Our Story

From Gever, Brightworks Founder

In 2005, my wife and I invited eight young campers into our home to try something that we called Tinkering School – because tinkering is a playful and positive problem-solving mindset. We envisioned it from the start as a place where the project was the focus, and the reward for good work was progress and camaraderie. Never comfortable with the notion of “teacher,” I called myself a collaborator because I wanted to work with the children, to be as committed as them to the unknown outcome. We built big, complicated, often ridiculous projects. The goal in those first years was to have every tinkerer leave elated, exhausted, and amazed at what they could accomplish.

In 2011 we opened the doors of an empty warehouse and invited 19 students into Brightworks, a program that would end up changing the lives of everyone involved. Inspired by the work of the children at Tinkering School, we imagined a place where learning would be intrinsically motivated and come from a desire to understand and engage with the world. Once again, we collaborated with the students, learning alongside them as we took on topics and projects outside our areas of expertise.

The pandemic pushed us out into the world in new ways, with young kids turning the 3rd most-visited city park in the country into their classroom, and tinkerers moving their creative pursuits outside and online. In fog, rain, and glorious sunshine, kids found new questions in the ways birds soared and turtles basked, made epic forts, and discovered math in the symmetries of plants. Experienced collaborators called this the hardest and also proudest year of their careers. It takes special people and families to pioneer a new form of school when the world is in so much turmoil. But, we are taking the best of what we learned forward in our programs this year and out into the broader education community.

Brightworks and Tinkering School were shining examples of what makes child-centric learning transformative, in spite of the pandemic. Faced with so many challenges, it would have been easy to just do the bare minimum and wait for better days, but instead, across every program we saw innovation. From the engaging tinkering kits we sent home with every student, to the development of entirely new kinds of distance learning like the Mars Project – which connected summer camp kids to robots in a scale model of a lava tube – our staff created ways to keep students engaged and motivated.

Our work in these programs stands out against the backdrop of incremental change in education as an example of what can be done. Our explorations have had an incredible impact on the lives of children around the world, who have been inspired to ask questions, build new skills, and believe more in their own abilities. We have inspired educators through our Curious Educators Program to make bold moves in their own practice, changing the way children experience learning. Together we are re-imagining education and testing those ideas, we are acting as an engine of creativity.

Our programs continue to evolve and innovate, reminding the world that learning is a collaboration, that childhood should be amazing, and that everything is interesting.

Founder Gever Tulley at TED

At TED U, Gever Tulley, founder of Tinkering School and Brightworks, spells out 5 dangerous things you should let your kids do — and why a little danger is good for both kids and grownups.