THINKING THRU THE BLOCKS

I was amazed to learn that there are transparent building block sets. There seem to be two basic types. The first type is made of solid acrylic. These blocks have more of a translucency rather than a transparency.  You are advised to let children play with them on a light table!  A LIGHT TABLE!  And as the child manipulates the blocks, the play of light on the structure that they are building changes.

So here we have the fertile and agile mind, not limited to opaque wood blocks. Instead they are seeing the subtle changes of light and a subtle transparency as they build and construct.  They are opening their minds to unimagined spacial and light manipulations.  And as you can see he is not building a tower.

When you were a child, you very likely had wood blocks to play with. I had a set that looked something like the set on the right. And I dutifully bought my kids a very similar set.  Look at this poor kid.  This was me.  This was you.  Look at the impoverished spatial understanding.  As he builds a tower (WHY he is building a tower is another cultural predilection that we may or may not get to), doors are closing in his mind.  Spatial possibilities remain unexplored.  Plus, the tower that he is building is basically two dimensional.  So already, we can see that the gates have closed in his poor mind.  It is very likely that this kid will be an attorney.

And it gets better. There are also sets of completely transparent plastic blocks. This type of set seems to be geared toward the elementary school teacher to enable the teaching of basic volume and form. Because they are made of glued together transparent plastic sheets, they would be too fragile for an early childhood playroom setting.

But image the possibilities. If a child could play with blocks that are either transparent or translucent, think how that would open their mind. “Building on a mirror light box or using a light source adds an extra dimension which will enchant children and help develop their spatial awareness.”  1    Boy do we know this.

So why is there such a cultural bias toward opaqueness? Why are we given opaque wood blocks to play with? Why are we taught to draw representationally? Why do most people have limited spatial awareness? WHY DO YOU THINK?

We are always told to think outside the box. How about thinking thru the blocks?

1.  Taken from the sales text of a website that sells this type of block.