tackle it!”
Discussion questions
- What unique invention do you use or is used by people in your community?
- What is a problem that you've solved by thinking outside of the box?
- Why is it important to see diversity and representation in invention education?
To read the full-length piece produced by our partners at the Intellectual Property Owners Education Foundation, click here.
Fill out this form to share your thoughts on Classroom’s resources. Sign up for NewsHour Classroom’s ready-to-go Daily News Lessons delivered to your inbox each week.
