Alexandra Lange, architecture and design critic, spoke at The School of Visual Arts on Tuesday, April 24th to reveal her new book The Design of Childhood: How the Material World Shapes Independent Kids. During this talk, Alexandra spoke about her perspective as a mother and architecture critic regarding children's environments and toys. Alexandra spoke on how objects and spaces encode decades, even centuries of changing ideas about what makes for good practices of parenting and what does not. This talk caught my attention considering I work in a field that deals directly with interactive components and "manipulatives" as we call them, at the Children's Museum of Manhattan. Furthermore, I was interested in hearing how Alexandra feels the tools and toys of childhood shapes children interactions and experiences. In our class, we consider how new tools can influence learners and contribute to their development as a human. Alexandra considers the same. |
This book examines the history of childhood interactions, like building blocks and toys, playgrounds, children's books, and the design of schools. At the beginning of each of her chapters, she introduces a children's book that relates to her topic. Many of the books she chose are classics, and they refer to the qualities of life when they were written. For example, one book talked about a group of kids who created their own playground in a garden. This led into her discussion about Aldo van Eyck's playground designs in Amsterdam and the idea of "free-range kids." It is interesting to think about the varying amount of freedom kids possess depending on what environment they are in, and how playgrounds change over urban and suburban contexts.
This reminds me of the article, "The Age of the iKid," where Kathleen A. Unrath and Melissa A. Mudd speak about ikids, who are the current generation who withhold the following traits: technology driven, alternatively literate and increasingly multimodal, media creators as well as participants, synectic multi-taskers, connected yet disconnected global citizens, and in need of alternatives to traditional classroom instruction from a highstakes testing environment. This generation seems that they would prefer playgrounds that have minimal iconography like Aldo van Eyck's, but would also be successful in environments that are flexible and adaptable.
Alexandra spoke about good toys vs bad toys- a known theory in the toy design industry. Good toys are described as noncommercial, made from natural materials, long lasting and universal. The exception to this idea is Lego, who made plastic toys a part of this category. However, Lego is recently known to make bad toys since they have made lego partnerships with popular culture commodities, like movies and TV shows. According to the theory of the iKid, this would not benefit their creative minds because the toy identities are already decided.
Continuing this theme of building blocks, I learned about universal building blocks printed via a 3D printer, and available as open source software. This is called the Free Universal Construction Kit. This kit can combine many old toys into the same universal set. This is a great tool to allow kids to open up opportunities to create new toys, and maximize their creativity. This also reminds me of TinkerCad, an online 3D design tool for kids. This is a great way to get kids to start thinking about 3-dimensional design for future art or design careers. They could even design their own toys. I would love to teach a class that has both Tinkercad, and Scratch as a part of the curriculum.
I'm also interested in considering how playgrounds could be used for critical play, an idea from Mary Flanagan. How could we design playgrounds or even playground games to incorporate social justice issues? How can kids create environments that reflect issues of society? Are elementary aged kids up for this challenge and are they capable of talking about these issues?
Overall this lecture got me thinking about the actual design of toys and play areas. Alexandra also spoke about the design of schools, another key component to the way kids learn.
This reminds me of the article, "The Age of the iKid," where Kathleen A. Unrath and Melissa A. Mudd speak about ikids, who are the current generation who withhold the following traits: technology driven, alternatively literate and increasingly multimodal, media creators as well as participants, synectic multi-taskers, connected yet disconnected global citizens, and in need of alternatives to traditional classroom instruction from a highstakes testing environment. This generation seems that they would prefer playgrounds that have minimal iconography like Aldo van Eyck's, but would also be successful in environments that are flexible and adaptable.
Alexandra spoke about good toys vs bad toys- a known theory in the toy design industry. Good toys are described as noncommercial, made from natural materials, long lasting and universal. The exception to this idea is Lego, who made plastic toys a part of this category. However, Lego is recently known to make bad toys since they have made lego partnerships with popular culture commodities, like movies and TV shows. According to the theory of the iKid, this would not benefit their creative minds because the toy identities are already decided.
Continuing this theme of building blocks, I learned about universal building blocks printed via a 3D printer, and available as open source software. This is called the Free Universal Construction Kit. This kit can combine many old toys into the same universal set. This is a great tool to allow kids to open up opportunities to create new toys, and maximize their creativity. This also reminds me of TinkerCad, an online 3D design tool for kids. This is a great way to get kids to start thinking about 3-dimensional design for future art or design careers. They could even design their own toys. I would love to teach a class that has both Tinkercad, and Scratch as a part of the curriculum.
I'm also interested in considering how playgrounds could be used for critical play, an idea from Mary Flanagan. How could we design playgrounds or even playground games to incorporate social justice issues? How can kids create environments that reflect issues of society? Are elementary aged kids up for this challenge and are they capable of talking about these issues?
Overall this lecture got me thinking about the actual design of toys and play areas. Alexandra also spoke about the design of schools, another key component to the way kids learn.