Our Story

Teaching Garage began as a project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Harvard Business School’s iLab in 2013.

The short-term goal of this project was to create a STEM curriculum that was easy and fun to implement in elementary schools. The long-term goal was to leverage the STEM curriculum to help close equity gaps by introducing young students to career paths in STEM fields early on.

After successfully piloting in Boston Public School classrooms and in private schools in suburban PA—two very different demographics—we continued our market research and found that classrooms across the country shared a common set of challenges in implementing an engineering curriculum:

  • Lack of time to teach engineering as a separate subject

  • Costly kits focusing on narrow engineering topics

  • Limited teacher training in STEM education

  • Lack of a standardized framework for introducing engineering to young students

  • Difficulty in engaging young learners with complex technical concepts

Through extensive development and iteration, Teaching Garage formally incorporated and launched Design System, our flagship curriculum, in 2014.

The curriculum prioritizes the user experience for both educators and students, focusing on ease of implementation, affordability, age-appropriateness, innovation, and fun.

With support from industry leaders in STEM, education, and business, what began as a pilot in Boston and Philadelphia has grown into a curriculum that has impacted students across the U.S. and around the world.

 
 

Moving Forward: A Letter From Janice

Teaching Garage began long before I went to grad school.

I was raised in one of the most ethnically diverse corners of New York City: Woodside, Queens. My parents were immigrants from South Korea, but our apartment building, our block, my school were rich with cultures from around the world. One of the greatest gifts I received from my childhood was the privilege of growing up alongside other children of immigrant families whose foods, cultures, and languages were different from mine - yet we grew up together, recognizing far more of our similarities than our differences. I count myself incredibly blessed for this unique upbringing.

Yet growing up in New York City certainly had its challenges. Crime was rampant. Our car, our apartment, our family business, and even ourselves had been robbed and threatened more times than I wish. School, especially as we got older, became a daily challenge to not be targeted by gangs or other groups of kids; to convince teachers that our questions in class weren’t meant to distract, but to clarify; and then to see the significance of anything we were learning when daily life increasingly felt like a struggle, and, many days, a dead end.

We grew up quickly as we learned to navigate the pressure cooker of life beyond textbooks.

Over time, as I navigated my own challenges to find meaning and happiness in an environment that felt crushing at times, I came to understand - and I mean deeply understand - this:

Everyone yearns for hope.

And everyone deserves a chance to fulfill this hope.

The desire to give every child a hope and a future shaped the core of my mission in my life’s work, and set the foundation for Teaching Garage’s work. From a young age, I wanted my life to help change children’s life trajectories, because, somehow, by God’s love and grace alone, I broke out of what should have been my own life trajectory.

Over the last ten years, Teaching Garage has had the privilege of being used in classrooms all over the world, reaching probably tens of thousands of students over the years. And while not every moment was pleasant, Teaching Garage’s journey has been yet another personal testimony of God’s love and power to carve ways forward and move lives. 

So while the company may have spun down, Design SySTEM, Teaching Garage’s flagship product, will continue to be accessible on this now-legacy page for free access and download, because my work doesn’t stop with the dissolution of a company.

Thank you to everyone who has been with me in this journey over the last ten years: the team, the teachers, the mentors, the supporters, my family and community, and Harvard University for having inspired this little girl from Queens to set out on this journey at all. Thank you, all, for your love, grace, patience, and cheers as I stumbled through creating Teaching Garage.

And to the educators who will continue using this curriculum: Thank you. Thank you for using this curriculum, thank you for your grace, and thank you for joining me in the mission to change life trajectories and give these little ones hope and a future.

Soli Deo Gloria,

 
 

Janice Lathrop
Founder & CEO, Teaching Garage, Inc.