21 May 2009
Introducing LEGO Learning Institute Expert: Professor David Gauntlett
Since 2008 David Gauntlett has been part of the LEGO Learning Institute sharing his knowledge about how everyday use of digital creative media influence modern day culture. Most recently he has been an instrumental part of the LEGO Learning Institute’s study ‘Systematic Creativity‘. The LEGO Website interviewed Professor Gauntlett about his relationship with the LEGO Learning Institute, the LEGO Group, and the unique challenges that today’s children might face in the future.
What is your background and areas of interests?
I’m a Professor at the University of Westminster, which means I teach and I do research. I’ve written a number of books, and I enjoy teaching students. My wife and I have a son, Finn, who is 15 months, so he occupies the rest of my time!
My work is about creativity, media and identities, and people’s everyday creative use of digital media. Some of this work is with children, and some with adults. We had some good news recently when my department was officially ranked as the best in the UK for media and communications research.
What led you to this kind of research?
I am a sociologist by training, but I’ve always been interested in how people connect with and make sense of the world for themselves – rather than the top-down approach which sees people as merely trapped by their circumstances. So this led me to work on how people make use of media, and then in the mid-1990s when the World Wide Web was starting to become popular, I became very interested in that as a way in which people could create expressive things themselves, and put them out in the world, without needing the big resources that were traditionally necessary to be a media producer.
Because I like to be making things, and not just an observer, I started a website called Theory.org.uk which has now been going for 12 years.
When did your affiliation with the LEGO Learning Institute begin and how did it come about?
My first connection with the LEGO Group came about because I was doing research where people make things as part of the process – so I did projects where people might be asked to make a video, a drawing, or a collage, rather than just being interviewed. This tended to unlock different ways of thinking and lead to more interesting conversations.
So, because I was doing that, in 2004 I was contacted by the director of LEGO Serious Play. They were interested in my work because LEGO Serious Play is also about using creative methods, where people make things, to explore an issue. So that led to research collaboration and that in turn led to my contact with the LEGO Learning Institute. It’s been a happy collaboration so far!
What is in your mind unique about LEGO toys?
LEGO is so simple and so complex at the same time. You can make very simple things very easily … or you can spend ages making something delightfully complicated! It’s such an open system … it doesn’t really dictate that you do anything in particular with it, and yet the possibilities really are endless.
What has it been like working with the LEGO Group and what have you learned?
The LEGO Group is a very nice, family company, and they are genuinely concerned to make things that are of value to children and to families. They work with all kinds of interesting people and listen to a range of voices about education, creativity, and social issues. I find it very impressive.
What challenges and opportunities do you think the future holds for children, the builders of tomorrow?
Today’s children face so many opportunities and risks. The world of employment needs flexible people who are creative and can think on their feet. Equally, the challenge of climate change means that we will need creative thinkers who can think of solutions and different ways of living.
Young children don’t want to be thinking about gloomy possibilities for the future of course – all we can do is give them a positive, confident, happy environment with stimulating and creative tools.
What’s the one advice you would give to care givers [parents or grandparents]?
Children are all different – obviously – and should be encouraged to develop their skills and interests, whatever they are. It doesn’t help to steer a child into a path such as business or sport or science or art, if it’s not what they want to do. Let them follow their passions, and then they will be able to find their own way.