LEGO.com Parents News : Resnick

			21 Jun 2007 An MIT Professor’s hopes for the LEGO Group Many LEGO products contain exactly the things Prof. Michael Resnick wants to give children more of because children need creative learning and play.
	He has a loud voice and a broad smile. Mitchel Resnick is once more in Billund explaining to a packed conference audience – which includes LEGO employees, business partners and customers – why for decades he has been the LEGO Group’s warmest advocate in the university environment. Mitchel Resnick works at the Media Laboratory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology/MIT. It is here he has developed his views on when learning occurs in the most beneficial way: “The world is changing more rapidly than ever before,” says Resnick. “To be prepared for the future, children must learn to think and act creatively – to come up with innovative solutions to unexpected problems. That’s why I’m against the kind of toys that are the most common in the stores today: pre‑made toys that take all the creativity away from children.” With this view, Mitchel Resnick would seem to agree 100% with what the LEGO Group stands for. And indeed he is entirely in accord with the strategy that the LEGO Group should revert to the basic LEGO brick and produce challenging play for children. Great benefit from Resnick And the enthusiasm is mutual. LEGO teamwork with Mitchel Resnick and his MIT colleagues stems from the 1980s – for example, involving development of LEGO MINDSTORMS. Erik Hansen is Senior Director at Electronics R&D: “Apart from the direct, product‑related contributions of Mitchel Resnick and other researchers at MIT, our company has derived great benefit from their extensive research into children’s play and learning. Time and again, their conclusion is that children – and the rest of us who have reached adulthood – learn most readily when we design, create and build things. And clearly the theory supports our claim that LEGO play is healthy and developing.” But Mitch Resnick is also a man with expectations – even towards a product with which he feels a close affinity. “Yes, the LEGO Group is doing a lot right. But I think the company must continue to work at developing products that appeal to a broad diversity of children, with many different interests and many different learning styles,” Mitchel Resnick explains – making no bones about the fact that he would like in particular to see more products that appeal to girls as much as boys. Mitch Resnick distinguishes between edutainment and playful learning. In this context he is strongly in favour of the latter, which stimulates children and encourages creativity – as opposed to edutainment with which children merely interact, passively receiving instruction in an entertaining form. “I’m convinced that creative thinking will be much more important in future. It’s simply essential for life in tomorrow’s society,” says Prof. Resnick – willingly admitting, however, that theory can be one thing and practice something else again. “It’ll take a lot of effort to convince parents that creative thinking is the key to success and satisfaction in the 21st century,” says the professor – openly hoping that the LEGO Group will be up to the task.

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