Learning in the Absence of Education
Essays on Homeschooling
© Beverley Paine
Index
Homeschool
Australia
A Lego Curriculum
(continued)
In case you are thinking that playing with bricks is all the children do during this time, think again. No game of pirates is complete without reference to the encyclopedia or books from the library on the subject. This is usually complemented with a trek down to the video shop to hunt out good sailing ship movies. A movie about the 'Bounty' sparks plenty of discussion about history in general, especially of Australia, and then another model soon appears, and 'Cap'n Roger' becomes 'William Bligh'. In due time swords are made from plywood and fierce battles are fought on imaginary pirate ships, or on a newly decorated cubby house. The technology and work skills used in such games goes well beyond the initial manipulation of little plastic bricks.
The most elaborate houses and hotels have adorned April's floor. Since birth we have been building houses around her, so it is little wonder that April is an expert at Lego house construction. It was a lovely surprise to arrive home one day to find April had built a model of our own home, complete with furniture, and to scale. No home is ever constructed without a plan, although sometimes these arrive after the building of models or townships. A fantastic floor layout of a carnival, complete with Ferris wheels and rides, became enshrined in a collection of maps and drawings, for later replication that never happened. The game, having run its course over a couple of weeks, made way for something new and exciting, another Lego adventure.
As the children have grown older model building has replaced the more playful aspects of Lego. It is becoming less frequent to see the boys building cars, spaceships or castles now and simply sitting down and playing a game where two or more characters live in a fantasy world and have adventures. It is a credit to sixteen year old Roger that he can still engage in such activity for between half an hour to two hours with his younger brother and friends. This demonstrates quite a social skill, often lost by this age group, or passed over for more 'adult' past-times.
An interesting aspect of this play with Lego is how it hasn't spoiled the children's ability to create play things from nature or restricted their imaginations. When on a camping holiday with the ubiquitous bricks left behind, the children all engaged in constructing a mini-world of islands and reefs on the ground near the tent. These were decorated with 'trees', rocks, jetties, fences, houses, wells, beaches - all constructed from natural materials found nearby. These worlds, usually in the order of around three to five square metres, took several hours to build and were happily left the next day, after a good hour or two of imaginative play.
More than the others Roger has used Lego as a learning platform. He surprised us all with a Lego mural of a lady's face a month after seeing a Lego Egyptian exhibition where several decorative murals were displayed. Roger's mural won first prize in the local Agricultural Show in the children's section that year. Far from being a construction toy, Roger had demonstrated that his playing with Lego was also Art.
Now he has turned his attention primarily to Technic and programmable Lego, and his recent foray into electronics and computer technology demonstrates the effectiveness of Lego as a firm foundation for the skills he is regularly using. Quietly, behind the scenes and unobserved, Roger's play with tiny plastic bricks has prepared him for a technical career.
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Excerpt from Learning in the Absence of Home Education: Essays on Homeschooling
© Beverley Paine, 1999
