Whenever I spend time with my two daughters and their families, I find it very entertaining and educational watching my grandchildren play with their toys. For years, my youngest grandchildren enjoyed playing with Lego’s. They had several sets of blocks of varying colors, sizes and shapes. My younger grandson is currently into Bionicles, fantasy warriors with interchangeable parts. The second type of toys that he spends hours with is transformers, a toy with parts that you rearrange to form two or more recognizable forms that are very different.
As I watched my younger grandchildren play with their toys, I reflected on some of the toys with which I played when I was growing up. The more I watched and reflected the more similarities that I saw between institutions of higher education and toys. In this post, I will discuss what I learned about higher education from my grandchildren’s toys. In Part II of this series of posts, I will discuss what I learned from my toys.
I know some of my former colleagues in higher education will accuse me of falling off the wagon or into the deep end of the pool, if not a cesspool, comparing institutions of higher education to toys. I can hear them saying, “I always knew you were crazy.” I don’t think I’m crazy and I really don’t think that my current residence in the world of metaphors is completely to blame for the similarities that I see between institutions of higher education and toys. I have tried out these metaphors on some other people and they readily agreed that the similarities are patently obvious.
The buildings that my younger grandson would build with his Lego’s were strange looking. He didn’t have enough blocks of the same color, size or shape to put together a normal looking building. Therefore, his buildings were odd shaped, leaned in various directions, and would fall apart easily. Sometimes her buildings would have wheels. When I asked him about the wheels, he said that the buildings were trailers in which the family could go camping. Sometimes our institutions of higher learning are odd-shaped, lean in various directions, lack permanency, and have wheels which would move the institutions around to different positions on various questions.
Transformers are an interesting metaphor for institutions of higher learning. Transformers are “two toys in one.” A transformer is made to move back and forth between two recognizable forms that are very different and have very different purposes. Some institutions of higher education move back and forth between two recognizable forms with two very different purposes. You can’t pin the institution down as to what it really is.
Bionicles are a fascinating metaphor for institutions of higher education. Bionilces are fantasy, warrior creatures with interchangeable parts that capture the imaginations of the builders as they battle other Bionicles and their Masters to save the universe.
As I thought about my grandchildren playing with their toys, I remember the fun that I had as a child when I played with toys. Part II of this series presents my reflections on my toys and institutions of higher education.
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