Lego Rules, or, Break the Rules!
By Shlomo Maital
In 2005 Lego (the Danish company that makes plastic bricks) surprised the world with its hit video game Lego Star Wars. Since then, there have been 15 released, published by Warner Bros. The latest is The Lego Movie Videogame, based on the hit 3D The Lego Movie, #1 in North America! In the Lego video games, everything is made from Lego pieces.
But there is a catch. According to Stephen Totilo, writing in the Global New York Times (Feb. 13), “those pieces can be built into only one thing, whatever the game designer intended them to form.”
This is extreme irony. The whole beauty of Lego blocks, of which I am a lifetime fan, having played with them with our four children and today, with our dozen grandchildren, is that you can imagine, dream and make anything out of them. Why in the world did Lego dump this crucial aspect? It reminds me of the cartoon I pasted above my desk: “Teacher: ‘I insist that you kids all be creative and imaginative – and do exactly as I tell you.’ “.
There is an alternative. The Swedish 2011 virtual building-block game Minecraft lets you build absolutely anything you wish, anything you can dream. And it’s a huge success.
Lego vs. Minecraft. This, in miniature, is the dilemma of our schools. Teach kids the right way, the only way… or teach them to find their own way, other ways, imaginative ways.
We need Minecraft schools. But how in the world do you create them, when our educators seem unable even to imagine them. It seems the Lego bricks we use to build schools lack a few key pieces — the ones labelled “think different” and “let your imagination soar”.
TIMnovate 
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February 13, 2014 at 2:39 pm
Eelker
Many thanks, Mr. Maital,
About a year ago I have been introduced to Minecraft by my then 11 year old nephew. We have been playing/designing together from time to time and I have been astonished by the creativity it is inviting them (my nephew and his friends). It is not just the creativity in creating or designing by means of “just doing it”; in which you could consider it a modern day equivalent of Lego or Meccanoo; which have inspired generations before to grow up to be creative technicians. It is indeed something more. It allows them to build several worlds and save them for later use. Sort of like being able to build something in Lego and store it in an infinite cupboard and not being forced to break down a design to be able to use its blocks for the next or having to break it down because there is no room anymore in the living area and the dinner table needs to be available for dinner. They learn something about the scarceness of resources. Having to “mine” before being able to use it. Their capacity to think in 3D gets enhanced in an incredible way; something which led my brother and me to the conclusion that the “code writers” and “database engineers” of the future probably will be working in a 3D virtual environment sort of like the Minecraft environment of today. Simply because they have learned to think that way and because our databases have grown that much in complexity, it has become impossible to work with them in the “clear; clean and singular” way, we have learned to approach them, as the “virtual world” sprouted in our day and age.
Something even more astonishing to me was what happened to their play, the moment he and his friends played and built together. They define territories; in which each could build his own city or village. After which the playtime starts. They form allies and even went as far as to build embassies on eachothers territories and “neutral buildings” where they can negotiate on allie forming or negotiate on conflicts in interest. An amazinly beautiful “playtime version” of real world diplomacy and how to live and work together. These are not features which the gamedesigners added to the game on purpose; this is something the freedom of the game allows children to find out for themselves. I don’t think Minecraft schools are the answer. Because it has one flaw; it leads us to believe that we can find adults that are able to learn kids anything in the matter. We need to acknowledge the fact that it is the other way around. The way kids learn to deal with the endless possibilities of MineCraft is something which leaves us adults gaspingly behind. The best we can do is to try to keep up and the moment we do, to realize these kids are entering an area of technological advancement and learn themselves the tricks with a speed that iis far beyond what we are capable of at the average age of a school teacher. That is a very comforting thought. These kids will face the problems our generations have either caused or were unable to tackle and they start out with skills that are too complex for us to conquer as quickly as they do. My best advice to any parent or teacher; play along and be amazed; let this be the one playground kids learn teachers the how to. Once kids meet teachers, parents or adults that are openminded enough to learn from kids when kids have more insight or skills, they will have a much easier time to learn and be thought by them on areas in life where these adults have this advancement in skills, knowledge or insight. The days education could be a one way system has long gone. The complexity of the world today asks both from parents and kids alike to be open to the constant learning experience. That is one example we can set for our children. So if you see a kid stumbling around in Minecraft, ask to join and have the gameplay explained to you. I know sometimes it’s hard for most adults to be overclassed by a 10 year old, but lets’s face it, it is the most comforting thought imagineable. I’m for ever in debt to my now 12 year old nephew and my heart grows a little every time he reminds me it’s been too long since we played in Minecraft together.
February 15, 2014 at 5:00 pm
Cristiana
Hi, I believe that internet is a great resource but we need to find a balance in between reality and virtuality. In particular when we deal with new generations and the effects on their future life. This is the point that’s not so easy to solve.