The Missing Lego Set That Would Actually Help Kids Learn
How much do you actually learn when you are following precise instructions? Or when you are left entirely alone to improvise?
Reading time: 5 minutes
The two ways of playing Lego
Lego sets enables kids to play with their bricks in two different ways — an explicit way and an implicit one.
The explicit way comes from the image on the box: kids should build what is displayed. To make it even more explicit, kids are provided with step-by-step instructions to follow, leading to the construction seen on the box. Let’s call this way the FOLLOW mode.
The implicit way comes from the bricks themselves. While they can be used to build the example on the box, it’s rapidly obvious for kids that they can also build something else. Actually, they can improvise anything with those bricks. We’ll call this the IMPROVISE mode.
If a kid is lucky to have multiple boxes of Lego, the bricks from the various boxes usually get mixed together. Coming back to FOLLOW mode is difficult, because it’s hard to find the bricks you need, lost in a pile of bricks you don’t need for a specific construction. Over time, and without thinking about it, kids tend to develop one of the following habits when they get a new Lego set: after building the explicit construction in FOLLOW mode, either they put it on the shelf, or they break it into pieces and mix the bricks with the rest for IMPROVISE sessions. In both cases, they rarely come back to the step-by-step instructions guide.
Both modes have tremendous value, but something struck me. The gap between what kids build in FOLLOW and IMPROVISE modes is huge. It’s so wide that I realized that an intermediary mode could exist — but the Lego company is doing nothing to enable it.
A missing intermediary mode
Can you start to guess what that third mode could be?
Let’s give you a chance of finding it by describing more precisely what those two modes look like.
In the FOLLOW mode, you have a precise objective in sight, and if you follow the precise step-by-step instructions, you can achieve greatness. However, if there’s one brick missing, you’re stuck. Or you’d like to make a small change, it’s hard to make it happen, because you’re not sure about the consequence for the remaining of the instructions.
In the IMPROVISE mode, you have total freedom. You’re on your own. You can do what you want, in theory. In practice, the absence of limits is an illusion. You are you own limit. If you would like to build something complex, you quickly realize that you have no idea how to achieve it.
It feels like there should be a third mode, right in between the FOLLOW mode and the IMPROVISE mode. A mode where you would be able to build a wonderful car without following step-by-step instructions. In that mode, you would be able to create your own car — a car that no-one else built before you.
I’m calling this the LEARN mode.
The virtues of the LEARN mode
What’s missing in the Lego sets to enable that mode? The introduction of core concepts. Something that would explain to you what a car is made of, what distinguishes different types of cars, what is necessary and what is optional, the links between the different parts, the details that make a car go fast, look nice or stay solid.
All the basic information that is needed to build a car, without telling you what car to build. A kind of crash course on car design, to allow you to create as many cars as you want, not just the one that is on the cover of the box.
In a LEARN mode, instead of following blindly the instructions of invisible masters, you would become their apprentice, discovering their tricks, their philosophy. You would be building on top of what others had built on top of what others had built on top of what others had built… At some point, you would in fact realize that the masters you are learning from are just regular people like you, taking in a piece of knowledge, iterating on it, and passing it on for others to pursue the process.
Like in IMPROVISE mode, you would be free to go in any direction, but you would actually be able to go far in the direction you would choose, like in FOLLOW mode. Imagine you chose to build a car. Your first car would be pretty basic. The second one too, although slightly improved. The third one would be a weird iteration, failing to incorporate a new principle — doors that you can actually open and close. The fourth one would be another attempt at those doors, still a failure. The fifth one would be a big step forward, with those doors finally working. For your tenth car, you would try to have the wheels turning right and left. For the 23rd version, you would decide to add an electric engine.
You could argue: “but all of that is possible today!”. True, nothing is preventing kids to iterate on the cars they built in FOLLOW mode. But nothing is supporting them either.
The Architecture Studio exception
The closest things I have seen to a LEARN mode is a box called Lego Architecture Studio. When you see the box, what strikes you is the bricks. Only white bricks, tons of them. But the important feature is not the bricks. It is the instructions manual. Actually, instructions manual is an unfair description — it is more an architecture book. In a way, it is so ambitious in its execution that it’s not adapted for kids. It can be used to trigger LEARN mode, but through the decoding of an adult.
However, it is still a wonderful step in the direction of an intermediary LEARN mode. In the Lego Architecture Studio manual, you get to discover concepts like space, light, surface, repetition, hierarchy, density, etc. There are no step-by-step instructions, and no target building either. Just core concepts with simple illustrations, real-life examples, small exercises and variants of implementations (see images below).
This is the closest things I have seen that enables a LEARN mode. I hope someone will offer more in the future.
Until then, I’ll keep this missing mode in mind, as a striking example of how despite providing both step-by-step instructions and tons of freedom to improvise, you can miss the opportunity to help people learn to their maximum potential.