Juan Carlos Galindo, a Wheaton High School ninth-grader with attention-deficit disorder, always had difficulty managing academic demands when he was younger. His mother, Virginia Munoz, a single mother of four, regularly found her son asleep with homework in his lap. She knew he was struggling, and she worried he would become a checked-out, rebellious teenager.
In seventh grade, however, Juan Carlos was invited to participate in a maker learning partnership between Parkland Middle School in Rockville and the KID Museum in Bethesda. The maker philosophy emphasizes hands-on, self-guided projects to build kids’ technical skills and confidence through tinkering, inventing and designing.