Lovie Monsters: Sewing and Circuitry
Ronah Harris
Artist and educator Dr. Ronah Harris is the founder of Play Pattern LLC, a consultancy that provides innovative curriculum and strategies in STEAM education. Ronah started teaching at the Stuart Country Day school in Princeton, NJ, this fall. She recently served as the director of information and design at Friends Select School in Philadelphia. Ronah has lectured at Teachers College, Columbia University, published and consulted on topics of cognition, creativity, innovation, technology and design. She has also been awarded two daytime Emmys for her work on the educational television shows Sesame Street and The Electric Company. She also helped research the Design Thinking Toolkit for Educators, and a writer for the first computer science curriculum for NYC public schools, CS for All. Play Pattern LLC, she founded Maker Prep, an educational technology start-up and is a talented textile artist and maker. Ronah has her Ed.D. from Teachers College, Columbia University, M.S.Ed. from the University of Pennsylvania, and a BA from The New School. She is the mother of two, and she makes toys and dolls for children and grown ups.
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What inspired you to make this project?
I am a teacher and a toy maker. I was an elementary school teacher, and content creator for Two Daytime Emmy-winning educational television shows - Sesame Street and The Electric Company. I have consulted and designed products and project for amazing clients, I’ve lectured at Teachers College, Columbia University, and published on topics of creativity, innovation, technology and design. I am the founder and designer of Love Monsters and I love to making learning fun.
I learned how to sew when I was 6 or 7 years old and I can attest to how it helped me in so many ways. I like to think that sewing sparked my initial interest in technology and making. I first learned how to use a needle and thread, then I advanced my skills by learning pattern making and how to fix a sewing machine. It’s only until recently that I can reflect on the importance the skill in my life and in our culture. Sewing machines are one of the oldest and important machines in human history.
Sewing not only empowered me to love machines and systems, I was also able to use my skills to make my own clothing, and home decor. I was able to make things that were unique and more beautiful than I could find in any store. After college I was an elementary school teacher and I used my sewing skills to make extra money during the summer breaks. I made costumes for Disney and Broadway shows. Finally, I continue to use sewing as a way to bond with my mother, my aunts, my sisters and artist friends.
The inspiration and my thoughts behind Lovie Monsters were simple, I wanted to teach sewing and technology to young children. As an educator and as a parent of two young children, I began to notice that young children and adolescents are not building fine motor skills. For example, children in most classrooms across the United States are no longer learning cursive handwriting, instead they learn touch typing on computers and use tablets. As a Maker and STEM/STEAM educator I know that the fine motor skills associated with sewing are important to various facets of the future careers and lives of our children. Whether as a future emergency room doctor giving stitches to a patient, or businessperson fixing a broken button before an important meeting, to being an innovator like the Alexander Wang or Leah Buechley, sewing is a skill we all need.