“Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.”
Fred Rogers
Tuesday in Midland was rest day and laundry day and tie up loose ends day before we hit the road again (Wednesday) for several hours in the car as we watch Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania go by. It’s slated to be one of our longest driving days and I’m going to be interested to see how the Midland, Ann Abor, Toledo, Cleveland, Akron, Dubois route shakes out.
We did a lot of playing with the kids in Andrew and Alicia’s house. The main focus was Legos – and by Legos I mean Legos on an epic scale. The other main focus was helping the rising 2nd-grader and his five-year-old cousin occupy the same space and figure out how to share. That’s when our son, Andrew, had the genius idea of taking Geoffrey to the store to purchase his own new Lego model to assemble and also letting him pick one out for Mr. T.
There is some serious Lego Cred in this house. From Andrew sorting the literal mountain of random Legos from his childhood and reassembling a dizzying array of models, to David helping put together a massive Star Trek piece, to Mr. T. successfully completing sets intended for 12-plus and more.
We love to see the grandchildren concentrating, and following written directions, and problem-solving, and carefully putting literally hundreds of pieces together.
“So tell me how you learn?” I queried Mr. T., who was having trouble cutting his younger cousin any slack when Geoffrey even vaguely looked like he might put something in the Lego-sphere out of order.
“Well, Grandaddy…” Mr. T. said, carefully taking apart the chassis of his new Land Rover to start over (because he had made a couple of big errors in hasty assembly)… “you can’t really learn anything unless you make some mistakes first.”
I caught his eye and smiled broadly. “You mean like Geoffrey was doing a few minutes ago?”
He sighed, rolled his eyes, and then reluctantly acknowledged (kind of) that he had been caught.
“Well I suppose so,” Mr. T. allowed. And then, shrugging his shoulders and trying to mimic the air of an adult, “I just hope this time he learns.”
“I hope we all do,” I smiled. “Every one of us and every day.”
Good grief I hope and I pray that we do. Sigh….
“Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one’s self-esteem. That is why young children – before they are aware of their own self-importance – learn so easily.” — Thomas Szasz
