Learning, Failing, and Making

Legos bored me.

Whenever I got a new set for Christmas or for birthdays, I only seemed capable of following the provided instructions for building what was displayed on the box. I couldn’t envision anything else to build. But, my friend Bert would come over and always build the coolest cars and spaceships. “How’d you think of to build that?” I’d ask him. My own attempts at original Lego creations never turned out half as good.

But, my friend Eric had an electronic race track that was bigger and better than mine. I would go over and build the most elaborate tracks I could imagine, replete with curves and multiple loops that would double as tunnels for straight sections of track. “I don’t like them! They’re too complicated!” Eric complained. Yes, the complexity was what made those creations so awesome!

Two different playsets resulted in two completely different experiences. How would Piaget and Papert have explained the outcomes?

Piaget would have reflected on my hapless Lego skills and concluded that my inner schema for Lego creation was underdeveloped. My lack of understanding of the affordances of Legos in building 3-dimensional structures prevented me from using them successfully. My poor outward Lego creations reflected a failure to understand internally the abstraction of Legos as individual parts of a pre-imagined whole. Perhaps, I was supposed to have started with a mostly fully developed idea in mind and find the Lego pieces that would complete that idea, instead of picking a piece and hoping that attaching it to another would eventually lead to something. Whereas my success with racetrack design revealed a honed schema that understood how single pieces of track could be combined to make exciting and dynamic paths.

Papert would simply have said my failure with Legos should have provided me an opportunity for debugging and sense making. In my use of Legos, I was supposed to have eventually discovered understanding that would have been more difficult to attain without those Legos. Experimenting with Legos should have lead to deeper understanding of 3-dimensional construction, the outward manipulation of a tool influencing inner understanding. Whereas experimenting with race track pieces led to an understanding of how they could best be combined to create an exhilarating and satisfying creation.

Papert’s constructionism seems ultimately an optimistic learning theory–that the right tool will lead to comprehension, and that reflection upon failure should lead to greater understanding. Piaget’s constructivism seems more realistic–not necessarily pessimistic–but allows for the continuation or creation of misconceptions should the marriage of existing schema and new information so align.

As a K-8 computer science instructor, and I suppose, as a child who struggled with Legos, Piaget’s constructivism provides more guidance for classroom instruction. Papert never explained what should happen if the student should lack chemistry with a tool. Move onto another tool to assist in sense making? Persist in using the tool and hope for a breakthrough? But, Piaget would say students who lack understanding of coding concepts need dialectical opportunities to develop their inner understanding. Much of coding is developing internal understandings–mental models–of what the computer is doing. There is limited academic value to letting students flounder around, experimenting and debugging, without guided instruction.

And, perhaps, this is the fear that teachers have with making: sure, failure is good, because it leads to persistence and success. But, failure can also simply lead to more failure and despair. A teacher cannot ensure positive making experiences for every student, because not all students will develop good chemistry with the provided tools. Sure, some of the students will have great making experiences. Bert loved playing with my Legos. But, some are going to flounder as well, as I did. What then? How much money will be thrown at tools until every student finds a tool they can use successfully?

I concede that Making does provide an alternate avenue for learning–one that can be attractive to students who may not succeed in traditional curriculum. And perhaps the experience of abject failure will serve as empathy building for those students who do succeed in more traditional ways!

I didn’t realize I hated Legos so much!

Attributions

1. Background Lego image by Rick Mason via Unsplash; image was cropped and darkened. Background wooden train set image by Jason Leung via Unsplash; image was cropped and lightened.