 
|  |
|
Introducing the author of the Whole Child Development Guide: Professor Edith Ackermann
|
In her scientific quest to understand children’s play, creativity, and imagination professor Edith Ackermann has been working with LEGO for 23 years. Her work has served as a vital component in honing the LEGO Group’s understanding of child development, resulting in the Whole Child Development Guide. The LEGO Parent Website interviewed Professor Ackermann about her relationship with the LEGO Learning Institute, the LEGO Group, the study of child development and the unique challenges that today’s children might face in the future. |
What is your background and what led you to research how children learn and develop?
I often describe myself as a developmental psychologist who teams up with designers and architects to create engaging environments for children to live and learn in. Groomed at the Piaget Institute in Geneva, Switzerland, I gained an early appreciation for children’s amazing talents as self-directed learners. Working with Seymour Papert1
and his team at the MIT Media Lab2
has helped me understand the environmental conditions [people, places, tools] that help mediate children’s experience, and leverage their potential from within.
These days I am an Honorary Professor of Developmental Psychology at the University of Aix-Marseille, France, and an Invited Scientist at the MIT, Center for Advanced Visual Studies, in Cambridge, MA., USA. I teach graduate students, conduct research, and consult for companies, institutions, and organizations interested in the intersections between learning, design, and digital technologies. I am particularly drawn to partnerships with researchers and practitioners interested in the articulations between children’s play, creativity, imagination, self-esteem, and personal growth.
How and when did you begin to work with LEGO?
My relationship with LEGO started in 1985 when I joined the faculty at the MIT Media Laboratory the first time. The “Epistemology and Learning Group”, of which I was a part, was then headed by Seymour Papert. A pioneer in the field of artificial intelligence, Papert is best known for his book “Mindstorm” and as the inventor of the LOGO programming language for children. Our team included inventors, researchers, and technologists, such a Steve Ocko, Mitchel Resnick, and Fred Martin. Our purpose was to “marry” the LOGO programming language with the LEGO construction system, thus enabling children to build things, using bricks, and then program their behaviors, using clicks! The wedding was a happy one, ultimately leading to the development of LEGO Mindstorms after years of fruitful collaboration between MIT and the LEGO Group.
In your mind, what is unique about LEGO toys?
LEGO provides a unique building system that encourages children to give form, or expression, to their wildest ideas in the most rigorous ways (hard fun)! Two things I enjoy most about LEGO: 1) the system offers endless possibilities. Yet, at the same time, not anything goes! The bricks have a “mind [or logic] of their own”, that the child learns to compose with to achieve their creations; 2) the system grows with the child, thus allowing the children to grow with it. As a constructivist at heart, I like play materials that let you in at different levels, and you can add complexity at will (low floor, high ceiling). Most children love to build things, and then bring them to life through play – or for “real” by adding special bricks, such as a motor, a light, or even a sensor.
What has it been like ‘learning’ with LEGO?
I was invited onboard LEGO as a consultant in 2000, when the company was going “digital”. The task I was offered was right up my alley: I had to re-think what it means to build [or construct if the elements you build with are not just made of physical elements (tangible), but include digital components (virtual)]. I loved the challenge because it was very much in line with our LEGO-Logo research at MIT. This first gig paved the way to a long-term collaboration that lasts to this day, and which gave me the opportunities to work with many designers at LEGO, to help launch the LEGO Learning Institute3
, and to write the Whole Child Development Guide.
What is the Whole Child Development Guide?
The Whole Child Development Guide was initially commissioned by the LEGO Learning Institute to give LEGO designers a reliable and usable window into what children of different ages, or developmental stages, are up to and capable of. Its purpose was to help non-specialists get a handle on what children of given ages typically do, and how caring adults can support their interests and capabilities in playful, engaging, and rich ways. Most important, the guide was designed to capture a child’s age-related interests and abilities as a whole person. What mattered, in other words, was not just how a child’s intellectual, or emotional, or social, or creative skills evolve. Instead, it is the mental fluidity of moving between areas of knowledge or experience that make for a wholesome individual. Areas include self, social, “scientific”, and creative, and have been respectively coined: ME, US, WORLD, and CREATIVITY.
What was the purpose of the Whole Child Development Guide?
The whole child development guide was initially meant as an internal “bible” for designers within the LEGO Group and will now also appear on the LEGO Parent Website, made available to parents and the wider world as the LEGO Group believes this information is useful not simply to us as developers of toys, but also to others seeking to understand how best to support children’s development. As an author, I think that parents and educators will use the guide, as designers did. Obviously, readers should remember that every child is unique, thus using the framework offered with a grain of salt. Think of it as indicative of overall trends more than normative or prescriptive.
What was challenging about it?
It is never easy to integrate research findings from areas that do not usually talk to one another. Pursuing the effort was worthwhile because, as mentioned before, children are whole beyond being just smart, social, creative, or imaginative. In general, writing the guide was an experience of deep engagement over a long period of time. Not unlike writing a book or a thesis.
What, if anything, has changed regarding child development since you authored the Guide in 2004?
The biggest change, I guess, has to do with today’s children’s growing fluency in exploring, expressing, and exchanging ideas using digital media. This, in turn, informs how the children see themselves, relate to others, treat things, and dwell in places. Today’s children, often referred to as “digital natives”4
are the producers and consumers of new forms of literacy beyond print. They roam in cyber-space. They live on Facebook and talk/write using SMS, and their abilities to build and sustain relations beyond territorial borders are uncanny. The children also like to belong to multiple “tribes” and to build creations to be circulated over the web.
What advice would you give parents hoping to support the development of their children these days?
Let the children live their lives “in between” and move beyond “here and now”. In other words, let them act globally and locally, and expand their friendships and interests beyond territorial borders. At the same time, remind them that they have a body, and that being grounded and in touch with people and things can be an enjoyable experience.
What similarities and differences do you see with growing up now and in the past?
It often feels like researchers and educators tend to exaggerate the differences in the ways digital natives learn and play, and how they see themselves, relate to others, treat things, and dwell in space. It remains to be seen whether the generational differences we observe are surface manifestations or indicative of a deeper mutation.
What challenges and opportunities will children face in future?
More than the children we were, today’s children are on the go – physically, virtually, and digitally. This mobile lifestyle constitutes both a challenge and an opportunity. Challenges include: How to keep a bearing, what to carry along or leave behind, when to become attached or let go of things, how not to get lost in translations. Opportunities are about the exhilaration and enrichment that come from getting to know people from elsewhere, with different perspectives, and from being able to playfully transgress borders and see what is on the other side.
What’s the one advice you would give parents and grandparents?
Children will always need caring adults to thrive. My advice would be observe what your children are doing, appreciate them for their own ways, and support them when they ask for it or need it, and, above all, do things together in ways beneficial and enjoyable to all. Negotiating difference may well be the biggest challenge of our times!
To download a .pdf (1.2MB) of the Whole Child Development Guide, please click here.
............................................................
1
For more information on Seymour Papert’s research on how technology can provide new ways to learn visit: http://www.papert.org/
2
For more information on Edith Ackermann’s research interests, projects, and publications visit: www.media.mit.edu/~edith.
3
The mission of LEGO Learning Institute is to foster understanding and development of creative thinking in children of all ages, empowering the Builders of Tomorrow.
4
Marc Prensky coined the term ’Digital Natives’ in his book “DON'T BOTHER ME, MOM -- I'M LEARNING” (2008)
|
|
| | | |  |
|
|
|