Aviel (13) doesn't wait for computer science class to understand technology. Class is foreign to him anyway, since he doesn't attend school. In the coworking and colearning space, he has set up a repair workshop for retro game consoles. In his learning enterprise, broken GameBoys from the 1980s are repaired and resold. What he can no longer repair, he processes into art objects. Additionally, he has set up a retro game corner in the space where everyone is welcome. This corner creates surprisingly many connections across generations: The older ones are transported back to their own youth and are challenged by the young ones to play.
From Guest to Team Colleague
Aviel's path into Colearning was organic: At first, he only came one day a week. But the environment acts as a magnet. Soon he expanded his time, not because he had to, but because he found like-minded people in the environment of the YOLU media technologist team. Here the LOPI principle (Learning by Observing and Pitching In) took hold: Aviel observes the older juniors and seniors at work, picks up actions and attitudes, and conversely becomes an expert for soldering work and hardware tinkering. A mutual enrichment emerges without formal hierarchy; he simply belongs to the team.
Replication: The Entry via the Hands
Repair workshops are ideal entry points for Colearning because they immediately create meaning. Making something broken functional again is an immediate experience of self-efficacy. Additionally, this is a direct contribution to Civic Resilience: In a world programmed for disposal, people of all ages learn here to maintain things and close loops (Circular Economy).
Anyone looking for a model of how to introduce teenagers to crafts and the working world will find valuable inspiration from the Swiss pioneer project Brokids. There, teenagers (11–14 years) repair children's items under the guidance of experienced professionals (often generation 55+) and resell them.
A repair workshop doesn't need much but immediately creates occasions for relationships between generations. A principle that can be started small in any neighborhood.