WEBVTT - Toys, Part 3 0:00:04.720 --> 0:00:08.160 This holiday season discovered the true meaning of Christmas in 0:00:08.280 --> 0:00:12.160 all of us. I'm not really into the holidays, sorry. 0:00:12.440 --> 0:00:15.360 Jack Warmby thought he had it all, a big city job, 0:00:15.640 --> 0:00:18.279 a beautiful wife, and a phone that worked in his car, 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:21.680 but his life was missing one thing. I am sent 0:00:21.840 --> 0:00:25.880 to Tallows here to administer ful Christmas. I'd bring hot 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:30.600 chain forged in life. It's burning my skin. It's the 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:34.519 story of one man, one Bronze age automaton, and a 0:00:34.560 --> 0:00:46.440 whole lot of Christmas year. Welcome to Invention, a production 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:53.080 of I Heart Radio. Hey you, welcome to Invention. My 0:00:53.159 --> 0:00:55.960 name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're 0:00:56.000 --> 0:00:59.720 back with part three of our exploration of invented toys. 0:00:59.800 --> 0:01:02.880 In the previous episodes, we talked about stuff like the frisbee, 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:05.760 the Jack in the Box, the slinky, the hula hoop. 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:08.720 What else do we do? Oh? We did jigsaw puzzles. 0:01:08.840 --> 0:01:12.680 We did uh uh yeah, Jack in the Box? Uh 0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:15.559 number let's um, we can't remember what we talked about 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:19.000 on here? Yeah, who hoop, frisbee? Uh, A number of 0:01:19.000 --> 0:01:20.960 different toys. I mean, really, you just gotta go back 0:01:20.959 --> 0:01:22.760 in the bag and started digging around to see what 0:01:22.800 --> 0:01:25.440 we discussed. But today I wanted to start off by 0:01:25.440 --> 0:01:27.960 talking about one of the most basic toys you could 0:01:27.959 --> 0:01:30.560 possibly have. You know, when I was a kid, I 0:01:30.560 --> 0:01:33.200 had lots of favorite toys. I remember being very partial 0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:37.039 to some branded Jurassic Park action figures, and actually I 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:39.240 had the car, you know, like the car that the 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:42.520 t Rex steps on. So there's like a Sam Neil 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:46.120 action figure. Oh yeah, totally sammyl action figure. He's got 0:01:46.120 --> 0:01:48.640 the hat on and he One of the funny things 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:51.680 about the Jurassic Park action figures is that they would 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:54.680 come with weapons that they did not possess at all 0:01:54.720 --> 0:01:57.440 in the film. So they've got like an Ellie Sattler 0:01:57.520 --> 0:02:01.760 action figure Laura Dern's likeness, with like a grappling hook gun, 0:02:02.480 --> 0:02:04.480 like I don't remember the scene in the movie where 0:02:04.520 --> 0:02:06.680 she had that. Well, this was sort of this was 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:10.160 the late nineties, um, and I was you're you're a 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:12.280 little younger than me, so I was. I wasn't at 0:02:12.320 --> 0:02:16.040 at action figure age at this point anymore. So maybe 0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:19.280 I was beyond it, but still still going, well, I 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:21.760 don't know, that's a that's a whole another discussion, because 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:25.040 ultimately my take is you can get action figures anytime 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:27.560 you want during your life, because all they are ultimately 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:31.480 their their deities. They're they're little icons that inspire you 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:34.000 and you can you can play with them or just 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:35.919 be inspired by them at any point in your life. 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:39.280 But um, at that point in my life, they weren't 0:02:39.280 --> 0:02:41.480 really on my radar. But now I'm excited by the 0:02:41.520 --> 0:02:45.880 idea of having a Jeff Goldblum action figure. Yeah, what 0:02:45.919 --> 0:02:48.760 weapon did Jeff Goldblum have? I think maybe he had 0:02:48.480 --> 0:02:52.560 he had like a gun that shot a net or something. 0:02:53.320 --> 0:02:56.360 How would he have that? Maybe it was shooting like 0:02:56.400 --> 0:02:59.800 a like a graph for like mapping the grids of 0:02:59.880 --> 0:03:02.920 his is parabolas and all that when he's doing his calculations. 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:05.880 There is that that theme and action figures, especially where 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:08.200 it's like it's not enough that you have the likeness 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:11.359 of a person or a creature or an entity to 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:14.119 the it's not enough that you can then engage in imagination, 0:03:14.160 --> 0:03:16.800 play with it, and and even and even pose it. 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:19.280 I like having a posable figure. I grew up in that, 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:20.640 you know, the air of g I. Joe's and it 0:03:20.680 --> 0:03:23.880 was nice to have all those those joints move. But 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:25.960 but then there's this level of like, Nope, it needs 0:03:25.960 --> 0:03:27.799 some sort of gun. It needs something to have a gun. 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:29.800 It's got to have some sort of not only something 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:34.440 looks like a gun, a functional projectile implement that can 0:03:34.480 --> 0:03:37.360 fire the grappling hook or the net at another action figure. 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:39.040 And I think it's largely about so you can have 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:42.680 the action moment in the commercial where one figure does 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:45.960 something to knock over another. Yes, that that's totally it. 0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:48.800 I think it may also be driven on the supply 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:51.560 side sometimes, like, oh, we figured out how to make 0:03:51.600 --> 0:03:54.360 this little shooter thing, what action figure can we pair 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:57.320 that with? Yes? Uh? And and we'll come back to 0:03:57.480 --> 0:04:01.040 this discussion of action figures and and movie and TV 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:04.200 properties towards the end of the episode. Right, But I 0:04:04.240 --> 0:04:06.680 want to go way simpler than that. So this has 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:09.840 no guns, no moving parts, no likenesses of Sam Neil 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:13.120 or Laura Dern. I had lots of favorite toys, But 0:04:13.160 --> 0:04:16.000 what did I get the most sustained enjoyment out of 0:04:16.279 --> 0:04:18.240 I think it's got to be blocks, right, Like I 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:21.880 spent more time with building blocks than any other kind 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:25.040 of toy. Because of course blocks can be anything. So 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:27.360 there's like an infinite amount of play that you can 0:04:27.400 --> 0:04:30.880 do with them, though I still remember the pain of 0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:34.160 trying to build with blocks in a room completely covered 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:38.120 in soft carpet. That wayalizes death, you know, like you 0:04:38.160 --> 0:04:40.640 build a tower, but then you smite its ruin on 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:44.920 the carpeted stair because it's just unstable. It's true, yeah, 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:47.240 I I also have a lot of fond memories of 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:51.880 playing with this one set of standard wooden blocks. Well 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:53.479 most of them were standing, but you also had some 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:57.159 specialty pieces. I was especially pleased with these these double 0:04:57.279 --> 0:04:59.760 arches that you could use that you'd be used to 0:04:59.760 --> 0:05:01.400 make a bridge, or you could put them together to 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:05.880 make like a circular entrance in something. And I think 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:08.560 a lot of my imagination play with them was based 0:05:08.680 --> 0:05:12.600 on Raiders of the Lost Dark, those scenes where Indiana 0:05:12.680 --> 0:05:16.000 Jones and others are going into these you know, ridiculously 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:20.400 unrealistic tim spaces, these uh you know, anti chambers and 0:05:20.520 --> 0:05:23.040 uh and so forth, and you know, I just had 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:26.440 to reconstruct those and send some g I Joes down there. 0:05:26.640 --> 0:05:31.160 I think blocks are very interesting as toys because building 0:05:31.160 --> 0:05:33.880 with blocks is a kind of play that combines the 0:05:34.000 --> 0:05:37.640 ultimate in freedom and the ultimate in constraint, right, it 0:05:37.680 --> 0:05:42.039 has like no established goals rules, no winning conditions unless 0:05:42.080 --> 0:05:45.280 it's not really a game, and yet it has extremely 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:50.000 tight and non negotiable constraints based in physics and materials. 0:05:50.360 --> 0:05:52.320 And so it's a very different kind of play than 0:05:52.360 --> 0:05:54.359 a lot of the imagination play that you would do 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:57.760 where you know, you might have action figures there, where uh, 0:05:57.800 --> 0:05:59.920 you know, your action figure play is just not very 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:02.600 limited by physics. Usually a lot of it's just like 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:06.320 happening in the imagination with the action figure as a prop. 0:06:06.960 --> 0:06:08.640 A different thing is going on with the blocks, Like 0:06:08.680 --> 0:06:10.640 you're trying to stack them on top of each other. 0:06:10.680 --> 0:06:12.880 You're trying to get them to behave to like stand 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:16.000 up in a certain way. You know. Yeah, absolutely, yeah, 0:06:16.080 --> 0:06:20.040 you're you have like this this basic physical enterprise at 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:22.040 the heart of your your play, no matter how much 0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:25.080 imagination you then put on top of that. Yeah. So, 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:28.960 asking the question when toy blocks were invented, obviously we 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:31.320 don't know that. It seems that people have been using 0:06:31.400 --> 0:06:35.640 various kinds of homemade toy building materials for centuries, maybe 0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:38.960 even thousands of years, but we just frankly don't know 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:41.840 when it began. Um So I was reading a great 0:06:41.960 --> 0:06:45.359 article in the history of blocks as tools for learning 0:06:45.400 --> 0:06:49.080 and as toys by an author named Karen Hewitt, who 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:52.880 is a scholar of education. Um she's a toy designer 0:06:53.200 --> 0:06:57.039 and she has curated museum exhibitions on the history of 0:06:57.160 --> 0:07:00.880 educational toys. This article was called Locks as a Tool 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:04.440 for Learning Historical and Contemporary Perspective, published in the journal 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:08.440 Young Children in two thousand one and so um Here 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:12.520 it begins by observing that building based play among children 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:16.720 probably predates dedicated block toys, because you can even watch 0:07:16.800 --> 0:07:22.440 children today improvised with building based play using natural materials 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:26.520 like rocks and sticks, or constructor or like constructed or 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:30.880 artificial materials often discarded by adults, you know, like construction, 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:35.600 scrap containers, boxes. I remember getting so much enjoyment out 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:38.720 of empty boxes when I was young. Oh yeah, empty 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:41.120 boxes are are loads of fun. And on top of that, 0:07:41.160 --> 0:07:43.920 of course, you know, the the children of builders will 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:47.680 inevitably not only play with the debris leftover from building, 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:51.559 but they will imitate the building activity that they see 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:55.080 in the parents. Sure so, yeah, just watching the way 0:07:55.200 --> 0:07:59.480 kids pick up things that are not specifically intended as 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:03.600 toy filding materials and then turn them into toy building materials. 0:08:04.120 --> 0:08:07.160 That makes it pretty clear that construction play probably long 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:10.880 predates having dedicated toy blocks. I mean, even you can 0:08:10.920 --> 0:08:14.360 think about sand castles. How long have people been making 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:18.720 sand castles where you know, Neolithic people's making sand castles 0:08:18.760 --> 0:08:22.120 as possible? Absolutely, yeah, I mean the sand castle is 0:08:22.160 --> 0:08:24.120 just playing in the sand, digging in the sand. There's 0:08:24.160 --> 0:08:26.800 just something irresistible about it. Yeah. So I think it's 0:08:26.800 --> 0:08:30.160 clear that building blocks are not a toy that invents 0:08:30.200 --> 0:08:33.360 a fundamentally new kind of play the way say a 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:35.800 slinky or a jack in the box would. There's no 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:38.800 way to play with a slinky before the slinky existed. 0:08:38.840 --> 0:08:40.480 There's no way to play with the jack in box 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:42.880 jack in the box before that existed. But you could 0:08:42.920 --> 0:08:45.880 basically have blocks in nature, you know, rock sticks, all 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:48.800 that kind of stuff. Rather, I think toy blocks offer 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:54.000 a clean, safe, and convenient way of facilitating the kind 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:58.280 of construction play that children pick up naturally without any prompting, 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:01.760 whenever random materials are available. Though I do have a 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:04.440 question about this, and I couldn't find an answer to this. 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:10.720 Does Homo sapiens have a building instinct that would manifest 0:09:10.920 --> 0:09:14.760 even without any exposure to a culture of construction and 0:09:14.880 --> 0:09:19.400 artificial structures. Or do children need to see artificial structures 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:22.880 and witness adults building things in order to get the 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:26.640 urge to build as play. Yeah, that's that's a tough 0:09:26.679 --> 0:09:30.079 one to I mean, almost an impossible one to investigate. Yeah, 0:09:30.640 --> 0:09:34.400 it's like studying on language children. You have to you 0:09:34.440 --> 0:09:37.800 have to. It would require, you know, an act of 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:42.000 extreme deprivation in order to study what it would be like. 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:45.040 It's like to deny a child access to like blocks 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:47.800 or the idea of plocks, to the idea of play. 0:09:48.160 --> 0:09:51.600 You know. That's says something that's very difficult, if not impossible, 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:54.160 to study. I'm not suggesting we try it, No, absolutely 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:57.680 not so. Hewitt points out that thinkers have long connected 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:02.160 children's orientation towards construction based play with learning and the 0:10:02.200 --> 0:10:07.040 needs of a developing brain. She mentions Plato comminists uh 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:11.640 Pestelozzi and Jehan Pierg and apparently this even came up 0:10:11.679 --> 0:10:15.719 with the English Enlightenment philosopher John Locke in s and 0:10:15.760 --> 0:10:20.400 a treatise called Some Thoughts concerning Education, John Locke wrote, quote, 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:23.240 the chief art is to make all that children have 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:27.240 to do sport and play too. Learning anything they should 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:29.840 be taught might be made as much a recreation to 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:34.120 their play as their play is to their learning. So specifically, 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:37.040 Lock here points to children's play with what we now 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:40.520 know today as alphabet blocks. They existed at the time too, 0:10:40.640 --> 0:10:42.760 that they didn't I don't think they were being like 0:10:42.920 --> 0:10:45.760 mass manufactured at the time. They weren't like you know, 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:49.720 big toy companies putting these out. But some kids just 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:53.000 had blocks they were playing with that had letters inscribed 0:10:53.040 --> 0:10:55.040 on them. This reminds me of the origins of the 0:10:55.080 --> 0:10:58.719 jigsaw puzzle, or more specifically, the the dissected map that 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:00.600 we discussed in the last EPISOD. So it's something that 0:11:00.640 --> 0:11:04.840 began as not even a mass reduced toy, but like 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:08.880 an educational aid. Yes, and this would have been not 0:11:09.040 --> 0:11:13.240 always as fully accepted and intuitive as it is just today. 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:16.320 Like so, Locks actually trying to make a case for 0:11:16.600 --> 0:11:20.080 using a child's natural tendency towards play as a means 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:22.960 of education. Like you know, he's saying, if the child 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:26.040 automatically wants to play with alphabet blocks, it is no chore, 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:29.040 and thus the child better learns the alphabet and to 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:31.760 put this in context, a lot of the prevailing sentiment 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:35.600 about childhood education in late seventeenth century England would have 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:39.719 focused on like hard work and discipline through threats of punishment, 0:11:40.280 --> 0:11:43.760 and uh a Lock instead emphasized that children could learn 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:47.760 through play and enjoyment, and he Witt suggests that this 0:11:47.840 --> 0:11:51.959 view contributed to a sort of reevaluation of toys, with 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:55.640 more adults coming to see them, uh, To see toys 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:59.520 less as like sinful icons of idleness and more as 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:03.240 tools for informing and exercising and developing mind, something that's 0:12:03.280 --> 0:12:06.080 actually a social good and useful. I'm not sure if 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:09.240 the same would apply to Laura Dern's grappling hook guns, 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:11.920 but I think you could definitely make the case with 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:15.200 building blocks. Uh So. Hewitt writes that in the mid 0:12:15.240 --> 0:12:18.400 to late nineteenth centuries, some manufacturers in Europe in the 0:12:18.480 --> 0:12:22.080 US actually then began to mass produce building block toys. 0:12:22.679 --> 0:12:25.120 Uh And this could often be kind of a side 0:12:25.240 --> 0:12:29.360 business of something like. Imagine you've got a woodworking company 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:31.760 and you're cutting wood for you know, whatever it is 0:12:31.800 --> 0:12:34.760 that you're mainly selling. You tend to have a lot 0:12:34.760 --> 0:12:38.120 of small scraps of wood left over. Could you actually 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:40.480 turn those for a profit? Could you shape them into 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:43.200 building blocks and make money off of what would otherwise 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:46.040 be a waste product? And hew ittt writes that since 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:49.679 the mid nineteenth century, there have been three main avenues 0:12:49.760 --> 0:12:52.960 linking learning and play with respect to toy blocks. So 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:55.360 the first one is what we're already talking about. It's 0:12:55.400 --> 0:13:00.520 building itself. It's learning about basic physics and material properties 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:03.760 with hands on building experience. Uh. This is, of course 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:06.280 one of the most important parts of education. Sometimes it 0:13:06.320 --> 0:13:09.120 gets under emphasized when we think about education because it's 0:13:09.120 --> 0:13:12.240 not a technical subject you really learn in school. It's 0:13:12.280 --> 0:13:15.600 something that children just have to learn intuitively with hands 0:13:15.600 --> 0:13:19.120 on experience in the world. Absolutely, it just allows for 0:13:19.280 --> 0:13:24.600 further experimentation with the natural properties of reality. Sure. Uh. 0:13:24.600 --> 0:13:27.680 And then okay, So the second thing is surfaces of 0:13:27.720 --> 0:13:33.119 blocks as a place to represent symbols like letters, numbers, words. 0:13:33.600 --> 0:13:35.880 Of course, we already talked about the example of alphabet 0:13:35.920 --> 0:13:38.880 blocks and thus using the blocks as a way of 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:42.600 learning how to manipulate those symbols. Like Hewitt says that 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:46.680 this pairing of abstract symbols with blocks really exploded in 0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:50.240 the mid eighteen hundreds, and it it seems like a 0:13:50.320 --> 0:13:53.360 very relevant type of learning today, Like allowing the child 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:57.840 to physically move symbols around in real space. This sort 0:13:57.880 --> 0:14:00.199 of is a is a physical model of the way 0:14:00.240 --> 0:14:05.440 we metaphorically move symbols around in mental space to manipulate them. Yeah, 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:09.000 and basically and engaging. Are you know, are the visual 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:12.760 processes of our brain as well? Um? Yeah? Yeah, these 0:14:12.840 --> 0:14:15.760 these are still tremendously helpful. You see them sometimes to 0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:19.920 aid in uh, acquisition of foreign languages, etcetera. I was wondering, 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:21.840 did you ever when you were a kid us like 0:14:21.920 --> 0:14:25.840 those um sort of balancing scale games with physical objects 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:28.640 to learn algebra, Like, so you're trying to balance two 0:14:28.640 --> 0:14:32.360 sides of an equation in math? That no, No, I 0:14:32.400 --> 0:14:36.520 feel like my math education was very based in just 0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:42.160 wrote memorization of things, uh, you know, memorizing tables, uh, 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:46.000 learning tricks and so I really with with a second 0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:49.920 grader who's going through like modern math education, it's been 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:53.720 very interesting to see just this seemingly drastic different approach 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:57.640 to learning how numbers work and uh and how quantities 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:01.000 compared to each other. It's a at times it's difficult 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:03.160 for me to even help him with it. Because I 0:15:03.160 --> 0:15:06.880 feel like our our math educations are so different. But 0:15:06.880 --> 0:15:09.160 but the way they're teaching him, I think is far 0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:10.920 superior to what I had. Oh, you're not going to 0:15:11.000 --> 0:15:13.640 be one of those adults complaining that kids aren't learning 0:15:13.640 --> 0:15:16.280 stuff the same way you learned it. No, No, I'm 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:18.560 thank goodness they're learning in a different way because the 0:15:18.560 --> 0:15:20.520 way I learned it, I feel like did not give 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:24.720 me a true appreciation for mathematics. Yeah, I feel much 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:26.480 the same way. But I think that's such a funny 0:15:26.480 --> 0:15:29.440 impulse people have, Isn't it Like it's they're they're not 0:15:29.520 --> 0:15:31.280 learning it the way I did. The way I did 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:34.200 has got to be superior. Somehow they're not learning it 0:15:34.240 --> 0:15:37.240 poorly like I did. I will not stand for it. No. 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:40.400 I want my kid to be able to actually think 0:15:40.400 --> 0:15:44.440 about numbers in ways that have eluded me my whole life. Yeah. 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:48.040 And then there's one third main way that Hewitt mentions 0:15:48.080 --> 0:15:50.920 that blocks have been linked with learning, and that's the 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:54.640 transmission of cultural heritage through blocks. An example here would 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:58.760 be quote building a model of an important architectural structure, 0:15:58.960 --> 0:16:03.280 and through this, pro says learning architectural styles. In fact, 0:16:03.440 --> 0:16:05.720 an example, I was just thinking of was the original 0:16:05.720 --> 0:16:09.680 Lincoln logs. You know, these were created by Frank Lloyd 0:16:09.720 --> 0:16:13.160 Wright's son. I can't remember his first name, but one 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:15.760 of the sons of Frank Lloyd right, uh yeah. He 0:16:16.160 --> 0:16:19.240 got a Lincoln log business going. And one of the 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:21.920 original things that you were supposed to do with Lincoln logs, 0:16:21.960 --> 0:16:24.920 like you got these instructions on how to build Abraham 0:16:25.040 --> 0:16:29.520 Lincoln's log cabin. Yeah, Lincoln logs. Okay. I'll acknowledge that 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:33.480 Lincoln logs do succeed as an educational toy, in in 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:37.120 the educating you in the basic way that a log 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:40.160 cabin is constructed, but that's pretty much. Yet I always 0:16:40.160 --> 0:16:43.680 found them to be a very boring toy. Like you 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:46.000 played with them once and you're like, oh, yeah, that's okay, 0:16:46.000 --> 0:16:48.440 that's all I can do with this. I'm gonna go 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:52.160 build something out of a block that allows me to 0:16:52.280 --> 0:16:54.280 engage my mind a bit more. I was reading an 0:16:54.280 --> 0:16:58.000 old New York Times article in about blocks by the 0:16:58.040 --> 0:17:03.000 Canadian American architect and you pen professor v Told rib Chinsky, 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:06.880 and his comment about Lincoln logs was it was something like, well, 0:17:06.920 --> 0:17:12.040 at least they smelled good. Yeah, I mean they were wouldn't. 0:17:12.040 --> 0:17:13.919 I mean, I don't hate Lincoln logs, but I just 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:18.440 they never really resonated with me. But they certainly survived 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:20.720 due to that. And I think the first episode we 0:17:20.760 --> 0:17:22.720 did on toys, we talked about this idea that toys 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:25.600 have a twenty year cycle that you you and you 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:28.240 have a certain toy as a child, and then twenty 0:17:28.320 --> 0:17:31.119 years later, you know, give or take. If you have 0:17:31.240 --> 0:17:34.080 children or their children in your life at all, you're 0:17:34.200 --> 0:17:37.480 likely to give that toy anew if it's still on 0:17:37.560 --> 0:17:40.600 the market, still available. And Lincoln logs are exactly like that. 0:17:40.720 --> 0:17:43.560 My my son received Lincoln logs from members of the 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:47.200 family just because of that nostalgia. And how do they smell? 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:49.640 I smell fine, and you can still build a little 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:51.879 cabin out of it and then set him aside to 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:56.239 go do something more fun. But of course, another thing 0:17:56.600 --> 0:17:58.280 points out is that there are plenty of cases of 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:01.760 blurring of the lines between these categories, right because, uh, 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:04.240 for example, a thing that was I think very common 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:07.359 in the nineteenth century was like you have a set 0:18:07.400 --> 0:18:10.119 of blocks that you sold as a as a set 0:18:10.240 --> 0:18:14.320 that would represent elements of Bible stories. And this combines 0:18:14.520 --> 0:18:18.560 using the blocks themselves as a representation space for symbols 0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:22.720 or referring to things somewhere else, but then also transmitting 0:18:22.720 --> 0:18:25.800 cultural heritage through the Bible story aspect. I don't think 0:18:25.800 --> 0:18:27.800 I've ever seen these. Would it have been essentially it 0:18:27.880 --> 0:18:30.919 wasn't sequential art, right, it wasn't. I think there was 0:18:31.000 --> 0:18:34.320 some sequential art like that, like Bible story sequential art. 0:18:34.359 --> 0:18:36.280 And I think it was also like, you know, build 0:18:36.440 --> 0:18:39.119 build Noah's Arc or something. Well, that sounds like a 0:18:39.119 --> 0:18:42.399 good fit. Noah's Ark is the the most child friendly 0:18:42.480 --> 0:18:45.679 portion of pretty much the whole Bible. So do they 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:47.480 have blocks of all the other people on the earth 0:18:47.480 --> 0:18:49.560 getting drowned to death? No, No, we just focus on 0:18:49.600 --> 0:18:53.119 the animals. It's the main thing. Uh. So she goes 0:18:53.200 --> 0:18:56.680 into the history of a lot of individual block manufacturers 0:18:56.680 --> 0:18:59.000 and their businesses. I decided I'm not going to go 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:01.040 into all that here to touch on a couple more 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:04.159 broad issues. Uh though, it is actually interesting and this 0:19:04.200 --> 0:19:06.320 paper is worth looking up and giving a read if 0:19:06.320 --> 0:19:08.000 you want to go deeper on just like what some 0:19:08.080 --> 0:19:11.760 of these manufacturers were doing individually. But um uh. Hewitt 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:15.000 points out that despite the attempts to use blocks for education, 0:19:15.119 --> 0:19:18.800 in numbers and letters and so forth. Children most often 0:19:18.960 --> 0:19:22.360 play with blocks in terms of pure form like that. 0:19:22.440 --> 0:19:25.720 When you actually watch the way children and engage with blocks, 0:19:26.280 --> 0:19:30.080 most of the time they ignore the symbolic representations, they 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:33.920 ignore the letters on the alphabet blocks, and instead they 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:37.160 use them to build. They build little towers and little cities. 0:19:37.440 --> 0:19:40.680 Usually the form and the physical base of construction play 0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:44.199 seems more relevant to the child's mind than the abstract 0:19:44.280 --> 0:19:47.720 content does. I don't know how that squares with your experience, 0:19:47.760 --> 0:19:50.280 but yeah I would, I would say, so, yeah, it 0:19:50.359 --> 0:19:53.240 does with mine. Yeah, Like if I had the Bible blocks, 0:19:53.280 --> 0:19:54.960 I think I would just be trying to build like 0:19:55.000 --> 0:19:57.720 an Indiana Jones temple out of them. Yeah, I think 0:19:57.760 --> 0:20:00.680 that was my experience with with alphabet blocks as a kid. 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:03.080 I would use them to a certain extent to build with, 0:20:03.119 --> 0:20:06.399 but they didn't They didn't provide as much flexibility in 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:09.760 terms of what you ultimately built compared to an actual 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:12.320 block set that had varying sizes. There's only something you 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:17.200 can do with identical cubes. Likewise, remember we were gifted 0:20:17.640 --> 0:20:21.359 a very nice set of wooden alphabet blocks and character 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:25.200 blocks of when my son came into our life because uh, 0:20:25.240 --> 0:20:28.840 they were they would have Mandarin characters on them, which 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:30.480 was very cool, and you know, you get kind of 0:20:30.480 --> 0:20:32.639 excited about Ah, he has the learning tool that that 0:20:32.680 --> 0:20:35.080 are that that is, that is this block set. But 0:20:35.200 --> 0:20:37.720 then you know, ultimately the kids not that interested in 0:20:37.720 --> 0:20:40.440 them and just wants to do uh, you know, age 0:20:40.440 --> 0:20:42.760 appropriate things with them, which I guess he was like 0:20:42.760 --> 0:20:45.000 like one one and a half at that point, and 0:20:45.080 --> 0:20:46.920 you know, he just wants to knock them over or 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:50.080 throw them. Uh, he doesn't want to actually build and 0:20:50.520 --> 0:20:53.080 much less think about the characters all that much. Oh 0:20:53.119 --> 0:20:55.920 but that's actually interesting because another thing he talks about. 0:20:55.960 --> 0:20:59.560 She makes a point about the importance of the tearing 0:20:59.680 --> 0:21:03.520 down own aspect of block play. She says, this is 0:21:03.560 --> 0:21:06.320 a crucial element that's under emphasized in some of the 0:21:06.440 --> 0:21:10.679 you know, pedagogical theory, or maybe underappreciated by even some parents. Uh. 0:21:10.720 --> 0:21:13.760 There's a section where she says, quote the destructive or 0:21:13.840 --> 0:21:18.320 deconstructive activity characteristic of block play, an integral part of 0:21:18.320 --> 0:21:23.520 this activity makes some adults uncomfortable. However, as in all learning, 0:21:23.560 --> 0:21:28.240 we cannot understand until we take apart, examine, and rebuild. Um. 0:21:28.440 --> 0:21:30.440 So you know, She's making a point that a lot 0:21:30.480 --> 0:21:32.959 of parents might look at their child's tendency to want 0:21:33.000 --> 0:21:35.480 to like knock over a tower of blocks and smash 0:21:35.480 --> 0:21:37.800 it and everything, and you say, oh, no, is my 0:21:37.920 --> 0:21:40.600 child some kind of you know, little King Kong and 0:21:40.720 --> 0:21:45.960 little Godzilla? Are they just pure destructive impulse? But she's suggesting, no, this, 0:21:45.960 --> 0:21:48.480 this is also an important part of learning. It's not 0:21:48.600 --> 0:21:51.200 something to be afraid of. No, yeah, not at all, 0:21:51.200 --> 0:21:53.280 but I mean it can it can be frustrating. I've 0:21:53.280 --> 0:21:56.119 been frustrated with it when when when my son was 0:21:56.240 --> 0:21:58.560 was much younger, you know, because you want you want 0:21:58.560 --> 0:22:00.480