Learning from Legos®

Brynjar Karl Birgisson, who lives in Iceland, built the world’s largest Titanic ship replica using only Legos®. The 26′ long and 5′ wide model is on display at the Titanic Museum Attraction in Pigeon Forge, TN. Birgisson’s ambitious idea took 56,000 Legos®, 11 months and 700 hours to complete.

What makes this feat truly newsworthy is that Brynjar has autism. He built the model with the help of his mother and grandfather when he was 10 years old. Now 15, Brynjar has spent the last five years following the replica around the world as it travels to different exhibits.

So, sure, Brynjar deserves our attention for what we might learn about autism. We applaud what he’s accomplished. But he’s not telling us when you’re supposed to tear the Legos® apart.

A good part of last weekend was spent explaining to my grandkids why we tear Legos® apart. It’s a matter of perspective, of course, and a hard fact to accept. What goes up must come down.

Yes, it took hours to make the car wash-castle wall-family house with interlocking sidewalks to the half-finished fort with all the windows for the two little Lego men that lost their heads but still can be seated in the 10-wheel boxcar with the cracked clear block windshield. Especially if you’re sensitive to color coordination.

But Legos® are meant to be pulled apart as much as put together. What goes up must come down. This is a hard lesson to learn, that you and even something you “create” is not the center of the universe that endures forever. But this point spoken somehow is not so grandiose: “You just can’t expect the expansive creation built on the dining room table two weeks ago to still be there when you next come visit.”

Or can you? I wonder what Brynjar would say?

There’s something foundational about Legos®. I used to think that it was mostly about bricklaying technique, teaching little tikes the strength in overlaying seams rather than just stacking pieces on top of each other which makes them more likely to tumble. It’s that and more.

Actually, who am I to talk? I didn’t make it to the recent Lego exhibit at KC’s Union Station like my grandkids. I didn’t even have Legos® growing up — Lincoln Logs and some generic “Lego” blocks that didn’t exactly fit tightly is all I can muster from memory (you do notice the “®” with the name, right?). But odds are, if you’re born since 1932, you know all about Legos®.

The toy company based in Billund, Denmark, and founded by Ole Kirk Christiansen, is best known for the manufacture of interlocking plastic bricks. Certainly Ole Kirk knew he created an educational toy designed to inspire. But as the world plunged into the Great Depression, who would have thought Legos® would develop worldwide into various products, games, spectator competitions, videos and even full-length feature movies?

It is estimated that more than 400 billion Lego bricks have been produced since 1958 (that’s about 62 Lego bricks per person of the earth’s population in 2008)! The company’s website reports how approximately 19 billion Lego elements are produced per year, how 2.16 million are molded every hour. That’s 36,000 pieces every minute!

The grandson of Ole Kirk is worth an estimated $5.9 billion, according to the Bloomberg ranking (Legos® even teaches why we must add the “®” with the name).

Whew! You’d think with all that we’d each have our fair share. But life is not fair, and sharing is a big problem right now between our grandkids.

Most of the spats between our little chaps concern territorial rights — who got what piece first, why the long, extended piece should be used here rather than over there, who gets the only available brush set that inevitably becomes the envied “car wash.” Much of life is negotiation. We’re still learning that whoever wins isn’t always just the one that yells the loudest.

Yes, it’s a challenge finding ways to allure kids away from video games — our grandkids even fight over whose turn it is to play with old, broken cell phones (especially the one smart phone gone dumb but still with lights). And I’m not saying that Legos® on our dining room table never set idle and ignored. But I also know how the bright colors and the idea of building something good beckon, even to old grandpas like me. Wholesome doesn’t have to mean boring.

It’s not unusual to find Legos® on our dining room table for weeks at a time. These little pieces of life are welcomed in our empty nest, reminders of good times past and promises of family times to come, Lord willing.

This, too, will pass. It’s an experiment in progress. So far, it’s working. We don’t have to scream over the TV or use a timer to determine when a turn on a video game ends. So far, we don’t have to coax. One of us just sits down and starts assembling a few building blocks. The next one to join may be an adult or kid — it doesn’t matter. Just make sure there’s a chair waiting for each new participant, sit back and watch the chairs fill up.

After all, great things come by little steps. This past weekend I overheard a little comment of Titanic proportion. A 4-year-old actually complimented the “something” his little 3-year-old cousin built without adult prompting — and then even bragged about his older brother being the real Lego master! Yes, it’s a little step. But it’s hope for the future, perhaps developing far better and beyond our current “Me” generation.

So, if you worry about raising click addicts, make space for some building blocks, Legos® or otherwise. Let it take center stage — extend the dining room table to its full length. Plan. Push the important things, even serving a meal a certain way and on time, aside. Such things are noticed. If you’re using Legos® in your experiment, then beg, buy or borrow enough Legos® so that the pieces cover the entire table top before allowing anyone to get started.

Understand, you’re going to spend most all your time saving the vacuum cleaner from picking up all those little pieces that busy elbows push off to the floor. But you’re not wasting your time. Action speak louder than words.

Just ask Brynjar.