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Lego and the Gift of Positive Self Talk

Many educators, myself included, are far too often guilty of failing to stress to our students the importance of positive self talk.

Perhaps we fail because of the obvious nature of the principle: Positive self talk leads to positive, creative living.

For eight decades, the Lego Group has never failed to understand that it is the talk that we direct at ourselves that determines how we see our own lives and the lives of others. Said differently, self talk determines our world.

For an individual to function successfully, his internal world must be conducive to success. Everything successful starts with the confidence that positive self talk engenders.

This is a principle so simple, and, yet, so roundly ignored in our traditional classrooms, that our young people have become a reflection in locked step fashion of "the school environment," an environment with messages that are not always creative, and unfortunately not always positive.

It is all well and good for a young student to be asked to learn about subject XY, but underlying a successful attempt is the self talk that tells the individual that she can set a goal of learning about XY, and then proceed to organize her personal resources in such a way so as to reach whatever milestones are necessary for success.

If a student's self talk instead sabotages him, his chances of carrying the assignment to positive conclusion are diminished dramatically.

Let me share with you the story of two children, one named Paul and the other Susan. Although those are not their real names, their stories are real enough.

I will leave it to you, after learning some things about these children, to determine what the nature of their self talk might be.

Both Paul and Susan live in the same neighborhood, and have been attending Blileven Middle School a few blocks from their homes for one year.

Paul often stays after school to complete projects that he has not had time to finish during his regular classes. He asks for extra things to do from his teachers, and seems always to deliver more than his assignments require. It is common for Paul to create additional sub projects that were not anticipated by his instructors when the initial lesson was designed. Paul is sometimes frustrated that his favorite classes don't last longer, and he is always volunteering to lead groups when assignments are handed out that require two or more students. Paul is a straight A learner, and is looking forward to being an astronaut or a fireman or a doctor or a detective or a building contractor or one of a hundred other careers as his environment shows their potentials to him. Paul's options are fully open.

Susan, on the other hand, is not doing very well at Blileven, even though her teachers believe her to be a very intelligent individual. She seems distracted and lacks confidence when she is asked to create something of her own. She is always asking her teachers what they want her to do next, and rolls her eyes when they ask her to venture outside the instruction sheet. Susan is impatient for the bell to ring for recesses, lunch, and the end of each school day when she can get together with her friends to share gossip about classmates on the walk home. When she arrives home, Susan looks forward to the reruns of her favorite TV shows that she has on disk. She is proud that she has watched a beach scene with the latest "the bomb" male star over three hundred times. Susan is a C student when teachers are kind, and worse when they cannot justify the C. She is looking forward to finishing school and maybe getting a job at the candy shop near her home, or just hanging out with her friends and getting married and maybe having kids of her own with whom to watch TV and just to keep her busy. In Susan's view, life can be sooooo boring.

Paul and Susan's backgrounds, although similar in terms of family income, are worlds apart with regard to how their time at home has been spent.

Since the age of four, Paul has been surrounded in his room by his collection of rocks, sea shells and Lego projects. His parents marvel at his ability to take a few hundred Lego pieces and construct the most interesting looking things, many of them unrecognizable to his parents, but they express their delight anyway. Paul has requested several large Lego sets over time, and his room always seems to be overwhelmed with creations at various stages of completion.

Susan on the other hand has been asked to be the permanent baby sitter for her two younger siblings, George and Bobbie, and rarely has the inclination to do much more than sit with them and watch whatever programs are available on TV or "treat" her siblings to her favorite reruns. When Susan calls her classmates on her cell phone, they talk about their latest male fantasy, and giggle about the latest failures of other kids at the school.

Have you, the reader, guessed what the internal talk of these two students might be?

It is obvious that the students Paul's and Susan's teachers see in their classrooms each day are quite different in terms of how much they contribute to Blileven Middle School's ability to fulfill its educational mission. Paul is a star in school because his mind is in sync with, and prepared to add to the ideas presented to him. Susan is not so prepared, although now and again she displays what she could do if her self talk were supportive of the school's efforts on her behalf.

Paul's and Susan's home backgrounds most certainly contributed to the way they feel about learning.

Paul's parents began reading to their son by the fireplace in Dad's or Mom's comfortable chair, and providing Lego construction kits for private play very early in life.

The mind talk that Paul subjects his world to is therefore secure, warm, creative, and, in summary, positive.

Susan, on the other hand, has not been offered the same kind of nurturing world as Paul. Her parents did not have the time to give to her for reading. There were no constructive toys purchased. The television was used as a babysitter often, and, when play was encouraged, it was normally on a play swing or catching a ball in the back yard, a task that Susan was not yet ready for, and failed consistently until her father gave up on her.

As a result of hundreds of such experiences, her mind talk lacks the expressive confidence that comes naturally to Paul.

The Lego Group has understood for generations that providing opportunities for positive self talk to both children and adults is crucial for "practice" in coping with the real world.

Lego offers a rising scale of age-based set groupings and classifications. From the relatively simple backhoe for the 7 and 8 year olds to more complex automobile designs for children in the 9 and 10 year age groups, Lego provides the all-important opportunity for the child to lay a foundation of confidence via positive personal talk that will serve them well as academic and general life obligations accrue naturally with their advancing years.

Lego provides a wide range of home and work scenarios, all of which give the child a sense that he has the opportunity to control events in his life. These role plays become a complex set of interconnected patterns that then form a foundation for the child in positive self talk. These patterns of success are indispensable if we expect children to venture into the real world with confidence.

For a nine year old to be given a Lego rocket ship to construct, and surround with successful imagined adventures, is to provide her with a full set of positive, creative self talk that serves to permanently embed in her consciousness a spirit of accomplishment, a sense of security in her personal ability to take on something new, to enjoy shaping of an experience in accordance with personal positive self talk.

Stated differently, once the goal of building the rocket ship is achieved, that is, the pieces are organized, and the the final structure realized, the child sees not only the accomplishment of her plan, but via positive self talk, also sees future possibilities, all of which have a basis for the child in the original success. She has a feeling of confidence that she can venture into an astronaut's world, and be successful. After all, she has already mastered in imagination what is required to take the world of space flight by storm. Her self talk has told her so.

As Lego hobbyists know, once the space ship is completed according to plan, at that point innovation begins. Not only does the model builder see the possibilities that governed the original construction, but he also sees various scenarios which then suggest different experimental organizations of the Lego pieces that in turn expand a sense of the creative, and further encourage the child to dabble with the unknown, confident that his imagination cannot help but produce a result that will be interesting and acceptable. Again, his self talk has told him so.

Lego planning, organizing, executing, imagining, reorganizing, inventing, supposing, all couched in positive self talk, form the firm foundation necessary to make other developmental challenges enjoyable. The child has told herself, perhaps in not so many words, that it is proper to interpret each new experience as a chance to experiment with being a creative human being.

As the University of Kansas has so well said, "Problem solving and goal setting are important components of self-determination that very young people must learn." During the early elementary years, teachers and parents can provide opportunities for young children to be infused with a firm foundation in these important areas.

The Lego Group offers children a way to build these skills confidently through positive self talk.

The Lego Group's genius has contributed mightily to life's enjoyment for the Paul's of the world. Let's make certain all our Susans also enjoy essential positive self talk. The Lego Group would have it so.

Ron - Toy Tech

Thursday, 2:49 pm | June 18th, 2009

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